Olavi Paavolainen
Encyclopedia
Olavi Paavolainen was a Finnish
essay
ist, journalist
, travel book writer, and poet
. He often went under the pseudonym of Olavi Lauri. Paavolainen was the central figure of the literary group Tulenkantajat
(The Flame Bearers) and one of the most influential literary opinion leaders between the two World war
s in Finland
. He represented liberal and Europe oriented views of culture and had an eclectic eye for new ideas.
In the late 1920s Paavolainen praised urban life, technology, and roaring cars in his works centering around modernism
as the Italian Futurist poet F.T. Marinetti (1876-1944) had done two decades earlier. In the 1930s and 1940s he published a number of works that controversially criticised the members of the Nazi
cabinet in Germany and later the Winter War
between Finland
and the Soviet Union
.
, Carelia
, in Russian Finland in 1903. Paavolainen descended from a family of civil servants
and soldier
s. His father, Pietari (Pekka) Paavolainen, was a lawyer and Member of Parliament
and his mother was named Alice Laura (Löfgrén). In 1914, he moved to Helsinki
where he started to write poems already at the age of twelve. He later studied aesthetics
and literature
at the University of Helsinki
from 1921 to 1925, but without graduating. While studying at the university, Paavolainen already started to publish critics and poems.
The young poet Katri Vala
, whose first book appeared in 1924, was instrumental in encouraging Paavolainen in his choice of literary career. In the same year Paavolainen contributed to the anthology Nuoret runoilijat I (young poets) under the pseudonym Olavi Lauri, which he used some years. During this early period, Paavolainen was interested in nudism, and he deemed the works of Comtesse de Noailles important for his development. In his letters to Vala, Paavolainen also expressed his interest in fine suits, and mocked himself as a dandy
. However he was heterosexual
, particularly attracted to older powerful women, and among his friends was the notorious Minna Craucher
, who had contacts to the extremist
right-wing
Lapua
movement. Craucher was murdered in 1932.
and wrote his impressions to the magazine Ylioppilaslehti
, edited by Urho Kekkonen
. His first book, Valtatiet (Highways), cowritten with Mika Waltari
was published in 1928, a poem which was a youthful manifest of machine romanticism
. The poet speeds through the countries of Europe in his red Fiat
car, which explodes into a star over the Sahara
Desert.
Valtatiet, inspired by Marinetti's automobilism and Futurist manifestos, was followed in 1929 by a concoction of essays, Nykyaikaa Etsimässä (In search of modern time) which centers on the modernization
of Europe after the atrocities of World War I
. During this period, 1928-29, he also served in the Finnish Army
. When the writer Pentti Haanpää attacked the army in his book Kenttä ja kasarmi (1928), Paavolainen considered its views on military life exaggerated and malicious.
, but he was encountering some financial difficulty, and as a freelance
writer he had no regular income
. In the conservative atmosphere of the 1930s Paavolainen felt himself personally lonely. He made a journey to England in 1932, but did not have the energy to write the travel book which his publisher expected. In 1930 his father died, and Paavolainen confessed to experiencing an Oedipal
dream in which from that point on he became a believer in Freud
.
In the early 1930s Paavolainen discontent with the socio-economic backwardness of Finland declared it was time to "give voice to the new era of speed, mechanization
, cosmopolitanism
, collectivism
, and the European experience." His next book, Keulakuvat, a collection of poetry, appeared in 1932, and Suursiivous the same year.
From 1933 to 1934 Paavolainen worked at an advertising agency
in Helsinki
, and then in 1935 in Turku
as the advertising manager of a clothing company, always being interested in elegant fashion. Later in the fall of 1935 he resigned and returned to Helsinki without any work. In 1936 he made a journey to Nazi Germany
, depicting his critical impressions in the travel book Kolmannen valtakunnan vieraana
:
Whilst in Germany, Paavolainen met Nazi politicians, writers, young enthusiasts, and intellectuals and attended an important political meeting where Joseph Goebbels
makes a speech. The experience was ironically documented in the Kolkannen book:
Kolmannen valtakunnan vieraana however was a major success and but right wing radicals, who drew inspiration from Nazism
, reviewed it objectively.
With the financial assistance of the publishing company Gummerus
, Paavolainen was able to travel to South America
in 1937, and gave the account of his experiences in Lahto Ja Loitsu in 1938. One of his experiences in a giant brothel
in downtown Rio de Janeiro
, Brazil
, was covered in the book expressing disdain and disgust of the influence of European culture. Shortly before the Winter War
, in 1939, he also travelled in the Soviet Union
and greatly admired Stalin
's modernism in the city.
In the late 1930s Paavolainen had a close relationship with the writer Helvi Hämäläinen
; she was the only woman, "who dared to leave him", as Paavolainen later said and they separated in 1941.
During World War II
Paavolainen served at the Information Department of the Headquarters. He was posted after the outbreak of the Winter War
to Mikkeli
in eastern Finland, as adjutant to an infantry general and visited Vienola in 1944. His childhood home with its famous palm tree room was destroyed. It was the last time he saw his place of birth. Paavolainen's critical World War II diary Synkkä Yksinpuhelu which was published in 1946, was attacked domestically because of its opposition and surmounted opinions of the war between Finland
and the Soviet Union
, and hidden anticipation of the defeat in the early war years. When Paavolainen's travel book from Germany were more or less enthusiastic, now he had his own reservations about the Finland's alliance with Nazi Germany. After the major criticism in Finland, Paavolainen made the decision to publish no more books and retreated. In 1945 Paavolainen married journalist Sirkka-Liisa Virtamo; but the marriage ended officially eight years later in 1953.
In 1947 Paavolainen changed direction and was appointed as director of theatre department of the Finnish Broadcasting Radio by his acquaintance Hella Wuolijoki
, who was dismissed in 1949. Under Paavolainen, who reluctantly accepted the work, the radio theatre programs gained a wide audience. In the mid to late 1950s he had a close relationship with Hertta Kuusinen
, the politician and parliament member, daughter of Otto Ville Kuusinen
, who was one of the top leaders of Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
During his last years Paavolainen often complained that he felt exhausted and drank heavily, and occasionally didn't bother to go to work, and nostalgically planned to write the history of Tulenkantajat
.
In 1960 Paavolainen received the coveted Eino Leino
award personally from President Urho Kekkonen
congratulated him, calling him a "man pushed into oblivion".
Olavi Paavolainen died on August 19, 1964 at his home in Helsinki.
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
ist, journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, travel book writer, and poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
. He often went under the pseudonym of Olavi Lauri. Paavolainen was the central figure of the literary group Tulenkantajat
Tulenkantajat (literature)
Tulenkantajat was a literature group in Finland during the 1920s. Tulenkantajat's main task was to find a way to take Finland from the so called backwood culture to the new, modern European level of literature...
(The Flame Bearers) and one of the most influential literary opinion leaders between the two World war
World war
A world war is a war affecting the majority of the world's most powerful and populous nations. World wars span multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in multiple theaters....
s in Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
. He represented liberal and Europe oriented views of culture and had an eclectic eye for new ideas.
In the late 1920s Paavolainen praised urban life, technology, and roaring cars in his works centering around modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
as the Italian Futurist poet F.T. Marinetti (1876-1944) had done two decades earlier. In the 1930s and 1940s he published a number of works that controversially criticised the members of the Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
cabinet in Germany and later the Winter War
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
between Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
Early life
Olavi Paavolainen was born in KivennapaPervomayskoye, Leningrad Oblast
Pervomayskoye is a rural locality in Vyborgsky District of Leningrad Oblast, Russia, on the Karelian Isthmus, located northwest of Saint Petersburg...
, Carelia
Karelia
Karelia , the land of the Karelian peoples, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Finland, Russia, and Sweden...
, in Russian Finland in 1903. Paavolainen descended from a family of civil servants
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
and soldier
Soldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
s. His father, Pietari (Pekka) Paavolainen, was a lawyer and Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
and his mother was named Alice Laura (Löfgrén). In 1914, he moved to Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
where he started to write poems already at the age of twelve. He later studied aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
and literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
at the University of Helsinki
University of Helsinki
The University of Helsinki is a university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but was founded in the city of Turku in 1640 as The Royal Academy of Turku, at that time part of the Swedish Empire. It is the oldest and largest university in Finland with the widest range of disciplines available...
from 1921 to 1925, but without graduating. While studying at the university, Paavolainen already started to publish critics and poems.
The young poet Katri Vala
Katri Vala
Katri Vala was a Finnish poet, critic, school teacher, and central member of the literary group Tulenkantajat with Olavi Paavolainen, Elina Vaara, Lauri Viljanen, Ilmari Pimiä, Viljo Kajava, and Yrjö Jylhä. As a modernizer of the Finnish poetry, she has been generally compared to Edith Södergran...
, whose first book appeared in 1924, was instrumental in encouraging Paavolainen in his choice of literary career. In the same year Paavolainen contributed to the anthology Nuoret runoilijat I (young poets) under the pseudonym Olavi Lauri, which he used some years. During this early period, Paavolainen was interested in nudism, and he deemed the works of Comtesse de Noailles important for his development. In his letters to Vala, Paavolainen also expressed his interest in fine suits, and mocked himself as a dandy
Dandy
A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance in a cult of Self...
. However he was heterosexual
Heterosexuality
Heterosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, physical or romantic attractions to persons of the opposite sex";...
, particularly attracted to older powerful women, and among his friends was the notorious Minna Craucher
Minna Craucher
Minna Craucher was a Finnish socialite and spy. Her home was a noted salon for various writers and artist. She also did espionage, originally for the Cheka, and was arrested three times for fraud. She also had connections to the right-wing Lapua Movement. She became the subject of several books...
, who had contacts to the extremist
Extremism
Extremism is any ideology or political act far outside the perceived political center of a society; or otherwise claimed to violate common moral standards...
right-wing
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
Lapua
Lapua
Lapua is a town and municipality of Finland.It is located next to the Lapua River in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Southern Ostrobothnia region. The town has a population of and covers an area of ofwhich is water...
movement. Craucher was murdered in 1932.
Late 1920s
In 1927 he traveled to ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and wrote his impressions to the magazine Ylioppilaslehti
Ylioppilaslehti
Ylioppilaslehti is a Finnish student newspaper founded in 1913. The paper is published by a private company Ylioppilaslehden kustannus Oy that is owned by the Student Union of the University of Helsinki. The paper is the largest student paper in Finland with a circulation of 35,000 copies...
, edited by Urho Kekkonen
Urho Kekkonen
Urho Kaleva Kekkonen , was a Finnish politician who served as Prime Minister of Finland and later as the eighth President of Finland . Kekkonen continued the “active neutrality” policy of his predecessor President Juho Kusti Paasikivi, a doctrine which came to be known as the “Paasikivi–Kekkonen...
. His first book, Valtatiet (Highways), cowritten with Mika Waltari
Mika Waltari
Mika Toimi Waltari was a Finnish writer, best known for his best-selling novel The Egyptian .- Early life :...
was published in 1928, a poem which was a youthful manifest of machine romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
. The poet speeds through the countries of Europe in his red Fiat
Fiat
FIAT, an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino , is an Italian automobile manufacturer, engine manufacturer, financial, and industrial group based in Turin in the Italian region of Piedmont. Fiat was founded in 1899 by a group of investors including Giovanni Agnelli...
car, which explodes into a star over the Sahara
Sahara
The Sahara is the world's second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean...
Desert.
Valtatiet, inspired by Marinetti's automobilism and Futurist manifestos, was followed in 1929 by a concoction of essays, Nykyaikaa Etsimässä (In search of modern time) which centers on the modernization
Modernization
In the social sciences, modernization or modernisation refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a 'pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. The teleology of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories, existing as a template that has been generally followed by...
of Europe after the atrocities of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. During this period, 1928-29, he also served in the Finnish Army
Finnish Army
The Finnish Army is the land forces branch of the Finnish Defence Forces.Today's Army is divided into six branches: the infantry , field artillery, anti-aircraft artillery, engineers, signals, and materiel troops.-History of the Finnish Army:Between 1809 and 1917 Finland was an autonomous part of...
. When the writer Pentti Haanpää attacked the army in his book Kenttä ja kasarmi (1928), Paavolainen considered its views on military life exaggerated and malicious.
1930s
In 1930 Paavolainen had become for a short time the editor of the magazine TulenkantajatTulenkantajat (literature)
Tulenkantajat was a literature group in Finland during the 1920s. Tulenkantajat's main task was to find a way to take Finland from the so called backwood culture to the new, modern European level of literature...
, but he was encountering some financial difficulty, and as a freelance
Freelancer
A freelancer, freelance worker, or freelance is somebody who is self-employed and is not committed to a particular employer long term. These workers are often represented by a company or an agency that resells their labor and that of others to its clients with or without project management and...
writer he had no regular income
Income
Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...
. In the conservative atmosphere of the 1930s Paavolainen felt himself personally lonely. He made a journey to England in 1932, but did not have the energy to write the travel book which his publisher expected. In 1930 his father died, and Paavolainen confessed to experiencing an Oedipal
Oedipus complex
In psychoanalytic theory, the term Oedipus complex denotes the emotions and ideas that the mind keeps in the unconscious, via dynamic repression, that concentrate upon a boy’s desire to sexually possess his mother, and kill his father...
dream in which from that point on he became a believer in Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
.
In the early 1930s Paavolainen discontent with the socio-economic backwardness of Finland declared it was time to "give voice to the new era of speed, mechanization
Mechanization
Mechanization or mechanisation is providing human operators with machinery that assists them with the muscular requirements of work or displaces muscular work. In some fields, mechanization includes the use of hand tools...
, cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality. This is contrasted with communitarian and particularistic theories, especially the ideas of patriotism and nationalism...
, collectivism
Collectivism
Collectivism is any philosophic, political, economic, mystical or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human in some collective group and the priority of group goals over individual goals. Collectivists usually focus on community, society, or nation...
, and the European experience." His next book, Keulakuvat, a collection of poetry, appeared in 1932, and Suursiivous the same year.
From 1933 to 1934 Paavolainen worked at an advertising agency
Advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
in Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
, and then in 1935 in Turku
Turku
Turku is a city situated on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. It is located in the region of Finland Proper. It is believed that Turku came into existence during the end of the 13th century which makes it the oldest city in Finland...
as the advertising manager of a clothing company, always being interested in elegant fashion. Later in the fall of 1935 he resigned and returned to Helsinki without any work. In 1936 he made a journey to Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, depicting his critical impressions in the travel book Kolmannen valtakunnan vieraana
Kolmannen valtakunnan vieraana
Kolmannen valtakunnan vieraana is a 1936 essay by Finnish poet and journalist Olavi Paavolainen. It is based on his experiences in Nazi Germany in 1936 where he encountered many members of the Nazi cabinet including witnessing a speech by Joseph Goebbels...
:
Whilst in Germany, Paavolainen met Nazi politicians, writers, young enthusiasts, and intellectuals and attended an important political meeting where Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
makes a speech. The experience was ironically documented in the Kolkannen book:
Kolmannen valtakunnan vieraana however was a major success and but right wing radicals, who drew inspiration from Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
, reviewed it objectively.
With the financial assistance of the publishing company Gummerus
Gummerus
Gummerus Oy is a Finnish media group that was founded in Jyväskylä in 1872 by Kaarle Jaakko Gummerus. In 1985, it moved its headquarters from Jyväskylä to Helsinki. In 2008, it had an annual turnover of EUR 26,9 million...
, Paavolainen was able to travel to South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
in 1937, and gave the account of his experiences in Lahto Ja Loitsu in 1938. One of his experiences in a giant brothel
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
in downtown Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, was covered in the book expressing disdain and disgust of the influence of European culture. Shortly before the Winter War
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
, in 1939, he also travelled in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and greatly admired Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's modernism in the city.
In the late 1930s Paavolainen had a close relationship with the writer Helvi Hämäläinen
Helvi Hämäläinen
Helvi Hämäläinen was a Finnish author who published dozens of books of prose and poetry during her six decade writing career....
; she was the only woman, "who dared to leave him", as Paavolainen later said and they separated in 1941.
1940s
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Paavolainen served at the Information Department of the Headquarters. He was posted after the outbreak of the Winter War
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
to Mikkeli
Mikkeli
Mikkeli is a town and municipality in Finland. It is located in what used to be the province of Eastern Finland and is part of the Southern Savonia region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water...
in eastern Finland, as adjutant to an infantry general and visited Vienola in 1944. His childhood home with its famous palm tree room was destroyed. It was the last time he saw his place of birth. Paavolainen's critical World War II diary Synkkä Yksinpuhelu which was published in 1946, was attacked domestically because of its opposition and surmounted opinions of the war between Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, and hidden anticipation of the defeat in the early war years. When Paavolainen's travel book from Germany were more or less enthusiastic, now he had his own reservations about the Finland's alliance with Nazi Germany. After the major criticism in Finland, Paavolainen made the decision to publish no more books and retreated. In 1945 Paavolainen married journalist Sirkka-Liisa Virtamo; but the marriage ended officially eight years later in 1953.
1947-:A change in direction
Hella Wuolijoki
Hella Wuolijoki was a Finnish writer of Estonian origin, known for her Niskavuori series.-Life & career:Wuolijoki was born in Helme, Estonia....
, who was dismissed in 1949. Under Paavolainen, who reluctantly accepted the work, the radio theatre programs gained a wide audience. In the mid to late 1950s he had a close relationship with Hertta Kuusinen
Hertta Kuusinen
Hertta Elina Kuusinen was a Finnish Communist politician. She was a member of the central committee and the political bureau of the Communist Party of Finland, member of parliament , general secretary and the leader of the parliamentary group of the Finnish People's Democratic League...
, the politician and parliament member, daughter of Otto Ville Kuusinen
Otto Ville Kuusinen
Otto Wilhelm Kuusinen was a Finnish-born Soviet politician, literary historian, and poet, who, after the defeat of the Reds in the Finnish Civil War, fled to the Soviet Union, where he worked until his death.- Early life :Kuusinen was born to the family of village tailor Wilhelm Juhonpoika...
, who was one of the top leaders of Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
During his last years Paavolainen often complained that he felt exhausted and drank heavily, and occasionally didn't bother to go to work, and nostalgically planned to write the history of Tulenkantajat
Tulenkantajat (literature)
Tulenkantajat was a literature group in Finland during the 1920s. Tulenkantajat's main task was to find a way to take Finland from the so called backwood culture to the new, modern European level of literature...
.
In 1960 Paavolainen received the coveted Eino Leino
Eino Leino
Eino Leino was a Finnish poet and journalist and is considered one of the pioneers of Finnish poetry. His poems combine modern and Finnish folk elements. The style of much of his work is like the Kalevala and folk songs. Nature, love, and despair are frequent themes in Leino's work...
award personally from President Urho Kekkonen
Urho Kekkonen
Urho Kaleva Kekkonen , was a Finnish politician who served as Prime Minister of Finland and later as the eighth President of Finland . Kekkonen continued the “active neutrality” policy of his predecessor President Juho Kusti Paasikivi, a doctrine which came to be known as the “Paasikivi–Kekkonen...
congratulated him, calling him a "man pushed into oblivion".
Olavi Paavolainen died on August 19, 1964 at his home in Helsinki.
Aftermath and legacy
In 1974 Paavolainen's friend Matti Kurjensaari published a vivid portrait on him. The account encountered significant objection from Paavolainen's heirs, a cold and callous affair which exhausted Kurjensaari to the point that he almost didn't publish it. The work, despite his efforts was also coldly received. by critics. In 1991 Jaakko Paavolainen's official biography was published this time with greater acknowledgment and reception, giving much new information about the childhood and youth of the author.Works
- Valtatiet, 1928 (Mika WaltariMika WaltariMika Toimi Waltari was a Finnish writer, best known for his best-selling novel The Egyptian .- Early life :...
n kanssa) - Nykyaikaa etsimässä, 1929
- Keulakuvat, 1932
- Suursiivous eli kirjallisessa lastenkamarissa, 1932
- Kolmannen valtakunnan vieraana, 1936
- Lähtö ja loitsu, 1937
- Risti ja hakaristi, 1938
- Karjala - Muistojen maa, 1940 (toim.)
- Rakas entinen Karjala, 1942 (toim.)
- Synkkä yksinpuhelu I–II, 1946
External links and sources
- http://mikaeli.mikkeliamk.fi/mikaeli/arkisto/tutkimus/aunus/
- http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/opaavola.htm