page_title: Karl Lärka
section_title: Marriage and the burial grounds at Sollerön
hierarchical_section_title: Karl Lärka / Marriage and the burial grounds at Sollerön
caption_attribution_description: Fotgrafi av Karl Lärka, Lärkas stuga på Klickbåck, Sollerön
context_page_description: Karl Lärka was one of the more important 20th-century documentary photographers in Sweden. Lärka's prime concern was to document the peasant culture that he understood was beginning to disappear, and especially the culture of the lands around lake Siljan in Dalarna; one with agriculture, forestry and many people with stories about older times. Most of his photography was done from 1916 to 1934, and he combined it with lecture tours about the countryside of Siljan. He also documented many of the stories elderly people in the villages told him and was very active in the Swedish local heritage movement that started in the 1920s. More than 4,200 of his photographic plates are today in the municipal archive of Mora.
context_section_description: Until 1926, Karl Lärka lived in the Lärka House at Sollerön. In 1925 he married Svea Romson, and the following year they moved to Rombo House in Östnor, owned by Svea's father, Erik Romson. Lärka continued with his lecturing, which was not regarded as a respectable occupation by all the villagers. A married man should be home working on his farm, was the general opinion.
  Karl Lärka's parents-in-law passed on in the 1930s and he and his wife became thereby fully responsible for Rombo Farm, a comparatively large farm with many dairy cows, horses, pigs, goats, and arable land. The couple were childless and therefore the niece and nephews from Hofors were welcome guests during summer. They also accompanied Karl and Svea Lärka and the farm animals to the summer pasture farms, which still was used. One of these was the cottage at Klikten. During the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s Karl Lärka and his wife managed the farm on their own, in the later years often without help and often with very little money. Sometimes it was a struggle, and Lärka's ingeniousness was probably a good help. In the early years he often built much of his photo equipment himself, and this experience was also useful in farming.
  As the great burial ground from the Viking Age was discovered at Sollerön in 1928, Karl Lärka became very engaged in investigating and preserving it for future generations. The burial ground was located just a stone's throw from the cottage he and Svea had built for themselves at Klikten in Sollerön. Lärka spent a lot of time trying to preserve the burial ground from the destruction due to farming and stone-clearing operations. During the 1930s Lärka's camera was broken, and he had no funds to get a new one. The work at their farm, his engagement for the burial ground, and the couple's poor incomes meant there was neither money nor time for Karl Lärka to go on photographing. But he did preserve his darkroom over the years.
caption: The Lärka cottage at Kliktbåck, Sollerön. Photo: Karl Lärka/Mora Bygdearkiv.
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