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V(eikko) A(ntero) Koskenniemi (1885-1962) - surname until 1906 Forsnäs | |
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Finnish scholar, writer, critic, professor at the University of Turku. Koskenniemi was one of the most prominent figures in Finnish literature until the breakthrough of modernist writers in the 1950s. He gained the status of an unofficial national poet after Eino Leino (1978-26), writing with patriotic, heroic pathos and with suggestive force, but also pondering sensitively the fragile existence of human beings. Koskenniemi was a follower of modern French and Swedish literature, and translated into Finnish works from such writers as Goethe, Keller, and Balzac. Although the tone of his poetry was pious and won him the support of the church, he remained an agnostic. Cockcrows are heard from the villages sounding, Veikko Antero Koskenniemi was born in Oulu as the son of Anders Forsnäs, a teacher, and Aina Maria Hällberg. He studied at the University of Helsinki and received his M.A. in 1907. During this time Koskenniemi had started his career as a critic and worked as a free-lance writer until 1921. He wrote for Uusi Suometar and edited the magazine Aika (1912-21), and later Valvoja-Aika and Valvoja (1942-54). His first collection of poems, RUNOJA (1906), which introduced urban themes into Finnish poetry, gained critical success. It was followed by VALKEAT KAUPUNGIT (1908), about longing and loss, and HIILIVALKEA (1913). Many of these early poems, including 'Hyökyaalto' and 'On suuri sun rantas autius', and 'Elegia satakielelle' from ELEGIOJA JA MUITA RUNOJA (1917), were turned into songs by Yrjö Kilpinen. Koskenniemi's only novel, KONSULI BRENNERIN JÄLKIKESÄ, appeared in 1916. Elegioja ja ynnä muita runoja included one of Koskenniemi's most popular poems, starting with the lines, "You are alone, son of man, on your own in the middle of all things / you have been born on your own, you will depart on your own." (trans. by Keith Bosley, in Skating on the Sea, 1997) In the 1920s Koskenniemi published a collection of aphorisms, MATKASAUVA (1925), several collections of poems, including RAKKAUSRUNOJA (1920), ISÄNMAAN KEVÄT (1921), UUSIA RUNOJA (1924), and studies in literature. His series of essay collections, entitled KIRJOJA JA KIRJAILIJOIDA 1-5 (1916-1931), with its masterful insights, is still inspiring reading, although his biographical and genetic methodology is considered dated. In 1921 Koskenniemi was appointed Professor of the University of Turku. In 1922 he married Vieno Pohjanpalo. From 1924 to 1932 he was rector of the university. Koskenniemi's nationalism was reflected in his many poems and hymns, some of which were adapted into march songs. Among the most popular compositions based on his poems are Toivo Kuula's 'Epilogi', Yrjö Kilpinen's 'Kuutamolla and Lippulaulu', Frans Linnavuori's 'Minä laulan sun iltasi tähtihin', Erkki Melartin's and Jean Sibelius's 'Koulutie', and Armas Järnefelt's 'Isänmaan kasvot'. His lyrics for Sibelius's Finlandia hymn in LATUJA LUMESSA (1940) expressed hope and a new beginning when war and destruction had threatened the nation: "Finland, behold, thy daylight now is dawning, / the threat of night has now been driven away. / The skylark calls across the light of morning, / the blue of heaven lets it have its way, / and now the day of the powers of night is scorning: thy daylight dawns, O Finland of ours." - Oi Suomi, katso, sinun päiväs koittaa, / yön uhka karkoitettu on jo pois, / ja aamun kiuru kirkaudessa soittaa, / kuin itse taivahan kansi sois. / Yön vallat aamun valkeus jo voittaa, / sun päiväs koittaa, oi synnyinmaa!" After World War I Koskenniemi adopted the popular, pessimistic view of the progress in history, summoned in Oswald Spengler's work Der Untergang des Abendlandes (1918, 1922). Spengler rejected the liberal-democratic politics and saw the deterioration of the Western world as a part of its life cycle. However, Koskenniemi became convinced that only Mussolini and Hitler could save the West from the "Red barbarians". He was with Maila Talvio one of the central promoters of German culture in Finland in the 1930s and '40s. He accepted the vice-chairmanship of the European Writers' Guild, a German-controlled organization that had been set up on Goebbel's initiative. However, Koskenniemi was not the only prominent writer who was interested in contemporary German culture. The critic, scholar, and later professor of literature, Rafael Koskimies, reviewed Hitler's Mein Kampf in his essay 'Hitler ja hänen oppinsa' in Kirjallisia näköaloja (1936). Koskimies dismissed Hitler's racial views as "humbug" and saw them as an expression of a poetical myth, familiar from Shakespeare's Shylock in Merchant of Venice and Balzac's Gobseck in Le cousin Pons. As a critic Koskenniemi opposed neo-romanticism and Kalevala-inspired backwoods attitudes. As a poet Koskenniemi himself used the Kalevala meter in a notable way only in his last collection of poems. He saw that the duty of the well-educated class was to give moral strength to the nation. Koskenniemi admired great cultural figures, such as Goethe in Germany and Aleksis Kivi in Finland. He was a respected and feared authority, who rejected leftist tendencies and writers who emphasized the revolutionary or unconscious forces behind mass movements. For his own poems Koskenniemi searched out subjects from nature and from literary and historical sources, and emphasized the melodic characteristics of language. 'Nuijamiesten marssi' composed by Toivo Kuula in 1912-13, is perhaps Koskenniemi's most ominous poems, born from the darkest depths of national romanticism ("we have frost and night, we have snow and ice - / be frightened, be frightened!"): Meill' on hanki ja jää, meill' on halla ja yö, Between the years 1941 and 1946 Koskenniemi was the chairman of the Association of Finnish Authors. In 1948 he became the first writer appointed to the Finnish Academy. Among his later works are memoirs VUOSISADAN ALUN YLIOPPILAS (1947), RUNOUSOPPIA JA RUNOILIJOITA (1951), a study in poetry, and FILOSOFIAN JA RUNOUDEN RAJAMAILTA (1961). In his popular collection VAELTAVA VIISAUS (1952) Koskenniemi presented some 6 000 aphorisms from different thinkers and authors. In its foreword Koskenniemi writes that in his selection of aphorisms he has tried to be impartial between the different world views. However, such Communist philosophers as Marx and Engels are missing, not to mention Lenin and Trotsky and all Soviet writers. From Russian writers Koskenniemi has accepted Mme de Swetchine, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Krapotkin. After the war Koskenniemi's easily recognized style was parodied by Kullervo Rainio in the magazine Lipeäkala (1946): "Niin olet mennyt taas, sinä Kolmonen, kiireistä tietäs. / Mennyt oot menojas, Ah, mua oottanut et." During the breakthrough of modernism in Finnish literature, Koskenniemi's position started to be undermined. His commitment to the poetry of antiquity and the old poetic conventions of Continental Europe (elegiac meter, the sonnet) was difficult to accept by the new generation of writers. After the fall of the national idealism represented by Koskenniemi, it took a decade before young writers became again interested in ancient Greece. His work was reevaluated in 1985 in Kurkiauran varjo, a collection of essays, and in 2001 the historian Martti Häikiö defended him in his article in Suomen Kuvalehti. According to Häikiö, Koskenniemi's opinions and values, expressed in the biography GOETHE: KESKIPÄIVÄ JA ELÄMÄNILTA (1944), had nothing to do with national socialism. In the work he notes, that "if Goethe did not believe in revolution, neither did he believe in war." Koskenniemi was deeply worried about the antagonism between Germany and France, and his European humanism is actually in tune with the great ideas behind the modern European Union. For further information: V.A. Koskenniemi: hänen elämänsä ja hänen runoutensa by Lauri Viljanen (1935); Voices from Finland, ed. by Elli Tompuri (1947); V.A. Koskenniemi lyyrillisenä taiteilijana by Pekka Mattila (1954); Kurkiauran varjo: esseitä V.A. Koskenniemestä, ed. by Touko Siltala (1985); A History of Finland's Literature, ed. by George C. Schoolfield (1998); Suomen kirjallisuushistoria 2, toim. Lea Rojola (1999); 'Euroopan ystävä' by Martti Häikiö (Suomen Kuvalehti, 10 August, 2001) - See also: V.A. Koskenniemen Seura Selected works:
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