Elvira Madigan And An Allegory.
Elvira Madigan (1867 – 1889) Sixten Sparre (1854 - 1889)
Pia Degermark Tommy Berggren
Elvira Madigan (b. Hedvig Jensen) was a circus artist. She was born in the then Danish Flensburg. Her specialty was acting as a rope walk. Her parents were also circus artists. They performed all over Europe. Elvira made her debut in 1876 i.e. at the age of nine. Over time, she became a full-fledged artist where her arts, like juggling while dancing on the ropes, made her famous. The beautiful circus princess got the audience's approval. In 1886 she performed at Tivoli in Copenhagen. The Danish royal family was in the audience.
Sixten Sparre were of noble origin. He had enlisted in the Swedish army. He had achieved a lieutenant's degree. He was placed at the Skåne Dragon Regiment. He was married and had two children. In 1888 he saw Elvira perform in Kristianstad. He then fell in love with Elvira. He began exchanging letters with her. He had let Elvira understand that he was divorced and was a well-to-do man. The truth was that he was still married. In addition, he had squandered his fortune and was heavily indebted.
Elvira's family had no knowledge of her correspondence with Sparre. In May 1889, she secretly left her circus family after a performance in Sundsvall. Sparre had been granted permission from the military and met with Elvira in Bollnäs. After a few weeks in an unknown place, they arrived on 18 June in Danish Svendborg. They entered Stadshotellet there. After a month's stay, the hotel manager presented a bill for them. At this time, the couple's savings capital was over and they were forced to flee the hotel. Then they moved into a guest house in Troense. On July 18, they went to a forest area in Nørreskov. On July 19,1889, Sparre shot Elvira. Then he shot himself. So far the official version.
Elvira Madigan and Sixten Sparre. Murder site. Coordinates: 55° 0'17.52 N 10° 38'1.11 E
This event has been widely circulated in the media. It has been the subject of newspaper articles, books, cinematography, etc. Sixten Sparre was the nobleman who abandoned his family to start a relationship with a circus artist - a person who was far down on the social scale. The event has many moral bases and was obviously something that was not desirable by the then elite. My assumption is that Elvira Madigan and Sixten Sparre were murdered by the Swedish military.
In 1967, the Swedish film Elvira Madigan premiered. In the lead roles Pia Degermark as Elvira Madigan and Tommy Berggren as Sixten Sparre. Bo Widerberg was director. I regard the film as an allegory (comparison) where Sixten Sparre personifies Sixten Westerlund and Elvira Madigan personifies me. It was thought that Sixten Westerlund would murder me and then commit "suicide". Bo Widerberg passed away on May 1, 1997 in Båstad. My assumption is that he was murdered.