Johanna Laakso

The Language of the People, or a Language for the People? On the Literarisation of the Vernaculars in Finland and

1 . Background: Before the Reformation

In Finland and the Baltic countries, proper historical documentation begins in the Middle Ages, together with the annexation of these countries by the neighbouring power spheres from the 12th–13th centuries: the emerging kingdom of Sweden in the West, the Teutonic Order which, partly together with the kingdom of Den- mark, colonised the Baltic countries – and with the conflicts between all of these and the emerging power of Novgorodian Russia . These political developments split the originally homogeneous Finnic language area into three part according to the three sides of the Gulf of Finland (the same way as political developments have split the Continental Germanic language area into Dutch and German) . The northern Finnic dialects in the area annexed to Sweden came to be called Finnish, while the southern varieties spoken in the German-colonised area developed into Estonian (and the quickly receding Livonian) . The remaining Finnic language varieties came into (or remained in) the Russian power sphere (first Novgorod, then Moscow) and thus had no chance of developing a native literacy 1. Prior to these colonisation processes there were, thus, no ethno-linguistic units corresponding to today’s Estonia and Finland . The German and Danish conquerors in today’s Estonia met the resistance of several petty kingdoms and local “kings” . Until the 20th century, both administrative and dialect boundaries divided today’s Estonia into North and South, and until the 19th century a Southern (Tartu) ­literary language competed with the Northern () variety . For Finland, there is even less documentation as to whether and how the Pre-Christian societies were organised, but even in the 16th century, the different Finnic varieties spoken in today’s Finland were called different “languages”, and the expression “the Finnish language” (suomen kieli) only referred to the dialect of Southwestern Finland, the Turku region . In his preface to the first Finnish translation of the New Testament

1 In the Russian Orthodox Church, there were no institutional developments comparable to the Refor- mation in the West that would have encouraged the use of vernacular languages alongside or instead of Church Slavonic . Some isolated texts (beginning with the Novgorod birch bark letter No . 292 from the 13th century, probably a magic formula written in an Eastern Finnic language) have been preserved or are mentioned in older sources . However, the first modest attempts at the literarisation of Karelian only began in the 19th century, and for the other Eastern Finnic minority languages, only after the October Revolution or even later . 200 Johanna Laakso in 1548, Michael Agricola uses the word “language” (kieli) for the different dialects of today’s Finland:2

Now finally, although these peoples have manifold languages or ways of speaking, so that each of these provinces somehow “twists” the language of another, yet this whole diocese is called Finland (Suomi), which is like a mother to the other provinces . Because she first became Christian, and here in Turku is the main church and the seat of the bishop . For this reason, in these books of the New Testament the Finnish language is mostly used . And also, whenever need be, other languages, sayings and words have been included . And it is no wonder that in this diocese there are so many ways of speaking . Because, although this whole land of Finland is one diocese, it is still divided into seven duchies or provinces [ . . ] So that this land and this diocese has so many provinces and ways with language, because with each people of this country certain characteristic sayings and ways of speaking are practised differently . (Translation J .L .)

On the other hand, the boundaries between vernacular languages were probably seen in a different way . In the Baltic countries, the local native languages, ­whether (North or South) Estonian, Livonian or Latvian, were all traditionally called undeutsch (“un-German”), and the German-speaking elite probably was not very much interested in the diversity covered by this label . In his famous historical novel Kolme katku vahel (‘Between three plagues’, first published in 19693), the Estonian author stages a conversation between his protagonist, the 16th-century Estonian chronicler Balthasar Russow, and a German university professor in Ger- many . The professor has heard that Russow is of “un-German” descent and expects him to understand the local Slavic idiom; only later is he informed that the lan- guage of the un-Germans in Estonia is completely different .

Oh. I thought that all peoples east of the Germans are Slavs: the Wends and the Kashubs here in Pomerania and there in your Estonians likewise. And when you told me that you’ve never known a single word in Slavic, I thought that you’re just a shit-licker like those we have here – I’m thinking of our Pomeranian Wendish boys who are so eager to cram their Slav bottoms into German pants that after 200 years they will be there up to their ears – instead of mending their Wendish rags and remaining themselves. Well. And today, my old friend Krumhusen comes and says: I just talked on the street with that student of yours, that Rissaw from Tallinn... And then we start talking about Livonia, and suddenly, I hear that the un-Germans there are of a completely different kind... (Translation J .L .)

(Kross lets his German professor criticise the Slavs who are eager to get rid of their language and identity . Of course, this whole passage reflects an Estonian intellectual’s experiences in the 1960s: belonging to an ethnic minority which the Western world can only – erroneously – associate with the Russian language and culture, and to an empire in which many other peoples or ethnic groups are much

2 The greatest part of the Old Literary Finnish text material that has survived until our days is availa- ble online in the Old Literary Finnish corpus (Vanhan kirjasuomen korpus) of the Institute for the Languages of Finland: http://kaino .kotus .fi/korpus/vks/meta/vks_coll_rdf xml. (02 .11 .2014) . All examples quoted here were taken from this corpus . 3 The novel has been translated into German Das( Leben des Balthasar Russow), Polish (Trzy bicze czarnej śmierci czyli Opowieść o Baltazarze Russowie), Russian (Между тремя поветриями), and Finnish (Uppiniskaisuuden kronikka) .