For early Swedish satirical press one should apparently look to Grönköpings Veckoblad, but so far as I can tell, there is no historical digital archive available. Rather by accident I’ve finally run across another potential Swedish contribution to this collection. Fäderneslandet (Fatherland) was a Stockholm newspaper in operation since 1830, achieving a rather large circulation by the 1870s. Sporting the subheading “Freedom Work Justice,” it apparently fostered a politically radical stance, but more often functioned as a scandalous broadsheet. In any event, they occasionally published cartoons, including this one from during the cholera pandemic of 1892, accompanied by rhymed couplets in the original.
(Fäderneslandet, Stockholm, 1892)
Gothenburgers:
Attention! This newspaper is reporting:
“The Traveling Kaiser is not coming.”
Because of cholera? Yes, it’s a given,
he cannot defy it – no.
But, alas, organizers of festivities,
Officers and gentlemen who bear the sword!
Yes, major patrons and merchants,
it’s a blow to the bill of goods.
That Kaiser Wilhelm would visit us,
it was just said in all the squares.
And we wanted to hold a feast for him
in our proud Gothenburg.
We intended to light things up
and put on the fireworks.
“He will decorate us for this
with ribbons and medals,” we thought.
But these were golden illusions
they evaporated away for this time.
Yes, now by forests [of newspapers?] and millions [of kroner?]
our nose has become terribly long.
Whose fault it is, we all know,
it is cholera, at the knees of the gods!
Oh, may it go to Gehenna
and be put there in quarantine!
Sic Transit Pestilentia 