Sällskapet Idun
Swedish men's cultural association
Sällskapet Idun is a Swedish association for men, founded in 1862 in Stockholm.
Founding
Sällskapet Idun traces its founding back to 22 November 1862 at the Hotel Fenix in Stockholm, Sweden. Its founders consisted of Edward Bergh and Johan Fredrik Höckert, artists and professors at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts; Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, researcher and professor at the Swedish Museum of Natural History; Axel Key, professor and rector of the Karolinska Institute; Harald Wieselgren, librarian of the National Library, and composer Ivar Hallström. Wieselgren, as secretary, was the unifying and driving force for several decades. He is the main character in Zorn's painting En skål i Idun ('A Toast in the Idun Society') from 1892.
Activity
The statutes of 1862 stated that the association was for "men living in Stockholm who have their own activities and interests in science, literature and art in various fields." According to the latest revised statutes of 6 December 2000, the organization's mission is "to promote interaction between people active in different cultural fields."
Sällskapet Idun meets once a month, except during the summer months, with lectures and art sessions at which artists give insights into their work. The November meeting is devoted to music.
The association is governed by an annually elected board, whose chairman is appointed from within the board. The secretary is responsible for the day-to-day running of the association, together with a treasurer and a club master, also appointed at the annual general meeting. New members are elected in the order provided for by the statutes by the committee on the proposal of at least two members.
“Sällskapet Idun” enters the record as swedish men's cultural association. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sällskapet, Idun and Swedish can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 18, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q10688026. VIAF identifies the subject as 296341842. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1862, 1892 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sällskapet Idun” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.