Katmandun unet. Kirjoituksia idästä ja lännestä

Tero Tähtinen’s second collection of essays is focused physically in the wilds of a Finnish national park and Nepal – where the author (born 1978), a literary scholar and critic, has frequently travelled – and mentally in the divergences of Western and Eastern thought, which Tähtinen, who is familiar with Zen and Buddhist philosophy, studies, occasionally by means of literary examples. The ‘Socratic ego’ of the Western egocentric, individual ‘I’, which strives in vain to understand the whole of reality by rationalising it, is his favourite bête noire. Tähtinen quickens the pace of his verbal virtuosity as he discusses both dogmatic, materialistic faith in science – as well as some of its representatives – and Christian faith: he considers that both, in their pursuit of an absolute and total explanation, end up in a metaphysical vacuum. Unlike them, Eastern philosophy, in which the individual ‘I’ is not the centre and measure of all things, does not give rise to the anxiety of compulsive cognition. The virtual narcissism of Facebook, a platform tailor-made for the Socratic ego, receives Tähtinen’s outright condemnation: ‘Facebook trivialises humanity,’ he declares. At the end of these passionate essays on the author praises silence.
Translated by David McDuff

Evoluutio

This non-fiction book, intended for 8- to 14-year-olds, takes as its main character Charles Darwin, who as a child begins to ponder where people came from. Various myths about the origins of the world, achievements of European natural historians and problems of early evolutionary theorists are explored briefly but elucidatingly; they are linked to the acquisition of new knowledge as the church fathers continue to trust in the Bible. The prehistory of the Earth, evolution and natural selection, animal populations, man and his ancestors are explained with the aid of plentiful and humorous illustrations. Scientific results are interestingly presented, but a separate fact box, for example, on the structure of the cell or the nature of DNA might have been useful. In the last picture, the 200,000-year-old Homo sapiens is seen scrawling his cave paintings: ‘so long as we are genetically unique individuals, our evolution will never cease’.
Translated by Hildi Hawkins

Helene Schjerfbeck. Och jag målar ändå. Brev till Maria Wiik 1907–1928

This work contains a half of the collection of some 200 letters (owned by the Signe and Ane Gyllenberg’s foundation), until now unpublished, from artist Helene Schjerfbeck (1862–1946) to her artist friend Maria Wiik (1853–1928), dating from 1907 to 1928. They are selected and commented by the Swedish art historian Lena Holger. Schjerfbeck lived most of her life with her mother in two small towns, Hyvinge (in Finnish, Hyvinge) and Ekenäs (Tammisaari), from 1902 to 1938, mainly poor and often ill. In her youth Schjerfbeck was able to travel in Europe, but after moving to Hyvinge it took her 15 years to visit Helsinki again. In these letters she writes vividly about art and her painting, as well as about her isolated everyday life. Despite often very difficult circumstances, she never gave up her ambitions and high standards. Her brilliant, amazing, extensive series of self-portraits are today among the most sought-after north European paintings;  she herself stayed mostly poor all her long life. The book is richly illustrated with Schjerfbeck’s paintings (mainly from the period), drawings and photographs.

Tuolit, sohvat ja jakkarat. Renessanssista 1920-luvulle

Could it be that chairs are the most important pieces of furniture in our daily lives? The history of furniture in Finland – not much has survived from earlier than late 16th century – is made up of Swedish, Russian and Finnish parts. Furniture-making in the Kingdom of Sweden, of which Finland formed a part until 1809, was modelled on European trends, and that was also the case in St Petersburg – which is close to Finland – during the period when Finland became a Russian-governed Grand Duchy (1809–1917). Finnish peasant furniture has always been of high quality, despite often harsh circumstances. Finnish furniture-makers adapted both Swedish and Russian styles; for example, Empire (in England, Regency) and Biedermeier chairs were either of the Russian or the Swedish type. Gustavian furniture (c. 1775–1810), from the period of King Gustav III, was popular and abundant, and in the past decades the style has become extremely favoured by collectors. Detailed, beautiful photography in this book supports the concise, informative text. Kari-Paavo Kokki, director of Heinola City Museum, is an antiques specialist.

Herbert Lomas. Photo: Soila Lehtonen

Herbert Lomas, English poet, literary critic and translator of Finnish literature, died on 9 September, aged 87.

Born in the Yorkshire village of Todmorden, Bertie lived for the past thirty years in the small town of Aldeburgh by the North Sea in Suffolk. (Read an interview with him in Books from Finland, November 2009.)

After serving two years in India during the war, Bertie taught English first in Greece,  then in Finland, where he settled for 13 years. His translations – as well as many by his American-born wife Mary Lomas (died 1986) – were published from as early as 1976 in Books from Finland.

Bertie’s first collection of poetry (of a total of ten) appeared in 1969. His Letters in the Dark (1986) was an Observer book of the year, and he was the recipient of several literary prizes. His collected poems, A Casual Knack of Living, appeared in 2009.

In England Bertie won the Poetry Society’s 1991 biennial translation award for one of his anthologies, Contemporary Finnish Poetry. The Finnish government recognised his work in making Finnish literature better known when it made him a Knight First Class of Order of the White Rose of Finland in 1987.

To Books from Finland, he made an invaluable contribution over almost 35 years – an incredibly long time in the existence of a small literary magazine. The number of Finnish authors and poets whose work he made available in English is countless: classics, young writers, novelists, poets, dramatists.

Bertie’s speciality was ‘difficult’ poets, whose challenge lay in their use of end-rhymes, special vocabulary, rhythm or metre. He loved music, so the sounds and tones of words, their musicality, were among the things that fascinated him. Kirsi Kunnas’ hilarious, limerick-inspired children’s rhymes were among his best translations – although actually nothing in them would make the reader think that the originals might not have been written in English. A sample: There once was a crane / whose life was led / as a uniped. / It dangled its head / and from time to time said:/ It would be a pain / if I looked like a crane. (From Tiitiäisen satupuu, ‘Tittytumpkin’s fairy tree’, 1956, published in Books from Finland 1/1979.)

Bertie also translated work by Eeva-Liisa Manner, Paavo Haavikko, Mirkka Rekola, Pentti Holappa, Ilpo Tiihonen, Aaro Hellaakoski and Juhani Aho among many, many others; for example, the prolific writer Arto Paasilinna’s best-known novel, Jäniksen vuosi / The Year of the Hare, appeared in his translation in 1995. Johanna Sinisalo’s unusually (in the Finnish context) non-realist troll novel Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi / Not Before Sundown, subsequently translated into many other languages, appeared in 2003. His last translation for Books from Finland was of new poems by Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen in 2009.

It was always fun to talk with Bertie about translations, language(s), writers, books, and life in general. He himself said he was a schoolboy at heart – which is easy to believe. He was funny, witty, inventive, impulsive, sometimes impatient – and thoroughly trustworthy: he just knew how to find the precise word, tone of voice, figure of speech. He had perfect poetic pitch. As dedicated and incredibly versatile translators are really hard to find anywhere, we all realise our good fortune – both for Finnish literature and for ourselves – to have worked, and enjoyed with such enjoyment, with Bertie.

Poet Aaro Hellaakoski (1893–1956) was not a self-avowed follower of Zen, but his last poems, in particular, show surprisingly close contacts with the philosophy. ‘Secrets of existence are revealed once one ceases seeking them’, the literary scholar Tero Tähtinen wrote in an essay published alongside Bertie’s new Hellaakoski translations in (the printed) Books from Finland (2/2007). Bertie was fond of Hellaakoski, whose existential verses fascinated him; among his 2007 translations is The new song (from Vartiossa, ‘On guard’, 1941):

Kristina Carlson. Photo: Tommi Tuomi

Interview with Kristina Carlson, author of William N. Päiväkirja (‘William N. Diary’, Otava, 2011)

‘Monsieur W. Nylander had died alone, his head resting against his desk. We’d known for a long while that your beloved relative was not well, but whenever he was walking along the street and someone enquired as to his health, he always replied that he felt fit and well.’

Finnish-born Monsieur William N. lives in Paris at the end of the 19th century. The grumpy old scientist spends his days studying lichens in his small, dusty apartment and writing bitter comments in his diary about the way of the world, all things meaningless, and the glory and reputation that he never achieved.

William Nylander (born Oulu, 1822 – died Paris, 1899) is a historical figure who truly existed, and the remarks quoted above are taken from a letter sent by William’s housekeeper to his sister Elise in Finland, but other than this William’s diary is entirely the work of Kristina Carlson. The hermetic botanist has now become the protagonist of a novel written in 2011.

SL: Monsieur N. is the central character of your third novel, written in monologue form. What was it you found so fascinating about this grouchy old man that he ended up coming to life as a character in your novel?

KC: I was interested in William’s well-documented obstinacy, because it would seem that then as now both scientific and artistic success have required a certain level of social aptitude. At the very least they required good manners. William’s opinions and pronouncements are mostly my own creations, though it is true that he was very upset that even his status as a professor didn’t provide him with a decent apartment in Helsinki.

In our time, one’s social skills are almost de facto put in the spotlight. I doubt William would have had a single friend on Facebook. I wanted to examine what life must be like for such a recluse – not least because I recognise some of the same traits in myself. As I was writing, I wondered what readers might think of someone as unlikeable as William. I’m rather pleased with him because he’s also aroused a great deal of empathy, pity and even sympathy. That’s the way I reacted to him too. William was and continues to be a respected researcher, but his problematic character traits made his life very lonely.

SL: How did you come across Monsieur N.? By chance?

KC: About ten years ago I read A.G. Morton’s book A History of Botanical Science. The translated edition also contained an appendix written by Finnish researchers in the field. That’s when I first encountered Mr Nylander, a man who interested me far more because of his persona than because of his scientific achievements. So yes, it was by chance.

SL: There are conflicts and dichotomies in every one of us. Monsieur N. is an ascetic scientist with a scornful disdain of imagination, a man who from day to day subsists on milk, bread and soup but who, when given the chance, would happily tuck into a dish of braised hare and knows better than to spit in his Burgundy. He never reads novels or listens to music, but a painting by Georges Seurat makes a great impression on him. According to N., paintings are different from novels or music because ‘you don’t have to imagine them’. N. believes that Seurat’s manner of painting is ‘scientific’ because he doesn’t attempt to copy reality but breaks it up and puts it back together again; under the microscope ‘the eyes fix on the tiniest elements and in our brains we perceive their significance, their being.’ Did you consciously set out to look for William’s inherent contradictions or did his personality take shape spontaneously? How do you write when you’re trying to characterise a fictional person?

KC: Biographical information about Nylander and his life provided some material, but for the most part his character came to life in my head. When you look inside a fictional character, when you really get into their heads, the creative process is quite a spontaneous one. I didn’t need to search for dichotomies or contradictions; they arose out of William’s character all by themselves. A person with no contradictions, a ‘rounded’ character, wouldn’t be the least bit interesting. We all have conflicting impulses pulling and pushing us at the same time. We don’t necessarily notice these traits in ourselves, but in a fictional character they are far easier to pinpoint. William’s interest in good food – whenever someone else is serving it – is a manifestation of the other side of his miserly persona: the gluttonous side. In fact, many phenomena that seem so contradictory are in fact simply the other side of another aspect, and in a way they are logically linked to one another.

SL: The novel highlights the parallel natures of and the differences between art and science. Your previous novel Herra Darwinin puutarhuri (‘Mr Darwin’s gardener’, 2009) examines the right of an individual to be different within a homogenous group, in this case a small village community in Victorian England, and the extent to which this is ultimately possible. This time the setting is the crowded city of Paris, but as with the previous book, it seems that at the heart of this novel too is an examination of the price an individual must pay in order to retain his integrity against the pressures of time and society. In his final diary entry before his death, William N. comments that ‘perhaps my soul is reminiscent of a dried raisin, but I cannot hate myself, for I have no one else.’ This is a person who avoids the pursuit of ‘happiness’, but surely he too has an idea of what it is?

KC: William certainly spends time considering what happiness might be. From his perspective it is a stagnant, airless, stuffy state of being. To a great extent he equates happiness with the bourgeois high-life, something that requires certain elements that might be considered markers of respectability: a family, a house and possessions. He doesn’t seem to appreciate that happiness might be something else, a state or a peace of mind that can exist entirely independently of any external factors. Even the comfort or happiness of religion is something alien to him. William is constantly growling and grumbling. He seems anything but happy – and yet I believe that his high self-respect and the knowledge that he has retained his integrity in difficult circumstances give him a level of satisfaction. Perhaps this too is happiness, albeit of a somewhat sour kind.

Translated by David Hackston

Cornflower and ear of oats: one of the several Fabergé gemstone ornaments now owned by Queen Elizabeth of England (gold, rock crystal, diamonds, enamel, ca 18 cm)

Ulla Tillander-Godenhielm
Fabergén suomalaiset mestarit
[Fabergé’s Finnish masters]
Design: Jukka Aalto/Armadillo Graphics
Helsinki: Tammi, 2011. 271 p., ill.
ISBN 978-951-31-5878-1
€57, hardback

In its online shop, the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg sells a copy of a most delicate, enchanting little nephrite-and-opal lily of the valley that perfectly imitates nature, sitting in a vase made of rock crystal that looks like a glass of water.

These small flowers made of gold and gemstones were manufactured by the jeweller Fabergé a hundred years ago. The lily of the valley was the most frequently used floral motif in the Fabergé workshops ­–  it was the favourite flower of Empress Alexandra (1872–1918), and the imperial family was the the foremost client of the world’s foremost jeweller.

The replica (13.5 centimetres high) is available at the Hermitage as a ‘luxury gift’ for the price of mere  $3,300. (N.B. Since we published this review, the ‘luxury gift’ items seem to have disappeared from the Hermitage online shop selection, so we have removed the link. Several Fabergé egg replicas are available though, ranging in price from $200 upwards – link below.)

For those who feel the price is excessive, there is  also a rather modestly-priced little bay tree (original: gold, Siberian nephrite, diamonds, amethysts, pearls, citrines, agates and rubies as well as natural feathers, about 30 centimetres tall, featuring a little bird that emerges flapping its wings and singing when a small key is turned) at just $ 219,95. Despite its form, it is classified as one of the famous imperial Easter eggs. (However, as I write, this item is unfortunately sold out…)

In the world of the unfathomably rich, in this instance the imperial family and their circle, it was not just the obvious items  – jewellery and ornaments such as the famous Easter eggs, gifts of the family members to each other – that were made of the most precious materials. Naturally also the handles of parasols had to be loaded with diamonds, golden cigarette cases studded with rubies, thermometers made of coloured gold and jewels.

Siberian aquamarine: Albert Holmström's design of 1909. The pendant could also be used as a brooch

The last imperial family of Russia in 1914: from left, Grand Duchesses Olga and Maria, Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna, Grand Duchess Anastasia, Prince Alexey and Grand Duchess Tatyana. The elder daughters wear necklaces designed by the Finnish designer Alma Pihl

So, St Petersburg of the late 19th and early 20th century offered plenty of work for goldsmiths, clocksmiths, gem-cutters and jewellers. The most famous of them, Karl Fabergé (1847–1920), was a son of the French goldsmith Gustave Favry (Fabergé after he established a business in St Petersburg in the 1840s). Karl was well-trained and well-travelled; as the century changed, he had become the purveyor of fine jewels not only to the Tsar but also to the rulers of Sweden and Norway. He employed more than 500 people.

Fabergé’s first and closest business partner was a Finn: Hiskias Pöntinen (1823–1881, later Pendin) was originally a poor lad from the small town of Mikkeli in eastern Finland, who had come to St Petersburg to look for work. He eventually became a skilful jeweller, and it was he who taught Karl the basics of his trade.

Bolshaya Morskaya 24, 1903: Master August Hollming is in the centre of the photograph

Karl Fabergé worked with 24 goldsmiths, all of whom led their own workshops, and 14 of them were Finnish: he regarded Finns particularly skilled craftsmen as well as honest and reliable employees. The workshops were fully employed by Fabergé, and their production was sold to him exclusively.

Clock with a cockerel: Mme Beatrice Ephrussi, a heiress of the Rothschild family, gave this clock topped with a cockerel (by Mikhail Perkhin of Fabergé) to her brother as an engagement present in 1902

After the outbreak of the Revolution in late 1917 and the murder of the imperial family the following year, Fabergé’s trade was finished, and he left the country. As most of the Finnish craftsmen had no more work either, many of them  returned to their now independent homeland.

Among them was jewellery designer Alma Pihl (1888–1976). Alma’s father was the Finnish goldsmith Knut Oskar Pihl, and she was born in Moscow. She began to work in her uncle Albert Holmström’s workshop in St Petersburg and without any formal training became a skilful and remarkable Fabergé designer: a very rare career for a woman.

Alma designed many pieces of jewellery for Emanuel Nobel, the head of the Nobel oil industries, who ordered dozens of brooches, necklaces, bracelets and pendants, all decorated with Alma’s inventive ice-crystal and snowflake designs. Nobel donated them to his business associates and guests all over Europe.

The greatest achievement of her career, however, is the Winter Egg of 1913, a gift from the Tsar to his mother, the dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna: a staggering 1308 diamonds are set on the eggshell, and a further 1378 in the basket of tiny white anemones inside the egg, made of white quartz. The egg stands on a pedestal of Siberian mountain crystal. Alma’s design was excecuted by her uncle, and it was the most expensive of the 50 imperial Easter eggs made by Fabergé.

The  Revolution dispersed them all – the people, the eggs, the jewellery, the clocks and the parasols. The pictures of these priceless luxuries inevitably bring to mind the masses of people in vast old Russia: those who lived in serfdom and exploitation and whose slavery had provided the ruling class with the means to live the lives they chose.

After the Revolution, Alma and her husband had to return to Finland to find work. From 1927 until her retirement in 1951 she held a post as an arts teacher at a secondary school. She never spoke of her flourishing career as a jewellery designer in imperial St Petersburg.

A rare gem: Alma Pihl (1888–1976), Finnish self-made woman whose career at Fabergè was brilliant but short

Alma Pihl’s designs were fresh and new, inspired by Art Nouveau and modernism. It is a pity her career was cut short, writes Ulla Tillander-Godenhielm, an art historian who is herself a Finnish goldsmith of the fourth generation. Her book, which is an edited version of an earlier work – Fabergé, a limited edition published in 2008. Fabergén suomalaiset mestarit concentrates on the craftspeople who designed and manufactured the objects which were realised with the buyers’ unlimited financial resources – an Easter egg might require the work of one man for a whole year.

3,046 diamonds: the Winter Egg (platinum, gold, rock crystal, moonstone, white quartz, nephrite, demantoid granates, ca 14 cm, 1913) was an Easter present from the Tsar to his mother

Tillander-Godenhielm points out that Finnish goldsmithing benefited greatly from the skill and experience of the tradespeople who moved to Finland after the Revolution. The art of jewellery that flourished in St Petersburg and was passed on by apprenticeship became practiced in Finland, too.

Fabergén suomalaiset mestarit is a thoroughly well-researched, handsomely illustrated, beautifully printed work. (An English-language version would probably find an interested  readership.) It turns the spotlight on to the numerous anonymous hands that made so many precious objects for emperors and lesser princes – and not just Finnish hands; the book offers a wealth of information about the turbulent years of the late 19th and early 20th century when money was no obstacle, and when the lack of it set the world on fire.

Most of Fabergé’s artefacts disappeared from Russia. Some of the now incredibly expensive and coveted collectors’ items have also now returned to Russia – after the years of Revolution and the Soviet Union. Alma Pihl’s magnificent Winter Egg is now owned by a private collector in Qatar.

Kristian Smeds is awarded the XII Europe Prize of New Theatrical Realities in St Petersburg on 17 April, presented by a previous prize-winner, Italian theatremaker Pippo Delbono. Photo: rossetti/phocusagency

Theatremaker Kristian Smeds (born 1970) was awarded the XII Europe Theatre Prize for New Theatrical Realities in St Petersburg on 17 April. The prize, worth 30,000 euros, was – this time – divided between six prominent theatremakers or theatre groups. (For more information, see the Premio Europa website.)

The international prize jury consists of representatives of many institutions of the field. Since 1986 the main prize, the Europe Theatre Prize (worth 60,000 euros), has been awarded to 14 European theatremakers considered influential – among them, the directors and/or writers Ariane Mnouchkine, Peter Brook, Heiner Müller, Lev Dodin, Harold Pinter, and now, the German director Peter Stein.

Since 1986, six of these Europe prizes have gone to Italy and Germany each, four to France, and, for example, none to any Nordic countries. The focus has evidently been on the theatre of southern and central Europe, which is where the most important theatre festivals take place; theatremakers from the edges of Europe find it  difficult to make the journey there, to be seen and noticed. It is obvious, though, to anyone in the business, that ‘prizeworthy’ theatre does not come only from the European heartlands.

The jury finally seems to have woken up to this (theatrical) reality, as Iceland and Finland were now among the prize-winners. (Kristian Smeds had been on the proposals list since 2001.)

Smeds’s latest work, a stage adaptation of a Paul Auster novel, Mr Vertigo (for more on the subject, see ‘Is it a novel, is it a play?’), produced by the Finnish National Theatre, premiered last autumn, travelled to St Petersburg and was shown twice at the Baltic House Theatre in the course of the Prize festivities and the Russian Accent theatre programme. Despite a the lack of simultaneous interpretation (mission impossible, as the audience sits mostly on the revolving stage), Mr Vertigo was universally appreciated.

The other recipients of the (shared) prize were the directors Viliam Dočolomanský (Slovak / Czech Republic), Katie Mitchell (UK) and Andrey Moguchiy (Russia) and the theatres Vesturport (Iceland) and Meridional (Portugal).

Walt the Wonder Boy: Tero Jartti as Walt in Mr Vertigo (the Finnish National Theatre, 2010, directed by Kristian Smeds). Photo: Antti Ahonen

A book on the process of transforming Auster’s novel for the stage, Lentoharjoituksia. Mr Vertigon matka näyttämölle (‘Flying rehearsals. The journey of Mr Vertigo onto the stage’ [in Finnish only]) was published in a new series of works by the Finnish National Theatre and the publisher Kirja kerrallaan. It includes a foreword by Kristian Smeds, the play text, rehearsal notes by critic Kirsikka Moring and an afterword by the editor of the book, Aina Bergroth, on Paul Auster’s writing.

Short samples of original music from Mr Vertigo available here, by Verneri Pohjola’s jazz trio.

On the way to fame: Walt the Wonder Boy in Kristian Smeds's stage adaptation of Paul Auster's novel Mr. Vertigo at the Finnish National Theatre (2010). Photo: Antti Ahonen

Dramatisations of novels are tricky. Finnish theatremakers like adapting novels for the stage, which often results in a lot of talking instead of action – and action here doesn’t refer to just physical movement but to the subtext, to what happens under and behind the words.

Currently an adaptation of an American novel is running on the main stage of the Finnish National Theatre in Helsinki. Mr Vertigo (1994), Paul Auster’s seventh book, tells the story of an orphan boy in the 1930s St Louis. After harsh years as the long-suffering apprentice of the mysterious Master Yehudi, Walt becomes the sensational Wonder Boy by learning how to levitate.

In theatremaker Kristian Smeds’s adaptation, Auster’s whimsical, rambling novel becomes a capricious, illusory journey about illusions, freedom, and the unattainability of love. Walt (the highly expressive, athletic Tero Jartti) interprets, with hilarious comedy as well as with touching desperation, both the dizzyingly powerful experience of creativity and the ridiculous hubris of the artist.

The spectators find themselves spending most of the evening on the benches of the revolving stage or around it, claustrophobically shut in by the heavy iron curtain – at times in mere candlelight, wheeled along to the capriciously flowing, cool yet sensual tunes of a live jazz band.

Auster’s story contains violence, death and departures, so the last scene becomes drenched with melancholy – until the grand finale does away with all grief, as the Wonder Boy appears, flying high up above the second gallery, cavorting and diving graciously, weightlessly, joyously in the air! Miracles do happen – in the theatre at least, and this play just couldn’t do without them. People leave the theatre smiling, with sort of a misty gaze in their eyes…

The venerable 111-year old venue becomes a weird universe of illusions, the deserted auditorium filling occasionally with surreal visions and lights. It is as if the theatre itself were one of the characters of this journey into the story, peopled with a range of quite un-Austerian characters – dead Finnish actresses, for example. Smeds (born 1970) is known to be fond of meta-theatre and uninhibited trickstery.

Mr Vertigo will travel to St Petersburg in April to a theatre festival where its appeal to international audiences will be tested.

Sofi Oksanen wrote a play entitled Puhdistus (Purge) that was premiered at the National Theatre in Helsinki in 2007. The following year she published a novel with the same title: in considerably more words, it painted a much richer, detailed and rounded picture of the story. Could it be said that in this case the novel was an ‘adaptation’ of the play?

It is 1992, Estonia: old Aliide Truu lives in a small cottage. In the past she has experienced the horrors of the Stalin era and the deportation of Estonians to Siberia. A young woman appears in her yard, having escaped from the claws of the Russian mafia who held her as a sex slave. It turns out that Zara is Aliide’s grand-niece, and Aliide now has to come to terms with her past, to cope with the guilt of opportunism, even manslaughter. The sombre narrative is written in a richly detailed and eidetic style.

The novel has received a dizzying number of literary prizes, both in Finland and abroad. It has been sold into 34 countries. The original play has been staged in various countries. Half-Estonian, half-Finnish Oksanen (born 1977) has toured the world witnessing the success of Purge.

Purge was premiered at the prestigious La MaMa Theatre in New York City on 11 February, directed and staged by Zishan Ugurlu, translated by Eva Buchwald. This was the first time a Finnish play has been produced on a professional stage in New York.

Off-Off-Broadway shows don’t necessarily get a lot of coverage in the press; Purge was reviewed in few publications. Mitch Montgomery (Backstage) felt the production was uneven and ‘feels too shoddily staged for the script’s impact to register fully’, and that the set was preventing ‘full immersion in Oksanen’s weighty story at every turn’. TimeOut NYC critic said ‘the play demands solemnity, but the ham-fisted production often left me stifling giggles.’ Some spectators have expressed their confusion about the turns of the plot.

Perhaps the play’s historical and political milieu – 20th-century Estonia –  was difficult to grasp, on both sides of the footlights. In this respect there were no problems in Estonia, Finland or Sweden. However, Purge will continue travelling, staged by other theatremakers, seen by new audiences.

Master Yehudi (Jukka-Pekka Palo, left) training Walt the Wonder Boy (Tero Jartti): Paul Auster's novel Mr. Vertigo adapted and directed by Kristian Smeds at the Finnish National Theatre. Photo: Antti Ahonen

Click here for short samples of Verneri Pohjola and his band’s music for Kristian Smeds’s Mr Vertigo.

Pikku Nunuun löytöretki

Petra Heikkilä (born 1976) is a visual artist and author. Her debut title, an illustrated children’s book entitled Mikko Kettusen pupupöksyt (‘Micky Fox’s bunny pants’, 2001), was nominated for the Finlandia Junior prize in 2001. Heikkilä’s practice of portraying children as animal characters is based on their facial expressions – particularly their luminous eyes. Typical features of all eight of her picture books  published so far include a warm sense of humour, wordplay and the use of collage techniques in the illustrations. At the centre of this tale set in Africa is a kanga cloth, which can be twisted and wound in a variety of ways, and Nunuu, a little lion girl who learns about the inventive uses for kanga. The rich image textures utilise collage and photographs, as well as characters painted on Ugandan barkcloth.
Translated by Ruth Urbom

Hulda kulta, luetaan iltasatu!

Since 1996, illustrator Markus Majaluoma (born 1961) has written and illustrated 17 children’s books. His picture books have been translated into six languages. In this, the third book of its series, Jalmari reads a bedtime story chosen by his strong-willed baby daughter Hulda – one that they’ve read a hundred times before, children being famously conservative in this regard. In the story, a wasp stings a bear. Jalmari falls asleep, but as clever little Hulda knows how the story ends, there will be a surprise for the snoring dad. The stripped-down little narrative is fleshed out with plenty of details in Majaluoma’s highly original illustrations (the wasp playfully stings with its snout) often standing in humorous counterpoint to the text, an amusing bonus for the adult reading it as a bedtime story.
Translated by Ruth Urbom

Adam and Eve, or the elephants: Osmo Rauhala’s sketch of The Fall of Man. As the bull eats the apple, evil rises from the ground in the form of a plant with eyes: a ‘misbreed’, a cross of two species alien to each other

Kuutti Lavonen – Osmo Rauhala – Pirjo Silveri
Tyrvään Pyhän Olavin kirkko – sata ja yksi kuvaa /
St Olaf’s Church in Tyrvää – One Hundred and One Paintings
Toim. / Edited by Pirjo Silveri
Translations: Silja Kudel, Jüri Kokkonen
Helsinki: Kirjapaja, 2010. 143 p., ill.
ISBN 978-952-247-103-1
€44.30, hardback

The old shingle roof of the early 16th-century stone church of St Olaf in Tyrvää, in the province of Pirkanmaa, southern Finland, was repaired by village volunteers in 1997. Three weeks after they completed their work, a drunken arsonist set the church on fire.

An atmosphere destroyed: the 18th-century wooden interior of St Olaf before the fire of 1997

The 18th-century master painter Andreas Löfmark had decorated the wooden panels of the gallery with portraits of the Apostles, images of the Passion of Christ and a portrayal of the Last Judgement.

Valued as a treasure of national importance, the whole interior, including the Löfmark paintings and the newly repaired roof, vanished into thin air.

But the local community and its volunteers didn’t give up: six years later the wooden interior, hand-carved, was rebuilt. Architect Ulla Rahola was responsible for the design of the reconstruction work.

The parish board made a decision to commission new paintings, following figurative style of the the original pictorial scheme. The interior committee invited two eminent artists, Kuutti Lavonen and Osmo Rauhala, to join the project, working with a group of assistants. The materials had to be carefully researched and tested, as there is no heating in the stone church, and humidity and temperatures vary enormously.

It took the artists five years to finish the job: 101 panels were painted, 29 by Lavonen and 79 by Rauhala.

After the fire: following completion of the restoration with its hand-carved wooden fixtures, St Olaf was reconsecrated in 2003

Tyrvään Pyhän Olavin kirkko – sata ja yksi kuvaa/ St Olaf’s church in Tyrvää –  One Hundred and One Paintings tells the story of the painstaking process of renovation.

When the artist Osmo Rauhala (born 1957) began planning his pictorial scheme for St Olaf, the Story of Creation and the birth of life, he found himself engaged in a dialogue with the contemporary world and the scientific explanation of life; his images ‘allude to the big bang theory (or the Creation of Light), the role of DNA and the creation of the animal kingdom. The theme of the pulpit, In the Beginning Was the Word, poses the question: might the first word have been DNA? I am not speculating as to who created DNA. Perhaps God created DNA as the first word.’

The sixth day by Osmo Rauhala: the beasts of the earth and the large mammals were created. The Birth of Milk (oil on wood, 60 x 30 cm)

The seven paintings in Rauhala’s the Story of Creation have a common motif: an eye. But after deciding not to include any human figures in his work, he found himself facing the problem of how to depict the appearance of humankind.

For the panel portraying the sixth day Rauhala painted a doe with her calf and called it The Birth of Milk, as ‘a deer is a mammal just like we are’. Rauhala is known for his paintings of animals –  deer in particular.

According to him, modern science theorises precisely the same order as the book of Genesis: ‘first came water organisms and fish, then reptiles and birds and finally land-dwelling animals and mammals, with humans last of all.’

Rauhala chose to portray the Creation of Man on the Seventh Day by depicting wet human footprints, on a beach, suggesting the evolutionary transition from water to land: the first man pauses to stand on the sand and honour God’s day of rest.

The seventh day by Osmo Rauhala: Man stands on the beach, respecting God’s work (oil on wood, 60 x 30 cm)

The Fall of Man was another problem. The 18th-century church painter Mikael Toppelius had placed an elephant in his painting of the Fall in Haukipudas church. Rauhala sees the elephant as an intelligent creature, a denizen of Eden, and capable of using its trunk like a hand: ‘it is a biological fact that the cow elephant attracts the bull by offering fruit.’

If Rauhala is an animal painter, the graphic artist and painter Kuutti Lavonen (born 1960) has gained his fame for his bold human (and angel) figures, faces in particular.

His method in St Olaf’s included sketching his compositions on the primed pine panels in red chalk. ‘I believe in the power of imagery. I use the cross motif as a contemporary artist does, more as a symbol than a concrete object. – The cross is a powerful symbol – so potent that its mere shadow makes an impact.’

Lavonen has long been drawing inspiration from the legends of the saints and the archangels. In St Olaf, however, there is only one panel depicting heavenly figures.

Lavonen’s colour scheme includes red and black; again a strong contrast to Rauhala’s muted colours. The turqoise base was made with the mixture of yellow ochre and Prussian blue and used throughout in the woodwork.

Human suffering by Kuutti Lavonen: ‘Veronica wipes the face of Jesus’ (tempera on wood, 79 x 59cm)

Both artists had the content of each painting approved by the supervising committee, mainly consisting of theologians and art historians, and Lavonen says that he and his colleague were given ‘a great amount of artistic freedom’. Rauhala’s elephants caused no disagreement.

The Last Judgement was the most difficult work for Lavonen to conceptualise – and it posed a serious challenge for the committee. Lavonen’s second sketch depicted a female figure holding a set of scales and a lily. Lavonen explained that this would make the viewer to consider justice, or grace: is it better to pass judgement or show mercy?

In medieval church art the Last Judgement is depicted as the moment of rebirth; the female figure was a topic of debate, too. In the third version and final painting there is a lily and  a dove, symbolising the Holy Spirit, descending upon the scales, but not tipping them.

‘Man is not the measure of all things – we must see our rightful place in the ecosystem, which the lily represents as flora, the bird as fauna’, says Lavonen. ‘I wanted to include the plant and animal kingdoms…. Man is not the king of all creation, but equal with everything else.’

The sun also rises: Osmo Rauhala’s sun appears to ascend from the altar as the viewer approaches down the aisle

The handsome book gives the reader an informative and interesting acccount of this rare project of artistic creativity, both spiritual and physical commitment and willpower. The numerous photographs, as well as the carefully constructed layout by graphic designer Ville Heinonen introduce the project in its entirety.

For someone who is not able to assess these new works of sacred art from a religious point of view, Rauhala’s two-dimensional, serene paintings, untouched by signs of human suffering, appear  to have a mythical, mystical and universal quality in their profoundly rich symbolism. Inspired by Italian Renaissance and Baroque painters (he is currently writing a thesis on Bernardo Cavallino), Lavonen seems to interpret this suffering through a deeply personal, emotional language of powerful contrasts, with colours of blood and tortured flesh.

An atmosphere restored: the resurrected form of St Olaf in 2009, complete with the artwork by Kuutti Lavonen and Osmo Rauhala

There certainly are impressive stories told in these pictures, for any visitor to this small, beautiful medieval church, with or without Christian faith.

From Catholic to Lutheran: St Olaf (1506–1516) was consecrated by the last Catholic bishop of Turku; it became a Lutheran church in the early 17th century

The extraordinary contrast created by the approaches of two very different artists makes the reader want to go and witness it – the beginning and the end –  with his or her own eyes.

Parvekejumalat

The theme of this novel is delicate and still largely silenced: the collision between the cultures of Muslim immigrants and the local population. Immigration into historically homogeneous Finland is a comparatively newer phenomenon than in many other European countries. Like other teenage girls, the Somali girl Anis dreams about partying, boys and a future, which completely deviaties from the customs and ideals of her patriarchal Muslim family. Her counterpart, the Finnish girl Alla, wishes to convert to Islam, because she has found herself suffering at home from the consequences of Western ‘freedom’ and is left with a feeling of devastating insecurity. Islamic culture’s halal and haram (strictly ‘good’ and ‘bad’) crushes or is crushed in Finnish life. The provocative contrasts and solutions presented in Snellman’s novel (her 19th) appear occasionally overemphasised. In defending the right of women to determine their own lives, Snellman (born 1954) deals Anis an extraordinarily tragic fate.

Kalevala Guide

This book is a brief but comprehensive English-language guide to the Finnish national epic, which was based on the archaic oral, sung folk poetry of Karelia, but collected and personally compiled by the scholar and writer Elias Lönnrot (1802–1884). The epic (first edition 1839, complemented in 1849) is set in a mythic past; technically speaking, the metre is an unrhymed, non-strophic trochaic tetrametre, characterised by alliteration. Contents, characters, places and themes are explained in the Guide, which also explores myths of origin and the significance of the epic. On his eleven trips to Archangel and North Karelia, Lönnrot met some 70 singers. The Kalevala, now translated, at least in part, into more than 60 languages, has inspired artists the world over (J.R.R. Tolkien was a fan, while Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Hiawatha imitates the metre and style of the Kalevala). The composer Jean Sibelius and the artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela are perhaps the best known Finnish Kalevala artists. And the inspiration continues: for instance, rock musicians and visual artists make use of Kalevala themes, stories and characters in their work. The book includes a list of relevant websites and a select bibliography.

Lasinkirkas, hullunrohkea. Aila Meriluodon elämästä ja runoudesta

Aila Meriluoto (born 1924) is a poet, author and translator whose first collection of poems, entitled Lasimaalaus (‘Stained glass’), sold  more than 25,000 copies in 1946. She became a celebrity of her time, as her young, fresh voice expressed post-symbolist visions and, after the long, cruel years of the war, spoke defiantly about the death of God. Hailed as a youthful prodigy, she was favoured by the dominant poet and professor of literature, V.A. Koskenniemi. Meriluoto has published ten collections of poems, as well as novels, children’s books, diaries, memoirs, and a book about her first husband, the poet and author Lauri Viita (1916–1965). She has translated works by Rainer Maria Rilke, Harry Martinson and Astrid Lindgren. This biography tends to concentrate on the writer’s personal history rather than on her works. The author and scholar Panu Rajala and Meriluoto became acquainted in the 1970s, and he calls his biography  ‘a subjective testimonial’. Rajala has written plays, novels and film scripts as well as biographies, among them one of the classic author Mika Waltari (1908–1979).