Television spies, Swedish neutrality and nostalgia in the mini-seris Operation Argus and Kullamannen
Two of the most popular Swedish mini-series in the mid 1960s were Operation Argus (1966) and Kullamannen (“The Man from the Hill”, 1967). Operation Argus was a spy story situated in and around the Swedish navy during World War II. Kullamannen was a spy thriller produced for children (and with children as protagonists) in a contemporary, idyllic rural setting in southern Sweden, where a summer vacation turns into a dangerous game about war and peace. In the paper I use the Cold-War context of the 1960s as a point of departure, since this was of key importance for the then so popular spy genre in the strictly neutral Sweden, in order to discuss how this context is present in two generically quite different mini-series. The Cold-war is absent in both cases. In Operation Argus through the WWIi-context, in Kullamannen with both heroes and villians representing unnamned countries. I also note how the two productions relate to the concept of nostalgia - nostalgia both as represented and as retrospective reception.