Geopolitikens irrvägar

Kjelléns eftermäle i världen

Abstract

The stray ways of geopolitics. Rudolf Kjellén’s posthumous world-wide reputation

The text is an overview and analysis of how Kjellén’s concept of geopolitics has been interpreted and valued. After his death in 1922, Kjellén’s repute grew in Germany through the translations of his The State as a form of life and the last version of The Great Powers with Karl Haushofer’s revisions using Kjellén’s name. With the Nazi take-over Kjellén’s legacy waned but was kept alive by geographers in Estonia, Denmark and Switzerland.

After World War II, two scholars, Grabowsky and Kristof, both in 1960, published reviews of Kjellén’s work, explaining his world view and freeing him from allegations of being a proto-Nazi. In Scandinavia and Finland his ideas were only occasionally mentioned.

With the resurgence of geopolitics, Kjellén has been cited and evaluated in diverse ways. In Russia, Central Europe and Latin America Kjellén has for better or for worse been mentioned as giving the state a wider role beyond its constitution, including that of performing geopolitics. In the English-speaking world Kjellén has, with some remarkable exceptions, only been given a short reference as the creator of the concept of geopolitics, often misinterpreted as something fundamentally aggressive, territorial states fighting for power.