Rose bomb
The Old Rosenbom (Gubben Rosenbom) - pronunciation: / ˈgʉbˈbən ˈruːsənˈbum / - is a life-size wooden figure in front of the Admiralty Church in Karlskrona, Sweden . In 1956 it was replaced by a copy. The original figure, which has existed since at least the end of the 18th century, is now inside the church.
The figure serves as a collecting box for the poor: if you lift your hat, you can insert a coin. This means the equivalent of 6,000 euros per year. Rosenbom is holding a poster with a rhyming quatrain in Swedish and a quote from the Bible:
- I humbly ask you
- even if my firm voice is now powerless,
- come on, put a penny in here
- but lift my hat
- Blessed are those who care for the poor.
(The last sentence comes from the Bible , Psalm 41, 2 - In Luther's translation: "Good for him who cares for the needy.")
Gubben Rosenbom is traced back to the historical Mats Hindriksson Rosenbom . He was one of the first to settle in the then young town of Karlskrona.
The character is best known from the novel The Wonderful Journey of Little Nils Holgersson with the Wild Geese by Selma Lagerlöf . There he meets the hero of the title on his visit to Karlskrona and talks to him.
In the vernacular, the following legend about the wooden donation box has emerged, in particular due to a publication by the folklore researcher and teacher Sven-Öjvind Swahn (1949):
Mats Hindriksson Rosenbom begged for alms from door to door in Karlskrona on New Year's Eve in 1717. Here and there he was given a schnapps, so that he was already heavily drunk when he came to the house of Captain Lagerbielke. When he wanted to take off his hat in thanks for the alms he had received there, it fell down. Laughing, Lagerbielke picked up his hat from the floor and commented: "If you want Rosenbom to thank you, you have to lift his hat yourself."
Rosenbom liked the sentence so much that he said it when he begged the sculptor Kolbe in the neighboring house. Kolbe didn't think that was funny at all, but got into armor over the drunk and - as he said - impudent beggar so that he hit Rosenbom and drove him out into the snowstorm. Shortly afterwards, Kolbe had a bad conscience. He went out to look for Rosenbom. But he was afraid of Kolbe and had hidden at the Admiralty Church. The next day, on New Year's, Rosenbom was found frozen on one of the outside walls of the church. Kolbe then made the wooden figure of Gubben Rosenbom , a life-size donation box that you have to take off your hat if you want to donate something.
This legend of the repentant citizen may have core truth. However, it has nothing to do with the historical Mats Rosenbom:
In the newly established Karlskrona naval base there was a Mats Rosenbom, who came from the Åland Islands, among the first residents . He had probably settled in Karlskrona in 1679. He held one of the lower ranks of naval officers and lived with his wife and children in the Björkholmen district. That he under Charles XI. (Sweden) would have served on the ship Dristigheten is a literary invention of Selma Lagerlöfs, because the Swedish warship Dristigheten was launched in July 1785; the historical Mats Hindriksson Rosenbom should have been around 100 years old. His tragic death by freezing to death on New Year's Eve in 1717, which is passed down in the vernacular, cannot be proven either. Because a Mats Rosenbom is only used in the officer's role until 1704. For the time after that, he is not listed in the documents as a recipient of the so-called gratial , i.e. the pension. It is therefore unlikely that Rosenbom lived until 1717. Since he is not listed in any of the relevant books of the dead from those years, it can be considered certain that he did not die in Karlskrona, and consequently not from freezing to death on New Year's Eve 1717/18 in front of the Admiralty Church there.
The first evidence of a wooden figure named Gubben Rosenbom erected in front of the Admiralty Church can be found for the year 1793 - that is a generation after the time of Rosenbom, Captain Lagerbielke and the sculptor Kolbe, who, according to legend, is said to have built the wooden donation box. The figure itself is likely to be older than its first documented mention and from the middle of the 18th century. Yet it is too new for the legend that surrounds it. The clothes that the wooden Gubben Rosenbom wears are those of a botman from Blekinge around 1750. It is believed that the original figure was made at the shipyard in Karlskrona. Such "donation boxes" in human form were popular in Finland in the 18th century; many members of the Navy in Karlskrona came from there. Why the figure is called the Old Rosenbom is ultimately unclear.
In August 2019, the copy from 1956, which was set up outdoors, fell victim to vandalism: strangers tried to unscrew the hat from its hinge and finally broke it off. On the occasion of the repair, the eyes of the wooden figure were also renewed.
literature
- Sven-Öjvind Swahn: Gubben Rosenbom och andra berättelser från det gamla Karlskrona [The old Rosenbom and other stories from old Karlskrona], Karlskrona 1949
- Tommie Åkesson: Vem var Rosenbom? (PDF) [German: Who was Rosenbom?]. Online article from autumn 2006 on the Blekinge Museum homepage. Blekinge Museum, 2006, archived from the original on August 19, 2014 ; Retrieved March 27, 2016 (Swedish).
- Lasse Carlsson: Histories om Rosenbom som person och staty. [German: story of Rosenbom as a person and as a figure]. Retrieved March 27, 2016 (Swedish).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stina Sandström: Gubben Rosenbom saboterad - had sönder . In: SVT Nyheter . August 23, 2019 ( svt.se [accessed July 5, 2020]).
- ↑ Sveriges Radio: Rosenbom har fått sin hatt tillbaka - P4 Blekinge. Retrieved July 5, 2020 (Swedish).