Aino Kallas

There's a distinct gap in the translated classics publishing catalogue when it comes to the work of the great Finnish-Estonian author Aino Kallas (1878-1956). Amazon UK advertises for the most part only grossly overpriced collector's editions of the Mattson/Galsworthy White Ship from back in the 1920s, and the U.S. Amazon site has even less to offer.

The contemporary Finnish author Sofi Oksanen recently published an interesting piece about Aino Kallas and her remarkable short novel Sudenmorsian (The Wolf's Bride) as part of an article for the Literary Hub. An extract:

The story is written in archaic Finnish, and the character Aalo’s own voice is not represented, which is true to the time. Through use of this literary technique, Kallas found a clever way to demonstrate the way female perspectives were excluded in that era. Her method is unique in Finnish literature and she is a unique author: her main body of work is based on Estonian folklore and its focus is on women’s position in the world of men.

 An Oksanen-Kallas linkup would be most welcome.

Sofi Oksanen's speech at PEN World Voices

Purge

I've just finished reading Lola Rogers' translation of Puhdistus (Purge), by Sofi Oksanen. It's a remarkable work - restless, vivid, articulate, emotional, violent, political - and I don't think there is anything quite like it in the rest of world literature. The only book remotely akin to it that I've come across before is a strange Estonian novel from 2004, which has a similar graphic reconstruction of Soviet reality. I think Sofi Oksanen's work does require a knowledge of Estonian and Soviet history if the reader is to understand the thinking, motivation and actions of the characters. One solitary niggling doubt I have is that while the book amounts to an extraordinary tribute to the Estonian people and their survival of decades of Soviet occupation, the characters themselves don't come across as very likeable human beings - but I believe that may be deliberate on the author's part. It's good to see Paul-Eerik Rummo's poetry quoted in the opening of each section.

The global book

In Hbl, Philip Teir reflects on the increasing internationalization and globalization of contemporary fiction, and wonders whether we are heading for a new literary world where national identity doesn't count for much:

Perhaps part of the explanation for Sofi Oksanen's success is that she is one of the first to try their hand at taking stock of the new Europe?

Slovak-born Alexandra Salmela's shortlisting for the Finlandia Prize could perhaps be seen as a sign of a coming trend... her new novel 27 - Eli Kuolema Tekee Taitelijan (27 - Or Death Makes an Artist) is not particularly rooted in one spot, but is a sort of cacophonous young person's novel that could have been published in almost any language at all...

...It's an interesting thought: are we heading towards a future in which the national literature project dissolves and we get literature that is trans-European? That may be too optimistic...

A valley in the violence

In Hbl Philip Teir interviews Finnish-Estonian writer Sofi Oksanen, whose work is being published in Sweden and who is tipped to win this year's Nordic Council Literature Prize. Excerpt:

After Sofi Oksanen appeared on a Danish TV culture show and depicted the Finnish people as depressive and uncommunicative she heard criticism from many quarters. The fact that Finland has two brutal school shootings behind it and a bleak set of statistics relating to violence was no excuse. This is stuff one shouldn't talk about to foreign journalists... "It isn't sanitary," was the view of Finland's Professor Laura Kolbe.

"I've learned that while many people don't mind as long as you stick to writing books and winning prizes ... as soon as you say something like this, the reaction is "Get back to Russia, you Estonian whore," says Oksanen, who grew up in Jyväskylä with a father who is Finnish and a mother who is Estonian.

See also: Knocking Finland

Knocking Finland

In the latest manifestation of what seems to be a neverending cycle of Nordic self-distrust and mutual dislike, Finnish author Sofi Oksanen has badly upset many of her compatriots by giving an extended interview to Danish television (mostly in English) in which she condemns Finland as an unpleasant, inward-turned country characterized by male chauvinism, repressed violence, actual violence against women and subservience to Russia. When asked in conclusion by her interviewer what Finland has to offer to the other Nordic countries, she says that she doesn't think other people have anything to learn from her country.

Sofi Oksanen in translation

The Estonian press has been paying a good deal of attention to the recent launch of the Finnish author Sofi Oksanen's novel Purge, which has just appeared in Jan Kaus' Estonian translation. The cover of the Estonian translation has been kept the same as that of the Finnish original. The translation was presented right across Estonia: in Kuressaare on the island of Saaremaa, in the seaside resort of Pärnu, in the university city of Tartu, plus the capital Tallinn.

The rights for this particular novel, which deals with Estonia and moral dilemmas under the Soviets, has been bought by publishers in 23 countries, including the United States. Oksanen herself says: "I regard it as important that my novel appears in the USA and Great Britain, where translations of Finnish literature do not usually appear". And she also mentioned that only 2% of fiction in Britain consists of translations. (Whether the percentage is two or three is not important.)

The novel is being published in an edition of 8,000 in Estonia, a large number of copies in post-Soviet Estonia, down from the enormous editions once published in Soviet times, when there was little other entertainment than reading. This is especially high, considering there are only about one million Estonian residents with Estonian as their mother-tongue. The book has also sold well in Finland itself. I hope the English translation comes soon.

With regard to attention to detail, Oksanen points out that her grandparents came from the Estonian countryside, and she had herself seen such implements as a scythe, and material such as cheesecloth, as used to literally make cheese with.

It cannot be denied that Oksanen herself has become something of a cult figure in both Finland and Estonia, where her Gothic presence can be seen frequently in the press. But because of the fact that the latterday Communists might try to disrupt the book launch, the Estonian police were keeping an eye on the event, held at the Finnish Embassy in Tallinn. Oksanen's play, based on this novel, is also on the Berliner Festspiele programme.

Different Russias

Writing in the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti, its editor-in-chief Tuomas Keskinen comments that Russian occupation has meant different things for Finland and Estonia. Sweden's defeat by Russia in 1809 and the subsequent treaty that transformed Finland into a Grand Duchy turned out to be a relative blessing for the country after 400 years of Swedish rule. On the other hand, Russia's occupation of Estonia, which Stalin began in the autumn of 1939, was of a wholly different order, and represented an illegal takeover analogous to the land-grabs practiced by the Nazis in Europe earlier in the decade. Keskinen says that the publication of Sofi Oksanen and Imbi Paju's new book, Kaiken takana oli pelko (Fear was behind everything, WSOY, 2009), will help Finns to understand the horrors that were experienced by the people of their smaller neighbour to the south.

Sofi Oksanen

As you will have read in David's posting "Putin-Jugend in Helsinki", about the Finnish seminar marking the 60th anniversary of the Estonian Deportations of 1949, one author invited will be the prize-winning author Sofi Oksanen. The seminar will take place in Helsinki on 23rd March 2009.

Ms Oksanen has a rather unusual background for a Finnish author, in that she is half-Estonian, and writes about that country. Previous Finnish authors with an Estonian connection include Aino Kallas and Hella Wuolijoki. Oksanen (born 1977) is of a much younger generation. Nevertheless, she can still communicate with older Estonians who remember, for instance, the 1949 deportations, when several thousand Estonians were dubbed "kulaks", then promptly sent to Siberia in cattle trucks.

In December 2008, Sofi Oksanen won the prestigious Finlandia Prize for her latest novel Purge, one dealing with two older women who suffered the Soviet occupation and its aftermath.

BIBLIOGRAPHY [The three links here are, unfortunately, only in Finnish]

Stalinin lehmät, [Stalin's Cows] 2003
Baby Jane, [idem] 2005
Puhdistus, [Purge / Cleansing / Pogrom] 2008

Her first novel Stalin's Cows had, as part of the blurb: "Why are all Estonian women whores?", which was guaranteed to be eye-catching, as Estonia is Finland's next-door neighbour. In this novel, Oksanen interweaves a story of bulimia with one of Brezhnev's bureaucratic oppression of the Baltic countries. The bulimia is, evidently, autobiographical, but given the fact that her mother was born in Estonia, she is not ignorant of the history of that country, either. The novel deals with the shame and stigma involved in the lives of Baltic women who fled to Finland during Soviet times. As Estonia was little discussed in Finland for decades, this book came as a sensation and is evidently a page-turner. It exists only in Swedish translation.

I cannot find much on the internet about her second novel. It is evidently set in urban Helsinki and involves panic attacks.

But her third, Purge is being translated into English by the American translator Lola Rogers, and will appear in the United States. This deals with the complex and paradoxical lives of old Estonian women, about sexual exploitation and prostitution of younger ones who are lured abroad, to Finland or Germany, by the chance of earning lots of money.The guilt of those who stayed behind when others were deported to Siberia from Estonia, and what happened to those who returned is interwoven. While Jaan Kross described the occupation of Estonia from a male point of view, Oksanen has talked with older female Estonian relations and built up her works on what she has heard.The novel was preceded by a play on the same theme that was staged at the Finnish National Theatre. This play exists in an English manuscript version, but has not yet been published.

Both the Finnish and Estonian press make a lot of Oksanen's status as angry young woman regarding women's issues and the distortion of Soviet history as related to Finland and Estonia. She also doubles up as an actress, and can be seen in photographs in Gothic garb. But she does know her onions. Under the Gothic exterior lurks a knowledgeable person. See her photogallery, several webpages long.

Last year, Sofi Oksanen travelled around Estonia with the Helsinki newspaper Helsingin Sanomat and visited a number of manor houses in various states of repair. This reportage can be seen here.

The pictures are in a column to the right of your screen, with the map filling the main part, "Viro" being the Finnish name for Estonia. The photos can be enlarged by clicking on them. The words "Seuraavat 15 kuvaa" at the bottom indicate the link to the next 15 photos.

Putin-Jugend in Helsinki

Via FinRosForum:

The Russian government-supported youth movement, Nashi, plans to hold demonstrations in the Finnish capital, Helsinki, on 23 March 2009 against a seminar organised by the Estonian Embassy in Helsinki. Johan Bäckman, leader of the self-declared “Finnish Anti-Fascist Committee” (Safka), said Estonia’s pro-Moscow Nightwatch (Nochnoy Dozor) organisation will also take part in the demonstrations. The organisers of the planned demonstration repeat Kremlin’s assertion that the seminar, Fear Behind the Wall, is “anti-Russian” and “pro-Nazi.”

The Estonian Embassy will organise the seminar in cooperation with the Latvian and Lithuanian embassies, Finnish book publisher WSOY, and Finland’s National Audiovisual Archive (KAVA). The seminar will mark 60 years since the March deportations in Estonia and 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain. Political scientist Iivi Anna Masso will interview authors Imbi Paju and Sofi Oksanen, editors of the article compilation, “Fear Behind Us All.”

Speaking on Russia’s state-run First Channel, Johan Bäckman claimed that “anti-Russian forces” have spread their activities from the Baltic States to Finland. He claimed prized Finnish author Sofi Oksanen and Estonian-born political scientist Iivi Anna Masso were spreading “fascist, pro-Nazi propaganda” in Finland. Bäckman characterised the series of documentary films, “Fear Behind the Wall,” to be screened at the Finnish National Audiovisual Archive’s Orion cinema, as a series of “anti-Russian films”.

Bäckman has made numerous provocative statements against Estonia and in support of Kremlin policies. He has published books that are uncritically supportive of Russia’s official party line and denigrating Finnish critics of the regime in Moscow. Bäckman’s novel, “Saatana saapuu Helsinkiin,” smeared late journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya and Finnish critics of Putin’s rule; the book “Pronssisoturi” accompanied Moscow’s anti-Estonian campaign after the riots in Tallinn that followed the transfer of the Soviet war memorial, the “Bronze Soldier,” in spring 2007.

Bäckman has launched several blogs, which he uses to spread disinformation about politics in Russia, Finland, and the Baltic States. Many well-known critics of Russia’s current regime are constantly being targeted with verbal attacks in Bäckman’s various blogs. Those at the receiving end of Bäckman’s verbal abuse include, among others, Jarkko Tontti, vice-chairman of the Finnish branch of International PEN; Jukka Mallinen, former chairman of Finnish PEN; Finnish political scientist Iivi Anna Masso; Estonian journalist Imbi Paju; Finnish novelist Sofi Oksanen; and Ville Ropponen, chairman of the Finnish association of progressive artists and writers, Kiila.

These absurd allegations are eerily reminiscent of Soviet disinformation campaigns and can be seen as a form of political pressure. Their intended purpose is clearly to intimidate critics and to impose a new form of self-censorship in Finnish public debate. Bäckman has adopted an aggressive tactic of accusing his opponents of defamation, thus deflecting attention from his own libelous allegations against a wide spectre of Finnish cultural and political figures. His latest venture, bringing Russian pro-regime street thugs onto the streets of Helsinki, takes his campaign to a whole new level.

Senior figures in the Russian presidential administration encouraged the creation of the Nashi movement, which by late 2007 had around 120,000 members. The Kremlin’s primary goal may have been to create a paramilitary force to harass and attack Putin’s critics and members of the democratic opposition. Nashists have also inflitrated opposition groups as the regime’s paid spies. Recently, Nashi members claimed responsibility for cyber attacks that crippled Estonia’s internet infrastructure amidst a diplomatic quarrel with Russia in spring 2007.

The demonstrations planned in Helsinki on 23 March 2009 may be part of an attempt by Johan Bäckman and his cohorts to spread Nashi’s venomous intimidation of critics of Russia’s ruling regime outside of Russia’s borders. Bäckman has actively propagated the same inverted logic of “anti-fascism” that Nashists adhere to. Recently, Bäckman launched an initiative to establish a “Russian People’s Party” in Finland. This, and previous ventures, are clearly an attempt to mobilise Finland’s Russian-speakers into supporting Moscow’s cynical, anti-integrationist policies in its “near abroad.”