Finland-Swedish culture

Nyhetsåret 2015 i Finland var händelserikt och berörde svenska språket och dess talare på olika sätt. Det populistiska partiet Sannfinländarna – som utmärkt sig bl.a. genom att vilja minska på svenskans utrymme i Finland – var framgångsrikt i riksdagsvalet under våren samtidigt som Svenska folkpartiet (SFP) för första gången på 36 år hamnade utanför regeringen. Efter sommaren nåddes även Finland av den så kallade ”flyktingkrisen” och på mycket kort tid kom tiotusentals flyktingar till landet. Det blev aktuellt att mycket snabbt ta ställning till hur de nyanlända på bästa sätt skulle tas emot vilket diskuterades livligt i såväl finska som finlandssvenska medier.
I denna artikel undersöker vi två av årets nyhetshändelser närmare: Den ena var en finlandssvensk utbildningsangelägenhet – startandet av en ny klasslärarutbildning på svenska i Helsingfors – och den andra handlade om möjligheterna för flyktingar och invandrare att integreras på svenska (i stället för finska). Vi valde att fokusera på dessa två då de ägde rum samtidigt under ett par intensiva höstmånader, de representerade teman som inte riktigt förekommit tidigare i finlandssvensk tidningsdebatt, samt för att de uppstod  som respons på aktuella samhälleliga förändringar som potentiellt kan ha betydelse för Svenskfinlands framtid. Vi undersöker nyhetscyklerna (Hult & Pietikäinen 2014:5) ur såväl ett synkront perspektiv – deras respektive tidsmässiga förlopp och utlösare,  typ av och antal  inlägg, teman, intertextualitet och aktörer – som ur ett diakront perspektiv – dvs. i vilken mån debatten innehåller diskurser från tidigare debatter eller formar nya.

"Finland: The Country of White Lilies by Grigory Petrov is a small book that has historically played a big role in nation building in places like Turkey, Serbia, and Bulgaria. In Ataturk's days it was required reading in all Turkish schools. Still, however, none of its 180 pages have ever been translated into English. Leftist inclinations, idealism, lack luster appeal? Who knows why it hasn't. Additionally, while it has been translated into Finnish it has never been a really made waves in Finland, many Finns viewing its observations as over idealistic of rural life." thecountryofwhitelilies.blogspot.com/2012_11_01_archive.html

Сборник эссе посвящен Шведской Финляндии. Это поиск (иногда интуитивный) неочевидных, глубинных взаимосвязей между историческим прошлым финляндских шведов, их настоящим в контексте современных социологических и культурных процессов, перспективами сохранения целостности данного языкового сообщества. В книге много места уделено впечатлениям о Шведской Финляндии, о ее представителях, проживающих в разных регионах страны и имеющих различный социальный статус. В том числе, об известных шведоязычных финнов прошлого: Йохане-Людвиге Рунеберге, Закариасе Топелиусе, Яне Сибелиусе, Хелене Шерфбек, Эдит Сёдегран, Туве Янссон...
This work is a collected essays dedicated to Swedish Finland. It is aimed not only at a historical and sociological research in literal meaning but at a search (sometimes intuitive) of inner deep links between the historic past of Finland-Swedes, their present in the context of modern sociological and cultural processes, prospects of preservation of special features and integrity of the given linguistic community. At the same time all conclusions and analogies are based on strict historical facts and reviewed in the light of main culturological tendencies of recent decades. A special attention is given to impressions about Swedish Finland shared by its representatives who live in different regions of Finland or in Russia and are of different social backgrounds. The work makes it possible to look at the reality of Finalnd-Swedes from another point of view which, perhaps, differs from accepted one in Finland and stimulates an interest in aspects being less covered before.

Originally this low-budget book was written to form part of a series of studies (Skrifter) from the Department of Finnish at the University of Copenhagen, aiming at strengthening the position of Finnish studies. It was complemented a few years later by an anthology of linguistic articles on Finnish and the Finno-Ugric languages, John Lind & Olli Nuutinen (eds.), Det finske sprogs rødder: artikler om finsk og den finsk-ugriske sprogfamilie (Finsk Afdelings skrifter 4, 1992)

This upload is prompted by the misguided decision a month ago (April 2016) by the Danish government to force the University to abolish a number of smaller language studies at the University, including Finnish. The rationale of the authorities being, it seems, that it suffices for Danes to understand and express themselves in English, even though our faith in our ability in this field is wildly exaggerated as demonstrated by the poor performance by our present prime minister at the COP 15 in Copenhagen 2009: https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/video-uheldige-loekke-se-sagerne-gennem-aarene.

Basically the book is about the cultural and political history of the Finnish language in a broad sense with a natural emphasis on the ‘Language Strife’ (Kieliriita) from the mid-19th century up to the present day. This strife divided the politically active, culturally conscious and mainly Swedish speaking upper class in Finland, when a substantial number of this upper class, known as Fennomans, decided to abandon their Swedish mother tongue and adopt the language of the mainly Finnish speaking peasantry. This was a deliberate attempt to create a new uniform ‘nationality’ based on the Finnish language, which, it was thought, would serve to strengthen resistance against Russian influence after Finland in 1809 had been ceded by Sweden to Russia. Those who refused to abandon their Swedish mother tongue became known as Svecomans. From then on the language strife has been a dominant feature of Finnish history and culture, even though, for a short period towards the end of the 19th century, the strife abated when a section of the Fennomans (known as Young Finns) joint forces with the Svecomans in resisting forced russification. In this manner the Language Strife has had a major impact on the formation of modern Finland.

The ‘venska’ and ‘vinska’ of the title reflects these linguistic facts, 1) that the first of two initial consonants in Finnish rendition of foreign words is dropped, hence ‘svenska’ > ‘venska’; 2) the sound ‘f’ does not form part of Finnish phonology, hence ‘finska’>’vinska’. That was how these two words could still be pronounced in the Finnish speaking countryside at the beginning of the 20th century.

As a historian/slavicist the topic was strictly speaking outside my academic field. Against such a background it may not surprise that the Scandinavist W. Glyn Jones gave the book a short but devastatingly negative review in The Slavonic and East European Review (1990, p 531-32). After correctly stating that “this book traces the development of Finnish, as the subtitle suggests, from the language of the common people to the official language and the vehicle of culture”, Jones went on to claim, “The foreword couples this admirable intent with an attempt to counter Danish misinterpretations of the difficulties encountered by Finns in discussions with Nordic colleagues. According to the author, these are often thought to result from one of the following: ‘(1) a conscious protest against using the Swedish language; (2) Finnish schools being inferior to Danish schools; or (3) Finns being either stupid or simple.’ This seems to be a curious basis on which to write a scholarly study”. To me, however, the itemising, construed as a quote from the book, looks like a typical strawman fallacy, because nowhere in the book are there any references to Danish schools or school system nor is there any insinuation anywhere on my part that Finns should be “either stupid or simple”, if anything, quite the contrary.

For a book of this nature, written in one of the smaller languages about another of the smaller languages, it was surprisingly widely reviewed. Thus Jones’ American Scandinavist colleague James E. Cathey gave a very different evaluation of the book in Scandinavian Studies (63 № 3 pp. 404–6, 1991/ http://www.jstor.org/stable/40919323). The book “seeks to remedy that lack [interest in and knowledge of Finnish and Finland] with this thorough and very readable external history of Finnish. By “external history” I mean that we are here presented with a cultural and political account of the long struggle for emergence and consolidation of Finnish as a modern language and of its gradual predominance over Swedish in Finland. … The book presents largely the same story as that found in such books as Matti Klinge's Runebergs två fosterland (1983), William A. Wilson's Folklore and Nationalism in Modern Finland (1976) or, for the later period, Pekka Kalevi Hämäläinen's In Time of Storm: Revolution, Civil War, and the Ethnolinguistic Issue in Finland (1979). Lind's book does more than any one of these, however, and gives a very thorough and readable history (in Danish) of the long, sometimes bitter, but ultimately healing struggle for supremacy between Swedish and Finnish and for Finland”.

Soon after its publication the Norwegian linguist Trond Trosterud with expert knowledge of both Scandinavian and Finno-Ugric languages in the region gave a detailed review on the internet (http://www.hum.uit.no/a/trond/vinska.html): ‘God bok om finsk ytre språkhistorie’ (Good book about the external history of Finnish). While deploring from a linguistic point of view that only ten out of 250 pages are devoted to the development of the Finnish language. Trosterud observes that the book displays a strong tendency towards interpreting data, asking whys and applying broader perspectives, … drawing personal conclusions. Also Trosterud stresses that my unconventional background and distance – also geographical – to the problem allows for a more balanced approach and to see the problem in a wider Scandinavian perspective. Thus Trosterud, with reference to my quote from a little known text (1855) by the prominent Norwegian historian Peter Andreas Munch (1810-63), who doubted that Finns were fit to adopt a higher culture like the Indo-European, sees that as a sad forewarning of the handling fifty years later of the Finnish minority population in northern Norway by Norwegian authorities.

It was, of course, most interesting to see if and how the book was received in Finland. Here Henrik Stenius, historian and specialist in popular movements, in Historisk Tidskrift för Finland (‘Finskhetsrörelsens historia fortfarande oskriven’ 1992: 77(2), 283-295) considered the book in a review article together with a large anthology on the history of the Fennoman Movement that appeared the same year (Herää Suomi. Suomalaisuusliikkeen historia – Wake up Finland. The History of the Fennoman Movement [Herää Suomi, being a catchphrase of the mid-19th century]). Here Stenius devoted the last couple of pages to Mellem "venska" og "vinska", which, although its topic was explicitly the position of Finnish language in its entire history, according to Stenius, nevertheless offered the more multifaceted picture of the Fennoman Movement (har den mångsidigare och intressantare bilden av finskhetsrörelsen); Stenius also found that the book presented interesting points, based fx on an ability to penetrate the minds of the Finnish militaries of the young republic and the situation of the students in the independent Finland (I rask fart tar han upp den ena frågan efter den andra, beledsagade med intressanta poänger, som ofta bygger på inlevelseförmåga … i de finska militärernas psyke i den unga republiken, i studenternas situation i det självständiga Finland ...).

The first and largest review to appear was, however, also the most surprising. On February 1 1990, Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s main newspaper and by far largest newspaper in Scandinavia, both with regard to size and circulation, presented the publication of the book as a major event. Its appearance was signalled already on the front page of the News Section (Tanskalaistutkija arvioi uudestaan Suomen kieliriitoja), while in the Culture Section the linguist and expert on Finnish dialects Erkki Lyytikäinen on half a page over all six columns discussed the book under the title ‘The Language strife from hubris to reconciliation. A Danish scholar paints an uglier picture of the Fennoman movement compared to the Finnish view (Kieliriita uhosta sovintoon. Tanskalaistutkijan kuva fennomaniasta on rumempi kuin suomalaisten käsitys). Here Lyytikäinen critically discussed several points I made, but nevertheless found that the book despite differences in opinion was both ‘interesting, exiting, deserving all attention (… teos on mielenkiintoinen, jännittävä, kaiken huomion ansaitseva).

Since this upload was prompted by the decision to remove Finnish studies from the academic curriculum of Danish universities, it is worth quoting Lyytikäinen’s final paragraph. With reference to my acknowledgements in the preface, where I expressed my gratitude to the teachers of Finnish at the University, Olli Nuutinen and Tarja Soutkari, Lyytikäinen maintains, ‘both works as lectures in Finnish in Danish universities. The importance for Finnish culture of their work … is impossible to overestimate’ (… Heidän … työn merkitystä Suomen kulttuurille on mahdoton yliarvioida). This has now come to an end! A dire consequence of the removal of Finnish and a number of other language studies from the curricula of Danish universities may well be that Danish studies of linguistics on a sufficient scholarly level will die out. Certainly it will be impossible for a book like this to be written at a Danish university in the future.

Статья рассматривает творчество Эдит Сёдергран и Генри Парланда с точки зрения транснационального и многонационального явления финляндской литературы на шведском языке. Во введении представлен краткий обзор шведоязычной финской литературы, роли модернистов 1910–1920-х годов в ее развитии. В основном разделе перечисляются важные жизненные вехи обоих авторов; их географическая локализация, связи с финской, немецкой и русской культурами, непосредственно повлиявшими на их произведения. В заключительных разделах статьи анализируются четыре критерия
принадлежности к этническим меньшинствам в контексте творчества авторов, роль шведского языка как основного языка их произведений; рассматривается диалог «своего» и «чужого» в пространстве литературы национального меньшинства.
The article deals with creations of Edith Södergran and Henry Parland from the point of a transnational and multinational phenomenon of the literature of Finland in the Swedish language. The introduction gives a brief overview of the Swedish-language literature of Finland and shows the role of modernists of the 1910–20s in its development. The main part describes life milestones of both writers, their geographical localization, connections with Finnish, German and Russian cultures which have a direct influence on their works. The final part analyses four criteria of belonging to ethnic minorities in the context of writers’ creations, and the role of Swedish as the main language of their works. It also considers the dialogue between the own and the alien in the space of national minority literature.

Though he came from Carelia's Finland-Swedish cultural milieu, Vasily Sesemann (1884–1963) is considered Lithuania’s greatest philosopher, even though he only learned the language upon accepting a position there at the suggestion of his old friend Nicolai Hartmann. These two Baltic Germans followed parallel paths in St. Petersburg and Marburg. The author of the first Russian review of Sein und Zeit, Sesemann was part of the return to Being as a valid question for philosophy that Heidegger’s early work epitomized, along with Hartmann’s. Both Balts were indebted to the Russian twist of Neo-Kantianism: a gnoseological idealism illustrated by Symeon Frank and especially by Sesemann’s teacher, Nikolai Lossky. Fine points like Bergson’s Russian reception and Russian networks in German academia may help intellectual historians fill many gaps in tracing cultural transfers, and a host of judicious comparisons are made with later developments in various fields.

Summary in English:
The Establishment and Development of the Concept “Cultural Heritage” in Swedish-speaking Finland

This article studies the establishment, usage and development of the concept cultural heritage. The Swedish term kulturarv, cultural heritage, in Swedish-speaking Finland during the period 1880–2000 is the center of the examination. Methodologically the study focuses on discoursive trends in the usage of cultural heritage in Swedish texts from Finland. The perspective of the study is constructionist – the intention is not to conclude what is, should or should not be considered cultural heritage, but to analyze how cultural heritage is spoken of and what cultural patterns can be observed in that discussion.
The earliest example of kulturarv being used in a Swedish-speaking daily newspaper dates to 1880. Here the term is used to discuss the position of the classic languages in the curriculum. The example is part of a discourse where cultural heritage is depicted as education, perhaps even refinement, but also as a common frame of reference. The discourse reappears throughout the period of the study. However, the level of this common frame of reference varies – sometimes it is a broad, “Western” heritage, other times an ethnic Finland-Swedish heritage.
A discourse that was established during the last decade of the 19th century is here referred to as “the Swedish heritage”. Historically, Finland was part of Sweden until 1809, after that Finland was turned into a Russian grand duchy until the independence in 1917. The discourse on the Swedish heritage describes the language, culture and administration of the Swedish era as cultural heritage. In the Swedish-speaking press in Finland the discourse was established at an early date and it has reappeared throughout the research period. Similar patterns have not been noted in the usage of the term kulturarv in Sweden, so it is likely that the minority position of the Swedish-speakers in Finland along with their historic context has influenced this discourse.
A third major discourse found in the study relates to usage of kulturarv as a means to position the current against the past as well as the future. This discourse is closely connected to notions of safeguarding and preservation as well as cultural heritage as prospective memory. Within this discourse kulturarv can be depicted as a relay baton, something that should be passed on, from past generations to us, and then onwards. That makes the performer a bearer of heritage, just as a “tradition bearer” used to be considered within folkloristics. However, cultural heritage can also be spoken of as something that the current holder can or even should leave his/her own imprint on. This might be connected to a change in the view on the concept of culture as such. Kulturarv can consequently be spoken of as something that needs to be acted out or that has to do with practical knowledge, but the most common pattern is to depict cultural heritage as something that simply has to be passed on.
Over all it seems as the usage of the term kulturarv reflects the context that the history of Finland provides. The biggest difference compared to precious research on the term cultural heritage is that in the Swedish material from Finland the discourse on the heritage from Sweden is so dominant. The term kulturarv has been used throughout the research period, possibly with some decline in the period 1945–80. Intangible cultural elements were spoken of as cultural heritage as early as 1919, but the combination of the terms “intangible” and “cultural heritage” does not seem to have been introduced before the 21st century in the Finland-Swedish press.

Kersti Bergroth (1886–1975) oli tuottelias kirjailija, joka klassikon asemaan nousseilla Eeva-kirjoillaan on myös yksi suomalaisen nuortenkirjallisuuden pioneereista. Erityistä Evas-klass/Eevan luokka-teoksessa (1917) on se, että se ilmestyi samaan aikaan sekä ruotsiksi että suomeksi ja Bergroth vastasi itse molemmista versiosta. Bergrothin tuotantoa on toistaiseksi tutkittu melko vähän (ks. kuitenkin Grönstrand 2011), ja hänen toimintaansa omien tekstiensä kääntäjänä vielä vähemmän.
Esitelmässämme tarkastelemme lähemmin juuri Evas-klass/Eevan luokka-teoksia. Vertaamme ruotsin- ja suomenkielisiä teoksia keskenään kielen- ja kirjallisuudentutkimuksen näkökulmasta (vrt. esim. Tallberg-Nygård 2017). Kiinnostuksen kohteena ovat ennen kaikkea henkilö- ja paikannimistöön kuuluvat ilmiöt sekä kieli-identiteettiin ja kulttuuriin liittyvät piirteet, esimerkiksi maininnat ruokakulttuurista ja viittaukset J. L. Runebergin runouteen. Tavoitteena on yhtäältä valottaa lähemmin kirjailija-kääntäjän omia käännösstrategioita, toisaalta käännösstrategioita yleisemminkin. Evas-klass/Eevan luokka-teoksen suomen- ja ruotsinkielisen version rinnalle tuomme myös romaanin norjannoksen: (Eva’s klasse, Mittet & CO. 1933, käännös Anne Marie Worm-Müller).
Keskeinen tutkimuskysymyksemme on, miten suomen-, ruotsin- ja norjankieliset versiot poikkeavat toisistaan globaalien ja paikallisten käännösstrategioiden (ks. esim. Tallberg-Nygård 2017) kannalta. Analyysimme osoittaa eroavuuksia kulttuurinsisäisen kääntämisen tuloksena syntyneen suomennoksen ja kulttuurienvälisen kääntämisen (Hartama-Heinonen 2014, 2017) tuloksena syntyneen norjannoksen välillä: suomentaessaan omaa tekstiään Bergroth turvautuu usein vakiintuneisiin käännösvastineisiin, kun taas norjantaja muokkaa tekstiä huomattavasti enemmän (vrt. Tallberg-Nygård 2017). Alkuteksti ja suomennos on tarkoitettu ennen kaikkea Suomessa asuvalle lukijakunnalle, joka elää hyvin samantapaisessa kulttuuripiirissä, kun taas Suomen ja Norjan kulttuurit poikkeavat jonkin verran toisistaan.

Lähteet

Grönstrand, H. (2011). Eeva suomeksi ja Eva ruotsiksi. Kirjailija-kääntäjä Kersti Bergroth kielikiistojen sovittelijana. Teoksessa Heidi Grönstrand & Kristina Malmio (toim.) Både och, sekä että. Om flerspråkighet/Monikielisyydestä. Helsinki: Schildts.
Hartama-Heinonen, R. (2014). Inomkulturell översättning – problemfri verksamhet? Teoksessa: Jan Lindström, Sofie Henricson, Anne Huhtala, Pirjo Kukkonen, Hanna Lehti-Eklund & Camilla Lindholm (toim.): Svenskans beskrivning 33. Förhandlingar vid Trettiotredje sammankomsten för svenskans beskrivning, Helsingfors den 15–17 maj 2013. Nordica Helsingiensia 37. Helsingfors: Finska, finskugriska och nordiska institutionen. Helsingfors universitet. S. 119–128.
Hartama-Heinonen, R. (2017). Kulttuurin rajat, kääntämisen rajat. Kulttuurinsisäisen kääntämisen mahdollisuus ja luonne. Teoksessa: Ritva Hartama-Heinonen, Marja Kivilehto, Liisa Laukkanen & Minna Ruokonen (toim.): MikaEL Kääntämisen ja tulkkauksen tutkimuksen symposiumin verkkojulkaisu, vol. 10, s. 17–30.
Tallberg-Nygård, M. (2017). Semiosfärerna över Helsingfors. Kjell Westös romankvartett i intrakultu¬rell och interkulturell översättning. Diss. Nordica. Finska, finskugriska och nordiska institu¬tionen. Humanistiska fakulteten vid Helsingfors universitet. Acta Translatologica Helsingiensia Vol. 5.

The Finland-Swedish ethnologist Erla Husgafvel's story 'Brevet från Afrika' ('The Letter from Africa') is a re-telling of an authentic episode from her mother's early life (1880's), about the exaltic impact of the turning up of a letter from her missionary sister in northern Namibia. As Husgafvel originally published her 'letter' in a Christmas bulletin for Ostrobothnian soldiers at the Russian war front in 1944, it reads as a secular consolation in its juxtaposing, almost blashemously,  the causes for confronting death, the dying for the present Coming of God alternatively for your country. It is brave statement about life.

The Finland-Swedish ethnologist Erla Husgafvel's story 'Brevet från Afrika' ('The Letter from Africa') is a re-telling of an authentic episode from her mother's early life (1880's), about the exaltic impact of the turning up of a letter from her missionary sister in northern Namibia. As Husgafvel originally published her 'letter' in a Christmas bulletin for Ostrobothnian soldiers at the Russian war front in 1944, it reads as a secular consolation in its juxtaposing, almost blashemously,  the causes for confronting death, the dying for the present Coming of God alternatively for your country. It is brave statement about life.

На примере творчества финского двуязычного писателя русского происхождения З. Линден рассматривается явление транснациональности автора на фоне мультикультурной коммуникации. Анализируется проблематика определения границ современных национальных литератур на примере шведоязычной финской литературы.
The phenomenon of the transnational author in the context of multicultural communication is examined, taking the work of Z. Linden, a bilingual Finnish author of Russian origin, as an example. The problem of defining the borders of modern national literatures is analysed on the basis of Swedish-language Finnish literature.

Роботу присвячено процесу зародження фінського національного суспільно-політичного руху — "Фенноманство" — у Великому князівстві Фінляндському у XVIII-Х ІХ ст.

The research is dedicated to the process of the birth of the Finnish national socio-political "Fennoman movement" in the Grand Duchy of Finland during XVIII-ХІХ centuries. In the article defined the main ways of the uprise and development of the national liberation "Fennoman movement" of Finnish modern nation, and researched the problems of coexistence with reality in autocratic tsarist Russian empire. The author revealed the essence of educational activity of the first researchers of Finnish history and literature that was the beginning of a mass movement for the recognition of Finnish single and dominant language in the Grand Duchy of Finland. Much attention is paid to the activities of philosophical, historical and journalistic ancestors of the Finnish nationalism, which could affect not only the Finnish society, but also in the autocratic Russian Tsar, whom allowed the local parliament-Valtiopaiva, also reconvened and approved the Finnish language as official in the autonomy. The complex analysis of sources and studying a wide range of scientific literature of the subject suggest that precisely because of the Fennomans further Finnish modern nation won a coveted independence.

This article examines how narrators of four historical legends construct their relation to the past through the use of particular narrative strategies. They do this by manipulating patterns of speech representation, allowing themselves to merge with history; and by focusing on memories embedded in the landscape and material traces of the past in the present.

В статье рассматривается шведоязычная финская литература с точки зрения роли шведского языка в финском обществе: традиции шведского языка и его истории в Финляндии; вклада Э. Сёдергран, Т. Янссон и других шведоязычных авторов в финскую литературу; современной шведоязычной финской литературы и ее позиций в финском литературном процессе. 
The article examines Swedish-language Finnish literature from the point of view of the role of the Swedish language in Finnish society: the tradition of the Swedish language and its history in Finland; the contribution of E. Södergran, T. Jansson and other Swedish-language authors to Finnish literature; modern Swedish-language Finnish literature and its positions in the Finnish literary process.

This work is a collected essays dedicated to Swedish Finland. It is aimed not only at a historical and sociological research in literal meaning but at a search (sometimes intuitive) of inner deep links between the historic past of Finland-Swedes, their present in the context of modern sociological and cultural processes, prospects of preservation of special features and integrity of the given linguistic community. At the same time all conclusions and analogies are based on strict historical facts and reviewed in the light of main culturological tendencies of recent decades.
Issues of vast interaction of Swedish-speaking and Finnish-speaking communities of present-day Finland are in the focus of the work. In the first place it regards the usage of Swedish as a mother tongue in everyday life, in the process of education, and a possibility of its usage in professional sphere. Trends in preservation of Swedish in bilingual families and in monolingual regions of Finland are taken into consideration. Features of Swedish-language dialects are also covered. Attention is paid to the Aland Islands as to a homogenous Swedish-speaking region.
The work also reviews a process of formation of Finnish as a national language against a background of domination of Swedish as an official language; it elucidates sources of disagreement between language groups. Special attention is paid to literature and art. Reality of Swedishspeaking community of Finland in historical and cultural contexts is reviewed through works of well-known representatives of Swedish Finland (J. L. Runeberg, Z. Topelius, J. Sibelius, H. Schjerfbeck, T. Jansson).
A special attention is given to impressions about Swedish Finland shared by its representatives who live in different regions of Finland or in Russia and are of different social backgrounds.
The work makes it possible to look at the reality of Finalnd-Swedes from another point of view which, perhaps, differs from accepted one in Finland and stimulates an interest in aspects being less covered before.

Erla Hovilainen-Husgafvel (f. Lund), född 1907, uppvuxen i Gamlakarleby och Vasa, flyttade med sina föräldrar som femtonåring till Åbo där hon tog studenten vid Åbo svenska samskola och 1928 fil.mag. examen i folklivsforskning för professor Gabriel Nikander vid Åbo Akademi. Under trettio-talet deltog hon i etnologiska fältexpeditioner i Österbotten och Estland och påbörjade ett mångsidigt författarskap med utgångspunkt i sin forskning som skulle (mer eller mindre) upphöra i och med utvandringen till Sverige (via Danmark) efter krigen. Hon dog 1984 i Småland, Sverige.
Kapitlet är strukturerat enligt tre teoretiska modeller, en bibliografisk, en biografisk, och en idéhistorisk. Jag har organiserat Husgafvels skriftliga produktioner i kronologisk ordning (med en bilagd lista på hennes rikssvenska journalistiska arbeten), som samtidigt utgör plattform för att identifiera enskilda verks genretillhörighet (från fältarbetsanteckningen till krönikan, essän, lustspelet, radioprogrammet, dokumentationen/boken) och deras roll i ett särpräglat etnologiskt författarskap. Kapitlet diskuterar hållpunkter (personliga och strukturella) i Husgafels liv som avgörande för hennes förståelsekultur: hennes sociala familjebakgrund, krigen, patriarkala akademiska mönster, och styrkan/svagheten i utanförskap/exil som kvinna/fattig/österbottnisk 'häxa'. Jag länkar det biografiska perspektivet med det idéhistoriska för att förstå eller problematisera tre övergripande motivområden som Husgafvel var besatt av: 1. revolt och anpassning: bygdekonservatism, nationalism, överträdelse; 2. (myten om) det österbottniska samhället (byn) som naturtillstånd och kunskapsreservat; 3. (e)migrationens ideologiska vemod.
Kapitlet är avsett ge ny kunskap om en relativ okänd finlandssvensk etnolog och berätta om ett emigrantöde av ett speciellt slag.

Erla Hovilainen-Husgafvel was born (Lund) in Gamlakarleby/Kokkola in 1907, moved with her family to Vasa/Vaasa while a child, and from there, in her teens, to Åbo/Turku where she attended Åbo svenska samskola. She graduated from Åbo Akademi in 1928 with a master's degree in ethnology ('folklore'), with Professor Gabriel Nikander as her supervisor. During the 1930s she participated in in all eleven ethnological expeditions in Ostrobothnia and Estland and also started her career as a multifaceted writer with its genesis in her fieldwork. Her academic work would terminate (more or less) by the time of her and her husband's emigration to Sweden (via Denmark) in 1946. She died in 1984 at Mariannelund, Småland, in southern Sweden.
The chapter is structured along the three theoretical practices of bibliography, biography, and intellectual history. I have organized Husgafvel's written works chronologically (her newspaper articles written in Sweden appear separately). The bibliographical list of works serves also as tool to identify their generic affiliations (from the field work notes to the chronicle, the essay, the comedy, the radio program, the book/documentary) and their roles in her unconventional ethnological writing. The chapter features stations (personal and structural) in her life that were central for her intellectual formation: her family background, the Finnish wars, patriarchal academic patterns, and the strength/weakness of being alienated/in exile, as woman/ working class poor/ Ostrobothnian 'witch'. I associate the biographical perspective with that of intellectual history in order to understand or problematize three overlapping areas that possessed Husgafvel: 1. rebellion or assimilation, countryside conservatism, nationalism, transgression; 2. the myths about the Ostrobothnian community (the village) as an Edenic reservoir of knowledge; 3. the ideological melancholia of (e/im)migration.
My intention is to introduce a relatively unknown Finland-Swedish ethnologist and to tell a story about a remarkable person who emigrated but never moved.

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50,000 people have signed a petition against mandatory Swedish classes in Finnish schools, triggering a parliamentary debate on the issue.

To assess the likely outcome of this, it’s instructive to consider some details of the sociolinguistic context (both historical and contemporary). Currently, Swedish first-language speakers make up approximately 6% of Finland’s population of five-and-a-half million, whereas the figure for Finnish sits at around 90%. These figures are almost exactly reversed in the Åland Islands (a small autonomous Finnish region located between Sweden and Finland), where Swedish is the only official language.

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umfangreiches, schon zu Lebzeiten mehr als zwanzig Gedichtsammlungen umfassendes Werk wurde lange Zeit von der akademischen Literaturwissenschaft stiefmütterlich behandelt. Im Schatten seiner leichter zugänglich erscheinenden Mitstreiter innerhalb des ›finnlandschwedischen Modernismus‹, Edith Södergran, Rabbe Enckell und Elmer Diktonius, wurde er wenig beachtet und nur von einzelnen Enthusiasten (wie Bengt Holmqvist und Mikael Enckell) hervorgehoben. Erst seit Anfang der achtziger Jahre, vielleicht gefördert durch eine (teilweise) theoretische Öffnung und Umorientierung der schwedischen Literaturwissenschaft, ist Björling mehr ins Zentrum des Interesses gerückt. Anders Olsson hat sich der Texte selbst angenommen und 1995 eine fünfbändige, umfassende Werkedition besorgt -die besten Voraussetzungen also, um in einer begleitenden, großangelegten Studie die ›poetische Welt‹ des finnlandschwedischen Lyrikers vorzustellen.