Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1943, Qupperneq 184

LE NORD
166
Alexis Kivi, “with the sun of his
humour,” his phrase-free love of
the chary Finnish nature, his rugged,
unadorned portraitures of men and
women, and his “relieving laugh,”
is certainly the classical poet of
Finnish peasant life. During the
years of peace, says; Viljanen, he
came to the front before the Fin-
nish public. But, he continues,
Runeberg, “whose virile spirit had
been formed by the heroic ideal
of antiquity, on his part, in the
unpretentious and patient people
he admired, found an ethical great-
ness of will, a strong faculty of
surpassing itself. And this poetic
vision in a wonderful way has
again in the hour of danger made
him ours.” ¥e may pass on to the
younger generations and then re-
joice in finding that Olof Enckell’s
descriptions from Karelia, which in
Sweden created so great an impres-
sion in many quarters, “deepened
the picture of this province to Fin-
nish-speaking readers, too.” This
carries us farther to Olof Enckell’s
own view of the Swedish element
in Finland, its strength and pe-
culiarity, where — as in Rune-
berg — it lives deeply and fully
in its Finnish fatherland (in Kri-
garen och bonden (‘The 'Warrior
and the Peasant’), Helsingfors
1940).
In the other chapters of the
Liberté créatrice it has been im-
possible to make so clear a distinc-
tion between Finnish and Swedish
as in Viljanen’s literary survey. In
that chapter language draws the
border-line within Finland in an
other and more inevitable way than
in the rest of the work. “The soil
of Finland does not ask after its
plougher’s language” for a long time
was a common phrase, and even
the rich picture of Finnish literary
production drawn by Viljanen and
the Finno-Swedish element are
united through points of view such
as those just referred to. Common
features crop up. “Ulusion-free and
truth-loving” are two of the words
used by Viljanen when he wants
to bring out the relationship be-
tween Swedish and Finnish in the
fiction and poetry of Finland. A
certain fervour without phrases,
words which in a certain indefinable
way suggest that they have been
tested in danger, a certain austere
calm, accustomed “to carry brands”
like Munter in Fanrik Stal, I should
add.
Viljanen’s words about Rune-
berg’s classical heroic ideal also, as
a common feature, remind us how
remarkably richly these classical
ideals live in Swedish and Finnish
literature, richly and without pass-
ing into classicistic formalism. Mar-
syas and Apollo have become
brothers in arms there. The elk-
shooters and the kings of Sala-
mis stand side by side in Runeberg.
Zilliacus and Koskenniemi above
all keep alive the tradition from
Salamis, from Hellas, in the poetry
of modern Finland. It is remark-
able how ardent and genuine the