N O RDI S K MU S EOLO G I 1995•2, S. 4 1-4 7

ESKO AALTONEN (1893-1966) A LIFETIME OF LOCAL HISTORY

Hannu Lahtonen

Last year was one ofcelebration, not only ofFinland's entry into the European Union but also manifestly ofFinnish culture. It was one hundred years since the foundation ofthe country's first local history society at Lohja. A year before that, on March 9. 1893 a boy who was baptised with the very Finnish name ofEsko, was born into the family ofa weaving mill worker. Later Esko was to become a major force and pioneer in the local history movement.

The notion of local arts and crafts in a powerful nationalist feeling evolved, cul­ Finland was by no means an invention of minating in independence in 1917. the 19th century; its roots reach far back Along with a powerful movement to into the soil of the national romantic collect national poetry, epitomized by the movement. The reconstruction that follo­ national epic, Kalevala, grew an awareness wed the Great Nordic War (1700-1721) of our own Finnish past. The Finnish meant for Finland, now belonging to a Literary Society (Suomafaisen Kitjaffi­ Swedish monarch, a search for its own suuden Seura) was founded as early as identity. For Henrik Gabriel Porthan, one 1831, and from 1870 the Finnish Ancient of the prominent figures of the epoch, Relics Society ( Suomen Muinaismuis­ love of country was a form of love for the toyhdistys) sent entire expeditions around local community. Indeed, the Turku Aca­ the country. Five years later the Finnish demy of the 18th century formed a centre Historical Society (Suomen Historiaffinen for Finnish district research. Between Seura) began and, among other things, 1730 and 1800 some fifty theses on local started to publish a series of parish re­ subjects were published within its circles. views. For their part, priests and surveyors pro­ At the same time began some of decades moted domestic research through their of collection of museum artefacts was ini­ parish reviews and illustrations. tiated by university students, which resul­ From 1809 Finland was ruled by an ted in the foundation of the National eastern country rather than a western one, Museum in 1916. Thus museum collec­ as an autonomous Grand Duchy of ting gave rise to a national ethnology. Russia, and it was during this period that HANNU LAHTONEN

42 YOUTH SEEKS ITS PLACE kening of the working-class population. The first countryside secondary school The foundation of a society dedicated to was also founded at Forssa in 1899. It was the subject is evidence of nascent systema­ from here that Esko Aaltonen passed his tic local historical research. It was through university entrance exams in 1913 and the this that the local history movement gra­ following autumn he registered at the dually spread, via the educated intelligent­ Czarist Finnish Alexander University, now sia, to the wider public. One of the archi­ Helsinki University. tects of the new kind of movement was Entries in the young schoolboy's diary Dr. Robert Boldt, whose achievement was reveal how this child of an industrial soci­ the setting up of the country's first district ety developed a yearning for the surroun­ local history society at Lohja in 1894. ding countryside, its nature and its pea­ The committee for Finnish Local His­ sant culture. Blue-covered exercise books tory Research (Suomen Kotiseutututkimus­ from his secondary school days contain keskus) was formed in 1908 to coordinate studies of local history, natural history the efforts of the emerging local societies. observations, stories of adventures, A year later it began publishing its jour­ extracts from plays, poems and so on. nal, Kotiseutulehti, in whose columns in «I have begun to sing songs of the home 1911 the barely 18-year-old Esko Aal­ I love so much ... » he wrote in his diary in tononen began his enormous output of 1912. articles dealing with local history, with a piece called «Place names etc., in NO MORE ROOM FOR Tammela». In fact he even managed to ROMANTICISM edit this journal at some time during the 1940s. Altonen's student period coincided with But even as a schoolboy at the turn of the beginnings of systematic local history the century, Esko Aaltonen participated, study in Finland. Only after the general without meaning to and unaware of it, in strike of 1905 was there any widescale the true breakthrough of the local history appreciation of the fact that the old pea­ movement. sant way of life was vanishing fast in the In the mid-19th century, a Swede called face of modern culture. The educated Axel Wilhelm Wahren founded Finland's classes determinedly set about salvaging third cotton mill, amid the loose collecti­ the material as well as the more abstract on of dwellings that made up the parish of relics of this disappearing folk tradition. Tammela, which not only gave its name to University students were naturally invol­ the district but was also the opening move ved in this renaissance of the local history in the industrial development of Forssa. In movement. The regional students' associa­ keeping with general trends in Finland, tions set up special local history research the turn of the century was also a time of committees, and Aaltonen's Harne cultural and social progress. The first Students' Society (Hi:imi:ili:iisosakunta) for labour club to be formed in the countrysi­ example, was the first in Finland to de had a decisive effect on the social awa- publish in 1916-17 a body of old poems ESKO AALTONEN - A LIFETIME OF LOCAL HI ST ORY

Esko Aaltonen on an 43 interviewing to11r at Liesjitrvi in Tammela in i928. The inter­ viewee is the owner of the Sipilit farm. Aaltonen was an eager photogmpher - note the camem. Photo: The M11se11111 ofSo 11th West Hitme.

and incantations, following a huge collec­ southern Harne, about a third of the enti­ ting effort. re compilation. Aaltonen's share of this Aaltonen's contribution to this accumu­ accumulation of old Harne verse amoun­ lation of national poetry was enormous - ted to a full fifth of the entire Harne poe­ in 1914 he collected about a thousand tic tradition collected up to that time. poems and spells from the parishes of The push for this local history research HANNU LAHTONEN

44 among the students came from a new history, it was the Southwest Harne Local mood, a social spirit and a nationalist sen­ History and Museum Society (Lounais­ timent in society. Gunnar Suolahti, Hameen Kotiseutuja Museoyhdistys) foun­ Helsinki University professor and curator ded in 1923 that on a deliberately practi­ of the Harne students' society, became a cal level became, in all its manifestations, dominant figure in this movement and the laboratory for the great idealist. also Aaltonen's mentor. Suolahti's ideas The aims of the society were defined as contained powerful social overtones and the creation of a provincial museum, rese­ he inspired his students to seek out the arch into south-west Hame's past and the roots of the Finnish people. The period of fostering of local sentiment. Nature re­ 19th century romanticism was irretrieva­ search and awareness were also included. bly ended. The local history of Forssa and the unoffi­ As a sociology professor at Turku cial province of parishes surrounding it University, Aaltonen reminisced about was quite obviously Aaltonen's calling. that period: Even in the dummy issue of Forssan Lehti his leader proclaimed the paper's purpose In my youth, long ago, I tried to sketch out an over­ as a unifying force in Southwest Harne. all picture of our peasant culture as it was expressed The article further stated in the paper's at the peak of its development, some time in the intention of making the local district middle of the last century, before the years of great known by publishing its history, nature, famine and the upheavals wrought by industrializati­ folk customs and activities. on. I saw in that relatively motionless, static way of Aaltonen was the prime mover behind life balance and harmony, beauty and poetry, perso­ the Local History and Museum Society; it nality and closeness to nature - I saw all this as the was, for example, on his initiative that result of centuries of peaceful, balanced development Tammela's observation tower was erected and construction work built on tradition. on the beautiful Kaukalonharju ridge and the Saari National Park was developed THE CALL HOME into an enormous meeting place for pro­ vincial celebrations into the 1950s. His Aaltonen studied Finnish and Scandi­ initiative was astonishing. He was invol­ navian history and graduated with an MA. ved in just about everything that appeared in 1917, after only about three and a half in Forssa at that time. He was secretary years. But turbulence in Finnish society at and chairman of the Museum Society for that time forced him to abandon many of a total of 30 years, and managed to parti­ his plans and return to his village in south­ cipate in various tasks in the municipal west Harne. life of Forssa village between 1923-33. Energy survived, however, for the same Amid all this, his literary output accu­ year he founded his own newspaper, mulated at a respectable rate: Old Forssa Forssan Lehti, and a little later, as indepen­ and Its People I and II, A History of dent Finland began to settle down, a press. Tammela, The origins and Early Years of Although Forssan Lehti can be regarded Forssa, the History of Somerniemi, The as the first expression of his views on local History of Somero, An Illustrated Old E S KO AALTO N EN - A LIFETIME OF LO C AL HI STORY

Tammela, and so on. He also started the Despite its narrow financial base, the 45 Local History Society's series of publicati­ company managed every year to arrange a ons, the Southwest Harne Annual Review, significant number of shoots of folk tradi­ which continues to this day. tions both at home and among related Finnish populations elsewhere. AT NATIONAL LEVEL FOR THE PEASANT CULTURE When the local history movement began to seek new forms of activity during the The historic value of this highly prestigi­ 1930s, Aaltonen, semi-urbanized for ous but idealistic project was that the idea years, became one of its principal figures. of setting up a peasant culture foundation The local history work he had done in ( Talonspoikaiskultuurisddtio) arose among Southwest Harne for more than a decade the activists within its ranks. It was no was scaled up to a national dimension. accident that at the founding conference In 19 32 he was unexpectedly invited to in 1938, it was Esko Aaltonen who was take part in an extensive book project on elected as its chairman. The foundation the editorial staff of the Finnish Cultural was in large part his own creation and he History, (Su omen Kultuurihistoria), whose only relinquished the chair for health rea­ chairman at that time was Gunnar sons in 1964, two years before his death. Suolahti - one of the guiding lights of the The Peasant Culture Foundation comb­ local history movement of the beginning ined scientific folk research with practical of the century and Aaltonen's tutor at ideological activity. For three decades the Helsinki University. The publisher of this Finnish Local History Research Central ambitious project was the K.J. Gummerus Committee (Suomen Kotiseutututkimuksen Oy company at jyvaskyla. Keskusvaliokunta) had pursued the same Only two years later, Aaltonen became goals, but faded out in the 1930s. Thus the literary editor at Gummerus and later there was no coordinating organization in managing director until 1939. He simult­ Finland to give direction to the work on aneously oversaw an unprecedented blos­ behalf of rural culture. The Peasant soming of Gummerus' literary output and Culture Foundation was set up to fill that the beginning of the national organization vacuum. of the local history movement. One of the The primary opus as far as the society's manifestations of the spirit of the time aims were concerned, was Eino Jutikkala's was Kansatieteellinen Fi/mi Oy the Etno­ «History of the Finnish Peasant» (Suomen graphic Film Company, founded in talonpojan historia) published in 1942, Helsinki in 1936, with Aaltonen as mana­ followed by Kustaa Vilkuna's and Eino ging director until it was wound up Makinen's fine illustrated work «Our during the Winter War. His boyhood Fathers' Jobs» (Isien tyo) a year later. photographic hobby, which in fact contin­ Aaltonen's doctoral thesis «Communal ued with his studies of folk tradition, was mills of south-west Finland» was also replaced by the modern means of commu­ published in 1944. Apart from its prolific nication, the moving film. publication work the foundation also took HA N NU LAHTONEN

46 on the task in 1939 of publishing the local «thinking of the broad countryside, there history magazine, Kotiseutu. arose in our minds the primary goal of rai­ From the beginning the foundation set sing the local history ideal to the status of out to make use of its own research in a culturally based national movement.» stressing, through its practical ideological At the 1957 cultural history conference activity, that aspect of the local history Aaltonen was able to divine that «traditio­ movement whose task was to manage and nal cultural capital and the respect of its maintain old cultures: nature, village sce­ memory are beginning to become self-evi­ nery, old buildings, historic relics, traditi­ dent to the public.» onal customs and so on. Particularly in the 1960s Aaltonen' s spe­ Following the Second World War, eches represented realistic idealism. The Finland was forced to reevaluate its relati­ enormous changes wrought in society did ons with the past, present and future, in not pass by the social historian and scien­ all aspects of society. Even Kotiseutu, edi­ tist who had held a sociology professors­ ted by Aaltonen from 1947 breathed the hip at Turku University since 1951. new spirit of the times. Backward-looking local history expanded to cover nature Cultural education, the essence of which is the conservation, maintenance of local dis­ transfer of ideal cultural values form one generation tricts and rural culture generally. The to the rising generation, should have enormous sup­ foundations of modern local history rese­ port from the local history movement, if only its arch, cast by Aaltonen, began to harden. systematic exploitation is understood. But the counterflow is powerful. Paul Anka and the other LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY BECOMES pop singers have indeed sung Vainamoinen into the A COORDINATING ORGAN bog.

Much behind-the-scenes work had to be CULTURE'S KEY WORD JS done to reorganize the disparate local his­ TRADITION tory research. The Peasant Culture Foundation wanted the assistance of a The social history viewpoint is apparent national central organization. The Fund's in both Esko Aaltonen's research activities chairman, Esko Aaltonen, was in practice and almost all his other writings. He assu­ the chief architect of the reorganization of med that the key word in all culture is tra­ rural research. dition. Traditions make our social herita­ At the conference of local historians in ge, that is, our cultural heritage. It is the the local history building that Aaltonen idea, not the object itself, that creates the himself brought into being in Pirtti in tradition. Traditions are social by nature, Southwest Harne in 1949, a national and conforming to them gives us a feeling umbrella organization was set up. of security, enjoyment and spiritual back­ Aaltonen acted as deputy chairman of the bone. Individuals may fulfil themselves society for 10 years from 1951, when he only within the confines set by traditions took over as chairman until his death. and the means they allow. During the 1960s he remembered how The part played by the individual and ESKO AALTONEN - A LIFETIME OF LOCAL HISTORY

the group in folk culture was a matter of 47 special interest for Aaltonen, who stressed the influence of the social atmosphere of the community on human behaviour. He examined two aspects of the relati­ onship with the local environment, the individual psychological and the social. Nature, the buildings and other tangible objects do not, in themselves, make up the village. We have a strong feeling for our local community only when we adopt it as a personal experience and are able almost to make it a spiritual thing. The village community thus has a visible and an invi­ sible constituent. As the result of a long and complex path of progress he concluded that looking back, understanding the work of former generations, was only one of the aims of local history research, though certainly a fundamental one. Just as important is taking care of our present and our future, which we should strive to improve so that the special features of our locality, its uni­ queness is not sacrificed to some all­ embracing move towards standardization.

Translation fi"om Finnish by Joe White

Ha111w Lahtonen is a reporter ofKauppalehti (Finnish Business daily). As a grandson ofEsko Aaltonen he is one ofthe writers ofAaltonens life his­ tory (published 1993). Adr: Kauppalehti, PL 189, FIN-00101 Helsinki Fax +358-0 660383