Pippi Longstocking, IKEA and the Nobel Prize are among 100 works, brands and ideas deemed to define what it means to be Swedish, according to a cultural heritage list presented to the government on Tuesday. But one of the country's most notable exports was snubbed — the legendary pop group ABBA.

Drawing up such a list, or canon, was part of the election manifesto of the right-wing ruling coalition and is a pet project of the nationalist, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, who are not in the government but support it in parliament.

However some Swedish institutions and minority groups, including the Swedish Academy that awards the Nobel Prize in Literature and representatives of the Indigenous Sámi population, have criticized the initiative as too narrow and exclusionist.

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