Alva Myrdal - the woman who made modern Sweden
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 17 March 2021
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1982, the Swedish social reformer, writer and diplomat, Alva Myrdal, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on nuclear disarmament. She was only the 7th woman in history to win the award, which she received jointly with Mexican diplomat Alfonso Garcia Robles. In the 1930s and 40s, Alva Myrdal had, with her husband Gunnar Myrdal, developed the ideas behind Sweden's famed welfare state which had transformed Sweden into the modern country we know today. She was also the first woman to be given a senior post at the United Nations. Alva Myrdal's daughter Kaj Foelster has been telling Louise Hidalgo about her mother's life and work.
Picture: Alva Myrdal in 1976 on the publication of her book The Game of Disarmament (credit: Keystone/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC |
| 0:35.4 | Sounds. |
| 0:36.4 | Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast here on the BBC World Service |
| 0:47.4 | with me Louise Adalgo. Today as part of Women's History Month we look |
| 0:52.2 | back at the life of one of the most influential |
| 0:54.3 | social reformers of the 20th century. |
| 0:57.3 | In the 1930s, Alva Mir Dal and her husband developed the ideas that would lead to Sweden's famed welfare state. |
| 1:04.1 | Alva Middell went on to become a prominent nuclear disarmament campaigner |
| 1:08.9 | and in 1982 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work. |
| 1:13.0 | We have seen this competition, this racing for building up |
| 1:18.0 | nonsensical excessive arsenals. |
| 1:22.0 | My message here today will have to be that I think the world is sick. |
| 1:29.2 | That was Alva Meardale talking with typical directness towards the end of her life. She'd been |
| 1:34.6 | born three quarters of a century earlier into a very different world. |
| 1:39.6 | In 1992 there were no nuclear weapons of course and her native Sweden was almost unrecognizable a land of farmers Alva's daughter Kaifalster has been telling me, poor and patriarchal. |
| 1:56.3 | Sweden was at the beginning of that century, nearly the poorest country in Europe, |
| 2:01.9 | and Alva could not go to primary school. |
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