Lundagård’s existential rights are in the independent thinking. Therefore Karin Olsson encourages the future Lundagård to avert political control and rebuke the owner who calls for grandeur and obedience.
As new editors of Lundagård Rakel Chukri and I made a heroic excavation in the deepest wardrobes of the tower room. Tens of thousands copies of old vintages were transported either to an archive or to a dumpster. It was a fascinating trip through the 1900s from a Lund student perspective. Sometimes it was close to the spirit of the time, sometimes in liberating – or terrifying! – opposition to the ruling norms. We found the literary equilibrium of the 20s, the political eccentrics of the 70s and the entry of the firearms during the 90s.
When I after ten years dive into my private wardrobe instead and study my own newspapers I fear that an embarrassing odor will waft up from the pages, like when you read an old diary and turn up your nose.
But to my surprise I find something completely different – a better version of myself! A type of journalism that was far more idealistic, more playful, more free and sharper than what I would accomplish today.
The student political surveillance consists of a prosaic reality which does not stand very well against the ravages of time, but a lot of the content is pleasurable in a way only voluntary work can achieve: for the students, for the co-workers themselves and the joy of creating in freer ways than the working life ever could offer.
It is, of course, easy to romanticize the formative years of one’s life, which are also preserved in old brine. But the credo and existential rights of Lundagård must be one of the independently thinking, entertaining, and scrutinizing hub in the university world which cultivates new generations of people and their ideas.
Avert every political control, and rebuke the owner who calls for grandeur and obedience. Professionalization is only good as long as it doesn’t threaten the creative diversity that arises when students from all faculties contribute to fiction and journalism.
I had no Media Education. I had Lundagård. Thank goodness for that.
Karin Olsson
Head of Culture at the newspaper Expressen
Editor 2003-2005
Översättning: Elise Petersson
