A short biography of Eva Manus-Löfgren, Swedish anarchist.
Eva Löfgren was born in 1886 in Ekeby in Scania, in southern Sweden. She joined the Young Socialists (Social-demokratiska ungdomsforbündet), which, whilst being the youth branch of the parent Social Democratic Party, was heavily influenced by anarchist and syndicalist ideas. She began to contribute articles to the anarchist magazine Brand, which had been founded in 1898.
She married Emil Manus, whom she had met through the Young Socialists. In 1917, Eva was imprisoned for four months for writing anti-war articles in the magazine Fred og Revolution (Peace and Revolution), of which she was chief editor, whilst Emil received a similar sentence for antimilitarist activity. They fled to Copenhagen, where they were both active in writing articles in the Danish anarchist press and giving speeches.
Eva was active in the Stockholm Anarchist Association (Stockholms Anarkistiska Förening), and for a period was on the board of the Stockholm Syndicalist Women’s Club (Stockholms Syndikalistiska Kvinnoklub) . She attended the 1937 congress of the syndicalist women’s clubs which founded the Syndicalist Women’s Association (Syndikalistiska kvinnoförbundet) , which had a membership of 600.
She died in Stockholm in 1983.
The daughter of Eva and Emil, Margit (1909-1971) was herself a dispatcher for Brand for many years, an active member of the Syndicalist Youth Federation-Syndikalistiska Ungdomsförbundet (SUF), and a contributor to the syndicalist Arbetaren, acting as editor of its women’s page for some time. Margit, together with her partner Axel Österberg, witnessed and reported on the outbreak of the Spanish Revolution in Barcelona. Their son was named Faj, after the Spanish FAI (Iberian Anarchist Federation)!
Nick Heath
Photo: Georg Högberg, Emil Manus, Augustin Souchy, Eva Löfgren
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