Changing Scenes Encounters Between European and Finnish Fin De Siècle
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Changing Scenes Encounters between European and Finnish Fin de Siècle Edited by Pirjo Lyytikäinen Studia Fennica Litteraria The Finnish Literature Society (SKS) was founded in 1831 and has, from the very beginning, engaged in publishing operations. It nowadays publishes literature in the fields of ethnology and folkloristics, linguistics, literary research and cultural history. The first volume of the Studia Fennica series appeared in 1933. Since 1992, the series has been divided into three thematic subseries: Ethnologica, Folkloristica and Linguistica. Two additional subseries were formed in 2002, Historica and Litteraria. The subseries Anthropologica was formed in 2007. In addition to its publishing activities, the Finnish Literature Society maintains research activities and infrastructures, an archive containing folklore and literary collections, a research library and promotes Finnish literature abroad. Studia fennica editorial board Anna-Leena Siikala Rauno Endén Teppo Korhonen Pentti Leino Auli Viikari Kristiina Näyhö Editorial Office SKS P.O. Box 259 FI-00171 Helsinki www.finlit.fi Changing Scenes Encounters between European and Finnish Fin de Siècle Edited by Pirjo Lyytikäinen Finnish Literature Society • Helsinki 3 Studia Fennica Litteraria 1 The publication has undergone a peer review. The open access publication of this volume has received part funding via Helsinki University Library. © 2003 Pirjo Lyytikäinen and SKS License CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International A digital edition of a printed book first published in 2003 by the Finnish Literature Society. Cover Design: Timo Numminen EPUB: eLibris Media Oy ISBN 978-951-746-439-0 (Print) ISBN 978-952-222-990-8 (PDF) ISBN 978-952-222-768-3 (EPUB) ISSN 0085-6835 (Studia Fennica) ISSN 1458-5278 (Studia Fennica Litteraria) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21435/sflit.1 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. To view a copy of the license, please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ A free open access version of the book is available at http://dx.doi. org/10.21435/sflit.1 or by scanning this QR code with your mobile device. Foreword Contents FOREWORD . 7 Pirjo Lyytikäinen THE ALLURE OF DECADENCE French reÁ ections in a Finnish looking glass . 12 Riikka Rossi FINNISH NATURALISMS Entropy in Finnish Naturalism . 31 Viola Parente-ÿapková FREE LOVE, MYSTICAL UNION OR PROSTITUTION? The dissonant love stories of L. Onerva . 54 Jyrki Nummi BETWEEN TIME AND ETERNITY K. A. Tavaststjerna’s Barndomsvänner. 85 Päivi Molarius “WILL THE HUMAN RACE DEGENERATE?” The individual, the family and the fearsome spectre of degeneracy in Finnish literature of the late 19th and early 20th century . 121 Vesa Haapala I AM FIRE AND WATER Self and modernity in Edith Södergran’s “Vierge moderne” (1916) . 143 Leena Kaunonen THE FEMININE IN PAAVO HAAVIKKO’S WINTER PALACE. 169 Auli Viikari POETICS OF NEGATION. 191 CONTRIBUTORS . 218 5 Foreword 6 Foreword Foreword he late 19th and early 20th century was a period of dynamic T modernisation and internationalisation in Finnish literature and art. So ci e ty be came more outward-looking, though the existence, as a na- tion, of the Grand Duchy still politically tied to Russia was threatened by tsarist attempts at RussiÀ cation. Writers and artists travelled to Paris and Ber lin and im mersed themselves in European culture, their aim be ing to play a closer role in international cultural debate. Whereas the available resources had previously been channelled into laying the foun da tions of a national cul ture, artists and writers were now keen to cap ture the spirit of the times by adopting the new contemporary trends. They were eager to avoid the dangers of backwardness and isolation at a time when cul ture was driv en by a greater inner impetus than ever be fore, despite the growing external threat. The past century had seen sweeping changes. Until the 19th century, there was no Finnish culture to speak of in the demanding sense of the word: before that, the culture in Finland was for the most part that of Sweden, apart from the folk culture existing in oral form. The de vel - op ment of a speciÀ cally Finnish national culture got under way in earnest in the course of the 19th century, but not until the end of the century did culture in Finnish really À nd its feet. The stimulus for this was provided by Finland’s annexation to Russia. When Finland became an Au ton o mous Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire in 1809, it was forced to rethink its status. Swedish dominated the former province of Sweden almost entirely at that time, even though the ordinary people spoke most ly only Finnish. Under the new regime, people were, however, receptive to the national- ist ideals borrowed primarily from Germany. The Finns had no wish to become Russians, there was no reverting to Swedish dom i nance, and the only way to become a nation was by integrating the ed u cat ed circles and the common folk. The creation of a national culture in Finnish became the goal of Finland’s educated Swedish speakers. Al though the collection and publication of the priceless treasures of folk poetry in Finnish provided the stimulus for and faith in the national project, the work was slow and the country poor, worn down by repeated famines and watched over by the sometimes stern eye of Russia. Not until the closing decades of the 19th century did the situation take a decisive turn for the better. 7 Foreword In training an educated class that now spoke Finnish, the school sys tem gradually created a wider readership for literature in this language. Mean- while, linguistic antagonism was driving Finnish and Swedish speak ers into opposing camps, and literature in Finnish and Swedish began to grow apart. At around the turn of the century, Swedish speakers found themselves on the national periphery, and for them, cosmopolitanism and contacts abroad took the place of nationalist zeal. A rift emerged between Finnish culture in Swedish and nationalist cul ture in Finnish. K. A. Tavaststjerna, a prominent Finnish writer in Swed ish, joined the ranks of the realists and described re la tions between the na tion at large and the educated classes as prob lem at ic. He was nev er the less over shad owed in Finnish-speaking circles by the leading writers in Finnish. Literature in Finnish became more international during the period of realism and naturalism in the 1880s, in line with contemporary trends in France and the Nordic countries. Even so, the political lobby on behalf of Finnish left such a strong mark on cultural life that the literature coloured by Naturalistic strivings was in many cases read in the spirit of na tion - al ism. The earlier description of the people that was part of the pro-Finnish ethos in a way maintained its position and was enriched by portrayals of the urban working class, but the tone and the emphasis shifted. Descrip- tions of the middle-class, often petty-bourgeois milieu now began to enter literature in Finnish, too. Writers set about analysing relations within the family and between the individual and society, and pointing out social evils. Of the realists, Minna Canth to a great extent turned her attention to the workers and small-town bourgeoisie: the posi tion of women and social injustice are themes running through her work. By contrast, Juhani Aho sought to live up to the role of national writer bestowed upon him by placing his characters in a rural Finnish setting, in the heart of the Finnish countryside, even when his themes had noth ing to do with the national project. The conÁ ict between mod ern and pre-mod ern is already raging in the works of Aho: it threatens the rustic idyll and the rural way of life as the epit o me of the Finnish ethos and allows as pects of French Naturalism to creep into his ac counts. By the dawn of the new century, literature in Finnish had become both national and more pan-European than ever. Writers, like other art ists, had lively foreign contacts, and literature was closely inÁ uenced or produced in dialogue with international trends. On the other hand, the transition from realism to new, symbolistic modes of expression and ways of think- ing stressing the internal or intellectual rather than the ex ter nal and social paved the way in novel fashion for history and myth, and hence for the use of the national past or mythology. The national themes were further fuelled by the political situation. The position of autonomous Finland as a Russian dominion came under greater pressure when the striving to strengthen the Finnish national iden ti ty began to be regarded by the Russians as a threat rather than as a means of sever- ing Finland from Swedish inÁ uence, and when the nation al ist movements in Russia set about Russifying all the nations in the Empire. In reaction to this, the nationalist movement in Finland and the search for national 8 Foreword symbols grew stronger. The roots of the Finnish na tion were now sought in Karelia, the eastern periphery idealised by the Finns and home of the poetry that went to make up the national epic, the Kalevala. For here, it was assumed, the true Finnish ethos was still alive. This initially nostal- gic Karelianism nevertheless soon gave way to art uniting the national and the universal in which the emphasis on ‘Finnish’ could be combined with contemporary international trends. The Sym bol ism born in France, seeking a more profound reality by allegorical means rather than giving realistic, everyday descriptions was well suited for this purpose.