Swedish youth riots on a New Year's in 1953?
July 12, 2010 7:30 PM   Subscribe

Industrial society and its past: Trying to find details and specifics about spontaneous youth riots on a New Year's Eve in Stockholm, Sweden in the 1950s.

I'm in the middle of watching The Betrayal by Technology: A Portrait of Jacques Ellul.

Around 33:35, he mentions:

In 1953 you had the so called "rebels without a cause". Students who revolted in Stockholm. That was the first revolt of the young rebels without a cause. They had everything. They were happy. They lived in a nice society. They lacked nothing. And suddenly, on New Year's Eve, they took to the streets and destroyed everything. No one could understand it.

...

So far I can't find anything concrete, just a locus of references, none with 1953 specifically. One placed the date on New Year's 1957, one mentioned 1956, and most are irrelevant (references to politically-oriented student riots from later decades).

On the other hand, there indeed seem to be a flurry of movies surrounding Rebel Without a Cause that all date back to that period.
posted by renovatio1 to Law & Government (2 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: There were several riots in Stockholm during this time, there are some details in this book if you can read Swedish.

Quick summary of some of the relevant parts if you don't: riots occurred in the easter of 1948 ("påskkravallerna"), in 1951 in Berzelii park ("berzelii-kravallerna"), again in 1954 in Berzelii park, and in the new year of 1956-57 ("nyårskravallerna"). The book also discusses what the current thinking at that time was concerning the causes of the riots and provides some references to official studies and news paper articles.

The confusion about the new year riots (56 or 57?) is because it happened during the new year I guess. I haven't found any information about riots in 1953.

During this time (post war time that is) there were also several "raggarupplopp" around the country. (Raggare is a subculture inspired by, among other things, "Rebel without a cause" which started around this time and still exists.)
posted by rpn at 9:14 PM on July 12, 2010


Response by poster: Thanks. I still haven't found any extensive English-language pages about it, but "Berzelii park" is the keyword here.
posted by renovatio1 at 8:03 AM on August 18, 2010


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