Hjalmar Branting

 Karl Hjalmar Branting  (23 November 1860 – 24 February 1925) was a Swedish politician. He was the leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party (1907–1925), and Prime Minister during three separate periods (1920, 1921–1923, and 1924–1925). When Branting came to power in 1920, he was the first Social Democratic Prime Minister of Sweden. When he took office for a second term after the general election of 1921, he became the first socialist politician in Europe to do so following elections with universal suffrage. In 1921, Sweden's Prime Minister Hjalmar Branting shared the Peace Prize with the Norwegian secretary-general of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Christian Lange.

Biography

He was born to the professor Lars Gabriel Branting and the noblewoman and pianist Emma af Georgii. Branting was educated in Stockholm and at Uppsala University. He developed a scientific background in mathematical astronomy and was an assistant at the Stockholm Observatory, but gave up his devotion to scientific work to become a journalist in 1884 and began editing the newspapers Tiden and Social-Demokraten. His decision to publish an article by the more radical socialist Axel Danielsson - a piece denounced by opponents as insulting to religious sensitivities - resulted in political convictions for blasphemy and imprisonment for both men. Branting was imprisoned for three months in 1888.