The Guggenheim Foundation's global network of museums

What does Helsinki need? Bread and circuses, yes, but at what cost the latter?

In January – after a study that cost the Finns a couple of million euros – the Salomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (est. 1937) indicated that it was favourably inclined toward the construction of a new art museum, bearing its name, in Helsinki. The leaders of Helsinki city council are aiming to make a positive decision as soon as possible.

The cost of the building, whose site adjoins the Presidential Palace in central Helsinki, is estimated at 130–140 million euros, with design costs of about 11 million euros. Unlike in the case of Berlin, no existing building is considered suitable; instead, an architectural dream must be realised, with plenty of wow-factor.

Its mere maintenance costs will be around 14.5 million euros a year. It has been estimated that the Helsinki Guggenheim’s income could be 7.7 million a year. In addition, a 20-year Guggenheim licence costs 24.6 million euros.

The project has provoked widely differing reactions. Proponents of the project believe that the Guggenheim brand would bring thousands of new visitors to Helsinki and that half a million people would visit it each year. Opponents doubt this, speak of a ‘Guggenburger’ franchising concept and of the fact that not even the existing art museums of Helsinki are particularly crowded.

The odd thing is, however, that the basic demographic differences between Helsinki and, say, Bilbao – where the Guggenheim museum has been a big success – are constantly ignored in the discussions: the population of Spain is almost 50 million and another 50 million visitors go there every year, while the corresponding figures for this most northerly part of Europe are five million inhabitants and visitors.

In Bilbao, moreover, there was no museum of contemporary art before the advent of the Guggenheim; Helsinki, on the other hand, opened Kiasma, a new museum of contemporary art (165,000 visitors in 2010) in 1998 and the neighbouring city of Espoo its Emma museum of modern art (82,000 visitors in 2010) in 2006.

Economic prospects on any level now offer little hope. The Finnish government, in the shape of the ministry of culture, has just cut grants to state-aided museums by three  million euros – the Museum of Cultures in Helsinki, for example, is closing its doors, and some 40 of the museum staff elsewhere will be sacked. The government is not promising any money to the Guggenheim.

How, then, to fund an annual deficit of 7 million euros? Finland does not have a great supply of art-minded millionaire sponsors, and no one has so far made any concrete offers on how to fund this project.

The Guggenheim Foundation itself is not taking any financial risks with this project. Neither has it announced in any detail what sort of art will feature in the museum’s temporary exhibitions.

People who live in the city are more preoccupied with, for example, the shortcomings of the health services: there are waiting lists for everything, often of many weeks, and the old university children’s hospital has outgrown its present space. There are cuts and shrinkages yet to come in the spending structure of  the country as a whole and of Helsinki – civil servants themselves estimate that the city’s budget is not sufficient to cover even the upkeep of basic services.

To judge by the public debate, the deep ranks of Helsinki taxpayers do not want a new monument, one for which it will be necessary to pay – in addition to maintenance – more than a million euros a year to an American brand for the mere use of its name, for more than 20 years.

Do the people of Helsinki wish to begin to pay additional taxes for the revival, yet again, of the age-old dream of guaranteeing Finland ‘a place on the world map’, in a situation where economic difficulties are a matter of everyday life for increasing numbers of them? (We believe, incidentally, that Finland already has an appropriate place on the world map.) Will their opinion be asked, or heard?

Two tax collectors: anonymous painter, after Marinus van Reymerswaele (ca. 1575–1600). Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy. Wikimedia

In Finland, tax returns are public information. So, every November the media publish lists of the top earners in Finland, dividing them into the categories of earned and investment income. Every November it is revealed who are millionaires and who are just plain rich.

The Taloussanomat (‘The economic news’) newspaper offers a list (Finnish only) of the 5,000 people who earned most last year (in terms of both earned and investment income, together with the proportion of income they have paid in tax). You can also search lists of various status and professions: rock/pop stars, media, sports, MPs, celebrities, politicians of various political parties…

So let’s take a look at Taloussanomat’s selected list of authors:  number one is the celebrity author Jari Tervo (309,971 euros, tax percentage 45); number two, the internationally famous Sofi Oksanen (302,634 euros, 46 per cent); the next two are Sinikka Nopola, writer of children’s books, (264,000) and Arto Paasilinna (262,300; now after an illness, retired as a writer), translated into more than 30 languages since the 1970s. (The film critic and author Peter von Bagh made almost 900,000 euros – not by writing books, but by selling his share of a music company to an international enterprise.)

As tax data are public in Finland, there’s vigorous and decidedly informed public debate on how much money, for example, directors of public pension institutions and government offices or ministers and other top politicians are paid, and how much they should be paid: what is equitable, what is reasonable? A million dollar question indeed…

Among the European Union countries, it is only in Finland, Sweden and Denmark that there is no universal minimum wage. Here, wages are determined in trade wage negotiations. The average monthly salary in the private sector in 2010 was approximately 3,200 euros. In contrast to that, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, the Nokia CEO and President, who tops the 2010 tax list, earned a salary of 8 million last year, because – and precisely because – he was sacked (and replaced by the Irishman Steven Elop).

The CIA’s Gini index measures the degree of inequality in the distribution of family income in a country. The more unequal a country’s income distribution, the higher is its Gini index. The country with the highest number is Sweden, 23; the lowest, South Africa, 65 (data from both, 2005). Finland’s figure is 26.8 (2008), Germany 27 (2006), the European Union’s 34. The United Kingdom stands at 34 (2005), and the USA at 45 (2007). The figure in Finland seems to be on the rise though, as the figure back in 1991 was 25.6.

There’s been plenty of research and debate on economic inequality and the ways it harms societies. This link takes you to a fascinating video lecture (July 2011 – now seen by almost half a million people) by Richard Wilkinson, British author, Profefssor Emeritus of social epidemiology.

Orjamarkkinat. Huutolaislasten kohtaloita Suomessa

Auctions of people were at their most widespread in Finland in the 1870s and 1880s; ‘auctioned paupers’ were entrusted for a year at a time to the one who put in the lowest bid for the pauper’s upkeep, then recompensed by the local authority. The people who were auctioned off included children, the elderly, disabled and mentally ill people. These auctions were banned in 1923, but they continued for some time thereafter. Although the practice was widely known about, the paupers’ shame prevented much discussion of the subject. Those who wished to provide help to people  in need were probably greatly outnumbered by those who sought to benefit from their plight. In most cases, orphaned children ended up being auctioned off. Children born out of wedlock were another significant group. Jouko Halmekoski advertised in the newspapers in order to trace the lives and descendants of those who were auctioned off. Not all the auctioned paupers’ histories are tales of horror: this book, consisting of 25 of them, also includes stories of children who were treated well.
Translated by Ruth Urbom

Jonkun on uskallettava katsoa. Animalian puoli vuosisataa

This book has been published to mark the 50th anniversary of Animalia, the Federation for the Protection of Animals. The public image of the organisation has varied between one of a conservative club of ladies and gentlemen and that of a radical terrorist group. Animalia was founded in 1961, inspired by Johan Börtz, a Swede who gave lectures on the plight of animals used in experiments. Animalia began making visits to inspect animal testing facilities, which were completely unregulated in the early 1960s. Gradually the animal rights movement became more radicalised, somewhat later than in places such as Britain. Animal rights became a subject of wider debate in Finland in the 1980s. In the 1990s, the organisation was falsely linked with attacks made on fur farms by direct-action youth groups. Animalia’s stance has been to renounce vandalism and violence. In February 2010 Animalia launched its largest-ever information campaign, aimed at ridding Finland of fur farms by 2025.
Translated by Ruth Urbom

Rasistinen Suomi

Multiculturalism, immigration and racism have become more frequent subjects of discussion in Finland, particularly as a result of the 2008 local elections and the subsequent speeches and writings by people critical of immigration. This book aims to move the discussion forward by describing and defining racism, presenting developments in research into racism, racism perpetrated by Finns against Sámi and Russians, and the history of Finnish enmity towards Russians from the early 20th century to the present day. The author considers the use of shaming and subjugation as tools of exterminating Sámi culture, as well as linguistic discrimination and denial of land ownership rights against the Sámi. The book also examines the development of hate crimes since the 1990s, racism in Finnish politics and the politics of multiculturalism as practised in Finland, which studies have shown treat different minority groups in different ways. Vesa Puuronen is a sociologist and a researcher into racism who works at the University of Eastern Finland.
Translated by Ruth Urbom

Saamentutkimus tänään

This volume examines the Sámi people, the only indigenous tribe living in the European Union, via writers representing fourteen different fields of research. It is an updated and expanded edition of Johdatus Saamentutkimukseen (‘An introduction to Sámi research’, 1995) and makes use of The Saami. A Cultural Encyclopaedia (SKS, 2005). This book defines what is meant by the terms ‘indigenous tribe’ and ‘Sámi’, as well as describing the Sámi people’s biological and geographical environment, their prehistory and history and a linguistic and genetic outline. It also deals with their spiritual and material culture, from folk beliefs to handicrafts and arts, as well as reindeer herding. The status of the Sámi people is examined with regard to human rights and land ownership rights and compared to the situation of other indigenous tribes. Currently between 70,000 and 82,000 Sámi live in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia, with around 10,000 of them in Finland. The Sámi population in Finland has remained constant for the past 15 years, but as many as 60 per cent of them now live outside the traditional Sámi homelands.
Translated by Ruth Urbom

Right or wrong, my country? Illustration: Joonas Väänänen

Big electoral turnouts are generally considered a good thing. But, writes columnist Jyrki Lehtola, in Finland the fact that the vote went up in the last Finnish general election caused a revelation. Educated urbanites and the media (perhaps near enough the same thing), are shocked by how 20 per cent of their fellow Finns think – and the ramifications caused tremors all across Europe

Listen up. Diversity is a resource. Except of course if it’s the sort of diversity that is a resource for the wrong people.

That sort of diversity isn’t the least bit nice. In Finland in the spring, we ran into the sort of diversity that even got the rest of Europe to start worrying. Out in the thickets and forests, diverse people had been springing up in secret, people of whose existence we urbanites were entirely unaware.

And they threatened to bring Europe down. Europe. Which was a bit much.

They wanted out of the European Union. They did not agree with helping those European countries that were groaning under the weight of their economic problems. They were True Finns, not Europeans. And Europe was worried: what if these few forest folk were to make Finland do a U-turn in its European policy? In Finland, backing a loan to another country demands a parliamentary decision. What if the other parties were to follow these forest folk? What if Europe were to be destroyed by the fact that a few True Finns would prefer to be by themselves rather than have a relationship with the rest of the world?

Before, those people had hidden their ideas on lavatory walls and Internet chat boards. On those infrequent occasions when they did come out, they had learned to remain quiet and politically correct, to accept that it wasn’t wise for them to speak of things they didn’t necessarily understand.

Then they suddenly opened their mouths, and those of us in the media down here in the South said in horror: Can you say that? You can’t.

And everything began with such an insignificant thing as their concept of art.

Perussuomalaiset, the True Finns, is a Finnish party born out of the protest spirit of those previously shut out of the political conversation. They received 20 per cent of the vote in the spring parliamentary elections, which has resulted in the unfortunate fact that now we have to get acquainted with the dispossessed among us instead of being able to assume that they must think about the world the same way we do. What kind of a nutter wouldn’t?

Before the elections, the True Finns prodded at the political elite with their folksy, anachronistic view of the world. They had different ideas about abortion, refugees, gays, and nature than us here in the liberal, urban media.

That didn’t really trouble us much yet. But then they published their election platform, which took on art. It was absolutely horrible: forest people mucking about with things that weren’t any of their business.

They hated contemporary art. They called it ‘postmodern fakery’, which the state shouldn’t be supporting. For them, true Finnish art was somewhere far away: in works that depict the Kalevala or Finland’s wars.

And thus began our media storm in a pipette. Facebook filled up with groups making ironic comments about the True Finns’ concept of art; arts pages weren’t able to discuss anything other than that there were people whose concept of art was a throwback to another time; columnists got stuck in place for a month like columnists do.

The anger of the elite towards the True Finns’ concept of art was something that could only result in one thing only: the part of the country who thought they were being discriminated against, began to despise the elite even more.

How could they fall to pieces over such a small thing? How could they react to one wrong idea with such frenzy? There were other things in the True Finns’ party platform, but this, their concept of art, is what you waded into. What’s wrong with you?

As a result of all of this, the True Finns were the indisputable winners of the elections.

Then life became even more confusing. They rolled into the capital. True Finns. Here they came on the train from their thickets, walking past the fashionable postmodernist facade of the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art. How dreadful.

We just had to set upon them. To interview them, to run around after them, marveling at how exotic these primitives were.

Then one of them, a regular guy from the country who wasn’t used to sitting in big conference rooms full of stylized period furniture opened his mouth, and all sorts of things unfit for media consumption spilled out. He gave his opinion about refugees. He used the phrase ‘old negro’. He had exactly the wrong idea about everything.

We just had to attack him. To dig up all the information we could about him and question all of his ideas just because he had the temerity to say them out loud.

In Finland the leadership was trying to put together a government under difficult circumstances, but that was not nearly as titillating as one True Finn MP, a country boy, who had behaved improperly in the halls of power, without hiding behind silence or euphemisms.

It was utterly inappropriate. Uncouth, thoughtless, stupid in a sort of lazy way, but – please excuse me – so what?

Surely it’s OK to be stupid in your own way here? To think and speak the wrong way? To think just what you please about art, not necessarily knowing anything about it other than that everything was probably better in the past.

Yes, in a democratic country you should be able to think the wrong thoughts; that shouldn’t destroy our self-respect or image of our nation.

True Finns who shun refugees, gays, and the wrong kind of art do not necessarily approach diversity with the sort of understanding and tact we would hope. However, the problem for our southern elite appears to be that we can’t seem to handle the fact that there are people in our own country who think a different way than we do, and that now they have been given a voice.

How terrible.

Translated by Owen Witesman

Språk och politisk mobilisering. Finlandssvenskar i publikdemokrati

Under the Finnish Constitution, Finnish and Swedish are the country’s national languages. The status of Swedish is currently the subject of debate: on the one hand there is concern about the adequacy of Swedish-language services, while on the other there is a strong opposition among the Finnish-speaking majority to the mandatory study of Swedish. This book discusses, for example, the basis on which Finland’s 5.5 per cent Swedish-speaking minority elects its party and its candidates in national elections, and the importance of the Swedish language in this choice. Research suggests that Svenska Folkpartiet, the Swedish People’s Party, would gain increased backing if it were to emphasise the language question and seeking support for Swedish-speaking districts, rather than by targeting Finnish-speakers and bilingual citizens with an interest in minority issues. The book also contains a summary of the results of the Svensk politik i Finland (Politics in Swedish-speaking Finland) research project; Kimmo Grönlund – also director of research at Åbo Akademi – was head of the project.
Translated by David McDuff

Uusi hyvinvointivaltio

There is concern in Finland about the decline of the Nordic welfare state and the return of a class society. Problems exist with regard to issues such as the country’s aging population, changes in the structure of the labour market, the increase in income disparity, and lifestyle issues. The impoverishment caused by the recession of the 1990s did not decrease in the early 2000s, as could be seen in things like the rise of bread lines, much debated by Finns. The author – an expert on the welfare state and a poverty researcher – examines the values of the good society and its institutions. He discusses welfare as the politics of social possibilities: ‘The current system does not sufficiently allow the individual to come up with his own initiatives for positive change – instead, it fetters those initiatives.’ Hiilamo’s campaining book reflects on how the welfare state could be developed twenty years after the recession crisis, and how the middle class might be brought to realise that the growth in income disparity also affects their own welfare.
Translated by David McDuff

Kvinnornas Helsingfors: en kulturhistorisk guide

A group comprising fourteen women has addressed the question of what the map of Helsinki would look like seen through women’s history: what are the most significant places and monuments; what traces of women’s history could one read in the fabric of the city? This book portrays various eras in the city’s history from the 16th century onwards, along with profiles of female pioneers in fields from architecture to parliamentarians, from early political activists to present-day squatters. Helsinki has often been called ‘the city of women’ due to the large influx of women who came to work in the Finnish capital, particularly in the early 20th century – the increase in the number of office girls even boosted the publishing and film industries. In his Finnish letters written in the 1890s, Spanish author and diplomat Ángel Ganivet expressed his horror at the bicycling women of Helsinki. This book also includes pieces written by prominent contemporary women, from Finnish President Tarja Halonen to author Pirkko Saisio.
Translated by Ruth Urbom

Kirjoituksia sankaruudesta

This book examines Finnish heroism and anti-heroism by using approaches from folklore studies, history and literary theory. Political ‘heroism’ manufactured by the media is explored through a study of in-depth personal portraits of Finnish politicians published in the country’s biggest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, between 1981 and 2005. According to the research material, a positive impression is made by a narrative about a politician who is an independent thinker even in the context of his own party, from an ordinary home, engaged in manual work in his youth and risen to success overcoming setbacks through his own merits and without intrigue. The story of the European Union’s Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Olli Rehn, is a heroic story about a politician who dares believe in a European Finland even when it was disadvantageous to his career. Since the 1990s, writers have begun to take a renewed interest in war heroism; the climate in the 1960s and 1970s was pacifist, but now the ‘Winter War spirit’, which is deemed heroic, has been surfacing in an ever-increasing variety of situations, including economic crises.
Translated by Ruth Urbom

Goddess of victory: charioteer and runner Nike (constructed from the damaged statue of Nike of Paionios, from ca. 420 BCE). Photo: Wikimedia

No one should ever start a piece with ‘already the ancient Greeks…’ , but here goes:

Already the ancient Greeks practised the noble arts of sport. The Romans extended the cultivation (their word!) of culture to leisure, amusing themselves by throwing Christians to the lions. Formula F1 came a couple of thousand years later, as did post-modern art, sitcoms and reality TV, whose presenters take the place of lions and whose celebrities are today’s Christians.

The Olympics, founded by the Greeks, were in full swing as early as the seventh century BCE, until the Christian Roman Caesar Theodocius I banned them as irretrievably pagan in the year 393. However, they were revived 1,500 years later.

In Europe, the various tribes organised themselves and began to form societies; the continent divided into nation states which, in addition to fields and sports, began to cultivate their own languages and, through them, science and art.

In his new non-fiction book, Urheilukirja (‘A book about sport’), novelist Tuomas Kyrö examines sport in Finland through history and his own experience. After an active early youth, Kyrö is now more of an armchair sportsman, but he seems pretty omnivorous in his tastes. According to him, sport is essential to the survival of nation states because of the constant competition for growth among nations. Of which, of course, the Olympics is the ultimate stage, or stadium.

In the Finnish nation state, sport and the arts are not merely juxtaposed but sometimes set against one another, certainly where state sponsorship is concerned. Fortunately, in addition to the niggardly hand of the government, the cultivation of matters of the spirit are funded via the lotto and the football pools, in other words directly from the generous (or greedy) hand of the people.

A new comparison has sparked debate in the Finnish media: the True Finns party, which is seeking power in April’s parliamentary elections – and, according to the polls, is likely to get it – has announced in its manifesto that ‘The fine paintings of Edelfelt and Gallen-Kallela and Sibelius’s world-famous symphonies are internationally recognised…. The True Finns feel that the preservation of the Finnish cultural heritage is of primary importance compared to supporting post-modern contemporary art. Government arts funding should be directed in such away that it strengthens Finnish identity. Faux-artistic post-modern experiments, on the other hand, should be left economically to individual sponsors and the free market.’

The party’s website also states: ‘Funding for excellence in world-class sport should be increased at the expense of the arts. It would, in the end, be a question of extremely small sums. To ensure the London (Olympics) project and one gold medal, all that would be needed would be around three million euros of extra funding for effective training…. For sport is the circus entertainment that interests the people more than the state-funded arts, which are also in a certain sense elitist…. Prowess in world-class sport and keep-fit for ordinary people  always go hand in hand. Olympic sports have always played an important role in our national identity.’

The winner's game: since the 1928 Summer Olympics, the obverse face of the Olympic medals bear Nike's figure. Photo: Wikimedia

So three million is the price of one Olympic gold medal? Of course, there is no guarantee of one, even with this sum. Prowess in world-class sport and keep-fit absolutely do not ‘go hand in hand’. Democracy does not mean that everyone has to be interested in the same cultural matters. Quantity is no guarantee of quality; what ‘the people’ like cannot be more ‘right’ per se than what interests the ‘elite’. Feeding Christians to the lions is not admirable in human terms, however much the people liked it.

There’s much to mock in this new admiration of the cultural heroes of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The ‘Finnish national’ artists Albert Edelfelt and Axel Gallén (later Akseli Gallen-Kallela) and the composer Jean Sibelius were also mondaine cosmopolitans seeking their training and a large part of their inspiration abroad (and their mother tongue was not Finnish, by the way, but Swedish).

Finnish identity and Finland’s national heritage were not born out of powers primordially ‘Finnish’. A return to an idealised past is not possible, not now, not ever. ‘National identity’ remains a notoriously debatable subject.

Ever onwards: Nike of Paionios (the Archaeological Museum of Olympia, Greece). Photo: Wikimedia

But aren’t sports and arts both such fun! Coming up on the Books from Finland site next are extracts from Tuomas Kyrö’s sports fan book, and in it, he also talks about the arts: ‘Competition, dance, theatre, rally-driving, literature, ball-games, individual sports, video installations. What they are is play. Immaterial and pointless activity. But, to their makers and participants, perfectly meaningful…. Completely pointless, and damned important.’

Rangifer tarandus, Finnish Lapland. Photo: Grand-duc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Grand-Duc)

Is Finland, a land of reindeer, ‘dense pine forests and deep snows’ also a ‘quiet literary landscape’?

Not exactly, as we at Books from Finland hope we are demonstrating. And over on the Bookslut website, Bonnie B. Lee comes to the same conclusion, after having mused about the reindeer (yes: in Helsinki you find tasty chunks of them in the freezer boxes of any foodstore) and reading three Finnish novels in English translation.

The novels Lee reviews are Purge by Sofi Oksanen (Puhdistus, 2008, translated by Lola Rogers, published last year), When I forgot by Elina Hirvonen (Että hän muistaisi saman, 2005, translated by Douglas Robinson, published in 2009) and The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna (Jäniksen vuosi, 1975, first published in an English translation by Herbert Lomas in 1995, reprinted as a Penguin edition last year).

We have just entered the Year of the Rabbit, in recognition of which Paasilinna’s book (about a man who rejects his old life and goes roaming the wildernesses with a hare as his only companion) has appeared on the tables of large bookstores in the US. ‘The Year of the Hare is only the most Finnish, and perhaps most antically Zen-ish, of a shelf-load of books that tell us to find and live by our own ideas of contentment,’ said The Wall Street Journal.

The traumatic experiences of war and Finland’s deep forests are the common feature of these novels, Bonnie B. Lee finds. She also opines that ‘melancholy pervades the Finnish psyche’, and that ‘Finland vies with Hungary for highest suicide rate in Europe‘. Oh, but this latter is no longer true: number one on a World Health Organisation suicide rates list is Lithuania, followed by Hungary, Slovenia, Estonia and Latvia – Finland is number six.

Lee is clearly intrigued by her travels in contemporary Finnish literature. ‘The search for identity, a reckoning with a troubled past, and an outsider’s view looking in,’ she comments, ‘are all the stuff of great writing, and Finland is poised to continue to produce poignant and introspective literature that we can appreciate now that English translators have begun the work.’

Poignant and introspective or occasionally funny and fantastical, this is the work we try to offer an early glimpse of, in translation, at Books from Finland. Stay with us!

Tuhansien aatteiden maa. Ääriajattelua Nyky-Suomessa

There are a number of extremist ideologies with a foothold in Finland. Even though most such groups are very small, religious and political extremism have experienced growth and do not always remain on the margins. The authors of this book have chosen to include only those ideologies whose efforts are clearly directed against particular groups or that would result in an erosion of democracy if they were to gain some real power. Topics receiving the greatest amount of attention in the media have been immigration and the polarisation within the Finnish Lutheran Church. According to some reports, the Church is being split over the issues of female clergy and homosexuality. This book also covers Finnish-born Islamists who support Sharia law, Communists who distort history and venerate the Soviet Union, honour killings carried out in Finland, and NRA Finland, a hard-line pro-gun lobbying organisation. The authors also discuss how these zealots, having gained more support, have also begun to influence the positions of mainstream political parties.
Translated by Ruth Urbom

Kirjastojen maa

Libraries are the most widely used cultural service in Finland. Kirjastojen maa describes the journey undertaken by the protagonist, who refers to himself as ‘the Library Man’, and his entourage to 250 public libraries around Finland between 2008 and 2010. Many of these sites were celebrating their 150th anniversaries at the time, since there was a great enthusiasm for establishing public libraries in Finland in the 1850s. This travel journal provides a history of libraries as an institution and their development into a central pillar of society. The author also considers Finnish intellectual space in this age of digital media. Libraries currently face significant challenges: the recent wave of local authority mergers, centralisation of public services and funding cuts are all hampering the development of library operations. The importance of libraries is further underlined by the fact that local residents have launched protests in support of libraries threatened with closure –  in spite of the usual difficulty of rousing Finns to man the barricades. The author is a philosopher, political researcher and active participant in public policy discussions.
Translated by Ruth Urbom