Magnus Bäcklund (12 December 1866 – 26 June 1903) was a Swedish missionary to Chinese Turkestan

Xinjiang

Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...

 with the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden

Mission Covenant Church of Sweden

The Mission Covenant Church of Sweden , founded in 1878, is a Swedish Reformed free church. It is the second-largest Christian denomination in the country, after the national church, the Church of Sweden...

.

Magnus was born in Alstakan, Gunnarskog parish, Värmland

Värmland

' is a historical province or landskap in the west of middle Sweden. It borders Västergötland, Dalsland, Dalarna, Västmanland and Närke. It is also bounded by Norway in the west. Latin name versions are Vermelandia and Wermelandia. Although the province's land originally was Götaland, the...

. He grew up in a poor family, and had to work hard. He found employment at Östlund & Almqvist in Arvika

Arvika

Arvika is a locality and the seat of Arvika Municipality, Värmland County, Sweden with 14,184 inhabitants in 2005.-Geography:The town of Arvika is situated at Kyrkviken, a bay of Glafsfjorden, Sweden's only inland fjord, a remnant of the time following the last ice age .The area is hilly with the...

. He studied German and French and Greek during this time.

In 1895 he travelled to Kashgar, but being delayed, he studied Uyghur

Uyghur language

Uyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...

 in Bukhara, and only arrived in Kashgar June the following year, 1897. In Xinjiang he worked at the Mission hospital.

On 26 June 1903 he died of typhoid, and was buried in Kashgar

Kashgar

Kashgar or Kashi is an oasis city with approximately 350,000 residents in the western part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Kashgar is the administrative centre of Kashgar Prefecture which has an area of 162,000 km² and a population of approximately...

. He was 37 years old.

External links

• Mission and Change in Eastern Turkestan (English Translation of select chapters of Mission och revolution i Centralasien)