WASHINGTON | The seventeen Linnaeus apostles, young, curious, and adventurous, fanned out across the globe in the period 1745-1799. And now their collected writings are traveling back – to 117 countries so far – as a vital part of Swedish public diplomacy.

On a hot day in June 2015 a small trolley had to be used to bring the eleven books of “The Linnaeus Apostles Global Science & Adventure” in to one of the most spectacular offices in the American Capital.

The office, which belongs to the Librarian of Congress, has stunning views of the Washington monuments and museums. Present at the ceremony was the soon-to-be-departing, long-time Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington; his deputy David S. Mao who later became the Acting Librarian of Congress; and the Swedish Ambassador to the United States Björn Lyrvall, who handed over this gift to the American people.

“Thomas Jefferson would have been pleased with this addition to the Library’s collections not only because he was a serious bibliophile, but also because the Kingdom of Sweden was the first non-combatant country to recognize the independent United States in 1783 after the American Revolutionary War”, David S. Mao said.

Mao pointed out that Jefferson actually sold his own collection of 6,487 books to the Library to replace the library’s original collection that was burned during the war of 1812. Jefferson owned several works by Carl Linnaeus and over the years the Library of Congress has acquired hundreds of books by and about the Swedish naturalist as well as his students, the “apostles” or “the disciples”.

And to this, Mao added:


Many Swedish diplomats, have in fact, been able to hand over the Apostles’ series to libraries, scientific institutions, museums, botanical gardens and other institutions in countries where Sweden is represented by embassies and consulates. Some of the diplomats became so smitten with the apostles and their adventures that they literally traveled in their footsteps – a few times to try to find their graves.

There were many reasons for launching the massive project to transcribe and translate the apostles’ journals, including that the seventeen young men who departed Sweden hadn’t got the recognition they deserved, according to former Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson who acted as one of the IK Foundation ambassadors from start.

“I learned about Carl Linnaeus in school, came across his name in various settings, read a couple of his books about his travels to various parts of Sweden, like Gotland and Västergötland, and I did know that he had sent people out into the world, but not that much more”, said Carlsson.

The motivating factor for Carlsson to get involved was the conviction that Swedes in general have not been very good at promoting their many pioneering scientists. With the Linnaeus apostles, he noted, it wasn’t just a search for knowledge, it was also adventure and great danger in very far away and unknown places.

“I was also impressed by Linnaeus’ logistical skills. He had traveled in and around Sweden, but there he was in the middle of the 18th century also planning travels across the globe”, stated Carlsson in awe.



Occasionally, the funding was tight. “Not an easy task”, according to an understatement from Carlsson. However, in the end it was possible to convince corporations, science academies, various foundations and others to contribute. Carlsson stressed that the most gratifying thing for him is to imagine all the libraries in the world where the “The Linnaeus Apostles Global Science & Adventure” can be read and studied, not to say enjoyed, considering the sometimes lively descriptions the apostles used to document their experiences.

One of the libraries in possession of the full set of books is in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, a former Soviet Republic. They were handed over in 2013 to the National Library, which is quite different from the American Library of Congress in size and scope.

“A project like this can be very valuable for a country without substantial written records. A quarter of a century after independence Kazakhstan finds itself in a process where a sound writing of history has only just begun,” said Christian Kamill, the Swedish ambassador.

There have only been a few cultural exchanges between Sweden and the vast country that is now Kazakhstan. The apostle Johan Peter Falck was the first known visitor; a century later the Swedish composer Wilhelm Harteveld arrived to document songs sung by prisoners and other people that had been expelled to Siberia; and then the two Nobel brothers Robert and Ludvig, arrived in Atyrau at the Caspian Sea to extract oil (later with the more famous brother Alfred as a co-financier). Certainly three interesting cases, stressed Ambassador Kamill, but mainly an attest as to how scarce the contacts were.

Johan Peter Falck was the apostle that traveled the farthest on land. He reached the northernmost and northwestern parts of Kazakhstan, but he also documented findings from other regions, not the least of which were the network of caravan routes. That was the reason for a joint decision by the Swedish Embassy and the IK Foundation to venture outside the capital to the areas where Falck and part of his expedition went. The welcoming reception by the people in the city of Petropavlovsk in northern Kazakhstan was very cordial during the visit in 2015, according to Ambassador Kamill. The regional museum had arranged a symposium about Falck and the publication of the works by the Linnaeus apostles. An exhibit that showcased Falck’s travels is now a permanent fixture in the museum. Ambassador Kamill pointed out that the Kazakh media are very interested in foreign visitors, and newspapers, radio and television covered this event that added valuable knowledge about the once nomadic country’s history. The IK Foundation is planning similar future trips as part of its ongoing project Bridge Builder Expeditions – Russia & Kazakhstan.

Svetlana Kovalskaja, a history professor at the Eurasian National University, said that the names of Linnaeus and Falck are well-known in the academic community and she mentioned the 1966 edition of the "Essay on the history of ethnographic study of the Kazakh people in the USSR” where the Kazakh scientist/ethnographer Edige Massanov devoted an entire section to the ethnographic works of the second academic expedition in the 18th Century, in which Falck and many others participated.

“We know that Falck, unlike other members of the expedition, paid special attention to ethnographic data about Kazakhs”, said Svetlana Kovalskaja, noting that Falck’s work is still used in Kazakh history studies. She continued that Falck “described the pastoral economy, hunting, Kazakh folk crafts, food. He recorded many Kazakh terms and words. He also made a comparative glossary of the Kazan Tatars, Kazakhs, Kalmyks and other peoples”.

Johan Peter Falck died in Kazan, Russia, on March 31, 1774, after six years of in the field.

Even during Linnaeus’ lifetime, cities like Paris and Rome were important travel destinations (for the very few that did travel). As we know, Linnaeus and his apostles, though, had set their sights on more distant lands. But of course the French and Italian academic institutions played significant roles in the world of research then, as they do now.

Christine Hammarstrand, of the department for press and information at the Swedish Embassy in Paris, explained that Collège de France seemed to be the most proper recipient in France.

“There are 14 Linnaeus societies in France. And it’s worth noting that Carl Linnaeus had a great rival here, the naturalist George-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. But Linnaeus himself had a very famous ally in Jean- Jacques Rousseau and he sided with the Swede. And the Linnaeus - Buffon dispute is still fought 300 years later,” added Hammarstrand, also pointing out that the events in connection with the handing over of the apostles’ volumes in 2014 certainly have expanded the international science exchange.

In Rome, at about the same time, the Swedish Embassy organized a seminar together with the Società Geografica Italiana at Palazzo Matteri in Villa Celimontana. Ambassador Ruth Jacoby and the president of the society, Sergio Conti, opened the seminar, which took the audience on a journey to many continents. Several professors presented lectures dealing with subjects ranging from how the apostles developed Linnaeus’ theories to stories about famous Italian explorers - Orazio Antinori, Giacomo Bove, Umberto Cagni, Pellegrino Matteucci. The Linnaeus Apostles’ are now housed in the library at the Società Geografica Italiana. And, in Italian, you don’t say Carl Linnaeus, Carolus Linnaeus or Carl von Linné but Carlo Linneo.

There is ample documentation of ceremonies where Swedish diplomats pose with recipients of the “The Linnaeus Apostles Global Science & Adventure”. For instance in 2013 a set was donated to the Library at the Australian National University, ANU, with the following comment from the Librarian Roxanne Missingham: “The ANU Library is excited to stimulate new thinking and research, and provide exciting reading about cultures, landscapes, and people of a bygone era.” The university representatives mentioned that Linnaeus’ research, and his role as the father of modern taxonomy were recognized by the university in 2011 when the new Research School of Biology building was named the Linnaeus Building.

In several cases the books were welcome additions to collections that already contained works by Linnaeus himself or the apostles, for example the Teylers Museum in Haarlem in the Netherlands.

And, sometimes the recipients could tell anecdotes like the one about Fredrik Hasselquist. He never intended to visit Cyprus, but had to change ships in Larnaca in 1751, stayed for a few weeks, and made several observations about the views, vipers, wine, trade etc. Hasselquist’s diaries from his travels in the Levant “opened new paths of knowledge to Europe about the nature and cultures of the Orient” said Professor Constantinos Christophides at the ceremony where he stated that it is a ”privilege to havet hese volumes made available to the University of Cyprus.

At the Foreign Ministry in Stockholm Håkan Hjort is the head of the department called Cultural Promotion and the Image of Sweden. He said, unequivocally, that the legacy of Carl Linnaeus is vital, not only in terms of tourism and the image of Sweden, but also in helping to increase the interest in the natural sciences among students. In connection with the 300th anniversary of Linnaeus’ birth in 2007, many Swedish embassies organized separate exhibits and various programs looking back at his life and his importance in various fields.

In Washington, DC, as well as throughout the eastern United States and eastern Canada, the travels of the apostle Pehr Kalm generate the most interest. He arrived in Wilmington in what today is the state of Delaware mid-September 1748. He writes most charmingly about his reaction to everything he encountered, “a new world” as he put it until panic set in when he realized the enormity of the task ahead of him.

Kalm struck up close friendships with several highly educated and influential men in the great city of Philadelphia, including Benjamin Franklin and the botanist John Bartram, whose home and 45-acre garden on the Schuylkill River is now a National Historic Landmark. The curator, Dr. Joel Fry, stressed that Kalm’s observations have been crucial for the overall knowledge of the region at the time, including such diverse data as temperatures and Indian traditions.

“His friends were quite upset after he left and asked each other, ’Have you heard from that scoundrel Kalm?’ But they never did,” said Joel Fry, noting that it could take several months, or even years, for a letter from Europe to reach the British colonies in North America. Some were even lost. Kalm is one of the more “famous” apostles, and his own books about the trip to North America have been available since publication 1753-61. A second Bridge Builder Expedition in Kalm’s footsteps is also ongoing, with the intent to better understand how the apostles’ work came to be part of the overall scientific knowledge – then and now.

There is one more as-of-yet unfulfilled dream among Linnaeus’ admirers: to preserve his legacy internationally as a Unesco World Heritage Site. It would include twelve properties in eight countries on five continents that all bear witness to Linnaeus’ development of systematic biology, among them Bartram’s Garden. In order for this to happen, the governments in the countries involved would have to officially put forward the sites in their respective countries on a tentative list of nominees at least a year in advance. Only Sweden has done this.



“Our presumptive partners haven’t gotten quite that far. Therefore we cannot hand in a nomination in 2016, and instead we will continue to prepare for a nomination in, and outside, of Sweden”, said Dr. Anja Rautenberg who is responsible for the "The Rise of Systematic Biology" at the County Administrative Board in the Province of Uppsala.

This effort will certainly continue in Carl Linnaeus’ home town where three of the sites are situated: his residence Hammarby; the surrounding areas where he took students on walks to teach them how to observe nature; Herbationes Upsaliensis, and the Linnaeus’ Garden. The fourth site in Sweden is the birthplace of Carl Linnaeus in Råshult in the region of Småland.

However the collection of 2000 items by Carl Linnaeus and the apostles – filling up a 100 meter long shelf – at the Danish National Library of Science and Medicine has been placed on Unesco’s Memory of the World International Register. This unique collection was formed when the books and papers owned by a private Danish book collector was merged with the holdings of the National Library at the end of the 1980s. It was therefore a given that the library was deemed the best home in Denmark for “The Linnaeus Apostles Global Science & Adventure.”