Dag Hammarskjöld

"Perhaps the greatest testament of personal devotion published in this century." — The New York Times A powerful journal of poems and spiritual meditations recorded over several decades by a universally known and admired peacemaker. A dramatic account of spiritual struggle, Markings has inspired hundreds of thousands of readers since it was first published in 1964. Markings is distinctive, as W.H. Auden remarks in his foreword, as a record of "the attempt by a professional man of action to unite in one life the via activa and the via contemplativa ." It reflects its author's efforts to live his creed, his belief that all men are equally the children of God and that faith and love require of him a life of selfless service to others. For Hammarskjöld, "the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action." Markings is not only a fascinating glimpse of the mind of a great man, but also a moving spiritual classic that has left its mark on generations of readers.

Dag Hammarskjöld, generalsekreterare i Förenta Nationerna 1953-1961, var en praktisk visionär. Steg för steg flyttade han fram FN:s och sin egen position i världspolitiken. Samtidigt definierade han FN:s ideal och gav världsorganisationen en etisk dimension.Han krävde rättens ledarskap gentemot maktens: Endast med förankring i folkrätten kan fred uppnås och endast inom fredens ramar kan mänskliga rättigheter helt och fullt utvecklas.Kaj Falkman har gjort ett urval av Hammarskjölds yttranden i tal eller inför medarbetare eller medier. Citaten är tematiskt ordnade. Här framträder Hammarskjölds tankar om världen och FN:s mål och möjligheter. Men här ges också prov på bredden i hans intellektuella nyfikenhet och hans skapande intresse för skönlitteratur och poesi, filosofi och religion, konst och musik.

Dag Hammarskjöld’s posthumously discovered journal was first published in 1963. The original manuscript consists of a collection of brief typewritten statements placed in a loose leaf folder. Hammarskjöld, it appears, from time to time typed out his journal entries and placed them in the folder. Nothing indicates that he considered the journal completed, or that he was not intending to continue it.Though Dag Hammarskjöld’s journal has been widely sold and is now being called “a modern spiritual classic”, many who have found in the book inspiring meditations have been puzzled by other passages. As a result some have placed the book on the shelf after a partial initial reading and thereafter rarely consulted it. It is to help such readers rediscover the journal and to introduce new readers to this important text that this reader’s guide has been written.This translation of the manuscript is called “Waymarks,” which is a literal translation of Vägmärken. While “waymark” is not a common English word, it is to be found in unabridged dictionaries. A reason for literal translation at this point is that it introduces “way” into the title. Hammarskjöld has much more to say about “the way” than about the marks or markings he makes along that way.

Dag Hammarskjöld’s speech to the Swedish Academy in 1957.

A biography of Dag Hammarskjold

Dag Hammarskjld nat Jnkping, en Sude, le 29 juillet 1905 ; fils de Hjalmar Hammarskjld (1862-1953) - ancien premier ministre sudois et membre influent de l'Acadmie -, il suit des tudes d'conomie politique, devenant son tour ministre d'Etat en 1951. Il est secrtaire gnral des Nations unies de 1953 1961. En 1954, il succde son pre en tant que membre de l'Acadmie de Sude. Il meurt tragiquement, dans un accident d'avion, qui restera inexpliqu, dans la nuit du 17 au 18 septembre 1961, la frontire entre le Katanga et la Rhodsie du Nord, o il se rendait pour tenter d'apaiser la crise congolaise et la scession du Katanga. Hammarskjld, la mmoire de qui sera dcern, en 1961, le Prix Nobel de la paix, fut un homme de lettres profond et raffin ; il traduisit en sudois Chronique de Saint-John Perse, contribuant lui faire attribuer le Prix Nobel de littrature (1960). Nourri d'intenses lectures spirituelles (Eckhart, Jean de la Croix, Pascal), et de celle des crivains contemporains (Melville, T. S. Eliot, Ibsen, Hesse, Rilke, Faulkner, en particulier), Hammarskjld nous a laiss l'un des plus nobles journaux de l'esprit : ses Jalons ont t, juste titre, rapprochs des mditations de Marc Aurle.

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