4.7 Finnish Literature
Description
This article is from the Nordic countries FAQ, by Antti Lahelma and Johan Olofsson, with numerous contributions by others.
4.7 Finnish Literature
Most of the text below is reproduced on the Project Runeberg
pages on Nordic Authors
<http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/authors/>. Links to the
Project Runeberg pages are provided when they hold also other
information.
Fire has destroyed most of the early literature the Finnish
church and monasteries must have produced. The first known
Finnish author was Jöns Budde, a Franciscan monk who lived in
the Brigittene monastery at Naantali in the latter part of 15th
century, chiefly translating from Latin to Swedish, but he also
wrote a few things of his own. Codex Aboensis written probably
in Turku in the 1440's is an important collection of law texts;
Missale Aboense printed in 1488 for the Finnish church is a
beautiful book and a source of medieval Finnish religious life.
Mikael Agricola (circa 1510-57), a bishop of Turku and great
advocate of Lutheranism, is considered the father of Finnish
literature. His ABC-book published 1538 is the first known book
in Finnish, but the translation of New Testament (1548) is his
greatest achievement. Paavali Juusten (?1512-72) was another
important 16th century author; his Chronicon episcoporum
Finlandensium (Chronicle of the Finnish Bishops [published in
Latin]) is an important source of early Finnish history. Erik
Sorolainen (1545-1625) did most of the translation of the Old
Testament when the whole Bible was eventually published in
Finnish in 1642, delayed by the Thirty Years' War. The first
grammar of Finnish, Linguae Finnicae brevis institutio [Latin],
was written by Eskil Petraeus in 1649.
Daniel Juslenius (1676-1752) was an enthusiastic advocate of
things Finnish. He wrote a baroque study on Finland (Aboa vetus
et Nova [Latin], 1700) which among other things traced the
origins of Roman civilization to Finland; a defense of
Finnishness (Vindicae Fennorum [Latin], 1702); and most
importantly, the first major Finnish dictionary (Suomalaisen
Sana-Lugun Coetus, 1745), containing 16,000 entries. He and his
ideological followers became known as Fennophiles
(proto-nationalists, but not separatists). Jakob Frese
(1691-1729) and Gustaf Filip Creutz (1731-1785) contributed
importantly to the Swedish-language poetry of the era.
The first major Finnish poet, however, was Frans Mikael Franzén
(1772-1847), whose fresh, romantic poetry was enormously
popular in Sweden (including Finland!) in his time. His teacher
was the great scholar Henrik Gabriel Porthan (1739-1804), a
student of Juslenius and a Fennophile, who brought Finnish
history-writing, study of mythology and folk poetry, and other
humanistic sciences to an international level. His De Poësi
Fennica (published in Latin in five parts 1776-78), a study on
Finnish folk poetry, had great importance in awakening public
interest in the Kalevala-poetry and Finnish mythology, and the
study was also the basis of all later study of the poetry. He
was among the founders of the Aurora Society that advocated
Finnish literary pursuits and was the editor of the first
Finnish newspaper, Tidningar utgifne af et sällskap i Åbo,
founded in 1771. Antti Lizelius (1708-1795) published the first
newspaper in Finnish, Suomenkieliset Tieto-Sanomat, 1776.
Porthan inspired the following generation of Finnish authors,
poets and researchers, many of whom were among the founders of
the Finnish Literature Society in 1831. A movement literary
trend known as Helsinki Romanticism was born in the 1830's when
the university was moved to the new capital. Four young
university students came to have towering importance to the
forming of the Finnish literature, and ultimately, the Finnish
national identity. These were the poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg
(1804-77), the scholar Elias Lönnrot (1802-84), the author
Zacharias Topelius (1818-1898) and the Hegelian philosopher and
statesman Johan Vilhelm Snellman (1806-81).
Especially important was Elias Lönnrot, who did a huge task of
collecting folk poetry from the remote wildernesses of Karelia,
and compiling these to what was to become Finland's national
epic, the Kalevala. (1849). It is composed of 50 poems
(sometimes called runes), altogether 22,795 verses. The book
starts with a creation-myth, then goes on to recount the deeds
and adventures of the three protagonists, Väinämöinen the
magician and bard, Ilmarinen the smith, and Lemminkäinen the
wanton loverboy and warrior, and ends with the introduction of
Christianity to Finland. Lönnrot was under the influence of
Homeric ideals and tried to forge the poems into a single epic,
adding bits and pieces of his own and altering some parts to
make them appear a whole, which they however never have been.
Nevertheless, its role to the development of Finnish
literature, arts and identity can hardly be over-estimated, and
having been translated to all major world languages and lots of
minor ones, it is no doubt the most important contribution of
Finland to world literature. Lönnrot also published a
counterpart to Kalevala, the Kanteletar, a collection of
ancient lyrical poetry often sung by women. These two books,
however, cover but a small part of the recorded Finnish folk
poetry. For instance, between 1908-48 was published a massive,
33-volume book series called Suomen Kansan Vanhoja Runoja,
containing altogether 85,000 poems, with well over a million
verses. Kalevala & Kanteletar can be found (in Finnish) at
<http://www.sci.fi/kalevala/> &
<http://www.edita.fi/kustannus/kalevala/paasivu.htm>.
Runeberg's main works were the realist/idealist poem
Älgskyttarna (Elk Hunters, 1832), which can be called the first
major literary portrayal of ordinary people in Scandinavia, the
Ossianic epic Kung Fjalar (King Fjalar, 1844) and the emotional
and humane heroic poem Fänrik Ståls Sägner (The Tales of Ensign
Stål, I 1848, II 1860) on the war of 1808-09, which enjoyed
huge popularity in both Finland and Sweden and became something
of a national romantic symbol.
Topelius was a full-blooded romantic, more superficial as a
literary artist than Runeberg, and less of an innovator. His
Fältskärns Berättelser (1851-67, The Barber-Surgeons Stories)
is a historical novel set in the Thirty Years' War, in the
tradition of Sir Walter Scott; he is also well known in Finland
for his fairy tales.
Snellman's chief achievement was in his role as a national
awakener, the editor of two newspapers, strongly encouraging
literature as part of the process leading to independence.
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