Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1943, Side 183

REVUE LITTERAIRE
Liberté créatrice. La Finlande au travail et au combat. 134
illustrations.
Helsingfors, Finlande 1943.
The abo-ve title belongs to — and
presents very well — a book pub-
lished in 1943, in which 18 authors
draw a picture of peaceful culture
in Finland as it manifested itself
in 1939 after twenty happy, in-
dustrious, and successful years of
democratic work — before she was
faced with Russia’s demand for ces-
sion of territory, with Russia’s at-
tack on Finland on the 30th No-
vember 1939, and all that this
involved.
If we want to measure the ex-
tent of the Occidental social and
cultural work on a popular basis
which became exposed to a mortal
danger in 1939, and the hopes for
a brighter future which Finland is
still defending heroically, the Li-
berté créatrice is indeed an excellent
guide. First of all I want to call
attention to Lauri Viljanen’s survey
of literary life in Finland. It con-
tains much of interest on the Swe-
dish element in Finnish literature.
The author offers excellent criticism
of Mikael Lybeck, Mörne and the
other great Swedes of their genera-
tion. Fle has apposite valuations of
Hemmer and Edith Södergran, and
offers remarks that seem to me very
warrantable on the esoteric in cer-
tain of the youngest Finno-Swedish
modernists before 1939; — the sur-
vey according tO' the plan of the
book does not go beyond this year
down to Wirtaanen, Torvalds, and
others among the youngest genera-
tion, who in the intervals between
the battles keep Swedish poetry
alive in the Finland of the war. In
passing I may here refer to Erik
Ekelund’s survey in the Ord och
Bild 1943, p. 573 ff., and to our
incomparable literary guide, the
periodical Nya Argus, a “literary
supplement” to the Swedish press
of Finland, which admirably not
only bids defiance to the economic
difficulties of such undertakings,
but also to the unrest and troubles
of the time of war by sometimes
publishing really brilliant numbers.
Among the Finnish-writing poets
at any rate Sillanpáa, Eino Leino,
and Koskenniemi are widely known
outside Finland. In Viljanen’s sur-
vey these well-known authors are
discussed with a view to their posi-
tion in Finnish literature. The
reader is also lured further on to
new discoveries through the neces-
sarily short, but clear and lucid pre-
sentations of less well-known poets.
With particular interest the reader
halts at Viljanen’s suggestions as to
the importance of the Finno-Swe-
dish element to Finnish Finland.
Here we thus find remarkable lines
on Runeberg and Kivi. The author
of Sju bröder (‘Seven Brothers’),