Studying what eugenics was and other subjects that could be tied to this is nothing new. However, there are still gaps in the research field that need to be filled. One of these concerns critical debates, for example using person-based names on lecture-halls and buildings. The purpose of this study was to investigate what themes and lines of conflict could be identified in the debate around the historical heritage after Anders and Gustaf Retzius, two previous researchers. The study analyzed the overall society’s debate within the Swedish daily press. The study used argument analysis as its method and included a total of 15 articles. The theoretical framework of this study included descriptions of how memory can be used in various ways such as organizing one’s history and what part it could play in for example debates concerning changes like removing memorials. The results of the present study for example showed that one theme and line of conflict in the debate concerned how involved Anders and Gustaf Retzius were in the Swedish eugenics, since this according to various parts of the chosen works could be viewed in different ways. The study concludes that the debate is multi-layered and could be viewed from many different perspectives.

Stina Aronson (1892–1956) is a celebrated Swedish modernist who published twenty-five works during the first part of the 20th century. Her writings are considered to be progressive and ethical due to extensive feminist and eco-critical research. Aronson’s novel Hitom himlen(This Side of Heaven, 1946) captures the life in upper Northern Sweden, in the Torne Valley, during the beginning of 20th century. In this thesis, I examine the narrative by placing it in relation to the racial hierarchies permeating society during the initial decades of the 20th century. The Finnish-speaking minority living in the Torne Valley came to be considered racially different from the national majority, due to national and international race science – today understood as scientific racism– and anthropology. My analysis shows how the characters are racialized using such ideas as the Mongolian theory and the cephalic index. It is further made evident that the novel captures a perception claiming the so-called ‘Finns’ were of an inferior race. And further, the belief that a mixture of Swedish, Finnish and Sami blood had weakened the group genetically. The mixture of races was defined as a serious threat to the Swedish population, who was regarded as the whitest and purest population on earth. Aronson captures this belief of a future extinction by depicting the death and illness of the youngest generation in the novel. Furthermore, the main character, Emma Niskanpää, believes that she meets God during the church service at the yearly holiday Marie bebådelsedag. I argue though, that the man she encounters is a fictitious Herman Lundborg (1868–1943), the most prominent of the Swedish race biologists, who, in reality, repeatedly performed skull measurement during this celebration. Directly following on this encounter, the ”deaf-and-dumb” daughter of the family Renström is buried along with several others and Emma Niskanpää’s son falls ill with tuberculosis. In this way, the novel captures the racial surveys carried out on minority groups– surveys which are today considered a national trauma. In This Side of Heaven, Stina Aronson turns into literature a specific form of racism and a forgotten part of Swedish history as a pioneering country in the formulation of race hierarchies.