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Olavi (Lauri) Paavolainen (1903-1964) |
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Finnish essayist, journalist, travel book writer, poet, and cosmopolitan, who ironically called himself a sälli (fellow). Olavi Paavolainen was the central figure of the literary group Tulenkantajat (The Flame Bearers) and one of the most influential literary opinion leaders between the World Wars 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 as the Italian Futurist poet F.T. Marinetti (1876-1944) had done two decades earlier. A metropolis with its high skyscrapers was for Paavolainen the greatest cultural achievement, a manifest of modern times. 14.12.1943 . . . Kieltämättä meikäläinen armeija on siveellisessä suhteessa maailman parhaita. Mutta kaksi vuotta kestäneen sodan jälkeen, josta suurin osa on ollut yleensä aina demoralisoivaa asemasotaa, alkavat meidänkin armeijassamme ilmetä jokaiseen pitkäksi venyneeseen sodankäyntiin luonnonvoiman pakosta pesiytyvät rappioilmiöt. TK-kirjoituksia ja -valokuvia seuratessani ovat minua huvittaneet sellaiset piirteet kuin rintamien huvielämässä yhä enemmän muotiin tulleiden naisjäljittelijöiden esiintyminen. Selvää transvestismiä. Mutta naiivin yksinkertaisina valokuvaajat lähettävät julkaistavaksi kuvia, joissa parikymmentä alastonta, lannevaatteella ja pahvilevyistä tehdyillä rinnoilla koristettua miestä esiintyy "balettitanssijattarina" rintamateattereissa. Luonnollisesti merkitään osastolla moisia ilmiöitä kuvailevat kirjoitukset ja kuvat kielletyiksi. Eivätkö he huomaa, minkälaisesta klassillisesta rintamien eroottisesta korvikkeesta on kysymys? (from Synkkä yksinpuhelu: Päiväkirjan lehtiä vuosilta 1941-1944 by Olavi Paavolainen, Helsingissä: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava, 2012, p. 457; first published in 1946) Olavi Paavolainen was born in Kivennapa, Carelia, (Russian Finland). His father, Pietari (Pekka) Paavolainen, was a lawyer and member of parliament; his mother, Alice Laura (Löfgrén) Paavolainen descended from a family of civil servants and soldiers. In 1914 the family moved to Helsinki, where Paavolainen began to write poems at the age of twelve. From 1921 to 1925, he studied aesthetics and literature at the University of Helsinki, without graduating. While studying at the university, Paavolainen began to publish
critics and poems. The young poet Katri Vala, whose first
book came out in 1924, encouraged Paavolainen in his choice
of literary career. In his letters to Vala, Paavolainen expressed his
interest in nice suits, and mocked himself as a dandy. Like the
self-styled bohemian artists and writers in Paris, he always took care
to go out dressed impeccably. Paavolainen
contributed in 1924 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
found the works of Comtesse de Noailles important for his development.
Later the thoughts of André Gide, Aldous Huxley, and especially
D.H.Lawrence became close to him. In 1927 he traveled to Paris and
published his impressions in the magazine Ylioppilaslehti,
edited by Urho Kekkonen. The poet and
folklorist Martti Haavio
read his writings without believing his sincerity and dismissed
Paavolainen's cosmopolitanism as empty and ponderous. In the future,
these two writers would clash many times in the struggle between old
schools and modernist trends. Paavolainen's first book, Valtatiet (1928),
cowritten with Mika Waltari,
was inspired by Marinetti's automobilism and Futurist manifestos.
Only the poems were numbered, not the pages. Paavolainen contributed 12
poems to the collection, the most famous of which is 'Terässinfonia'
(Steel Symphony). Artistically, Waltari dominated the work, but
Paavolainen had a decisive role in the shaping of its literary vision,
its machine romantic impressions: the poet
speeds through the countries of Europe in his red Fiat car, which
explodes into a star over the Sahara Desert. This works has enjoyed a
kind of cult status, but at the time of its appearance, it was greeted
with lukewarm reviews. Valtatiet was
followed by a collection of essays, Nykyaikaa etsimässä (1929,
Looking for modern times), in which subjects varied from jazz, women's
fashion, outdoor life to Aleksadr Blok, Sergei Esenin and Vladimir Mayakovsky. The book was dedicated to Hagar Olsson. Its title referred to Marcel Proust's famous In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu), but Paavolainen had not read the work. Paavolainen eagerly welcomed the modernization of Europe after the horrors of World War I. In 1928-29, Paavolainen served in the army. When the writer Pentti Haanpää attacked the military discipline in his book Kenttä ja kasarmi (1928), Paavolainen dismissed his views as exaggerated and malicious. In 1930 Paavolainen worked for a short time as the editor of
the magazine Tulenkantajat. His
financial problems continued, and as a freelance writer he had no
regular incomes. As an essayist he wrote on wide variety of
subjects, places, people, and topical cultural phenomena. Already in
the early pieces, he had adopted the persona of the aesthete, who had
an opinion of everything, many times without possessing a deeper
knowledge of the specific subject. At the same time even went so far as
to accuse his friends, including Mika Waltari, of being superficial. Feeling himself lonely in the conservative atmosphere of the 1930s, Paavolainen bewailed the backwardness of Finland and stated it was time to "give voice to the new era of speed, mechanisation, cosmopolitanism, collectivism, and the European experience." In 1932 he published two books, Keulakuvat, a collection of poetry, and Suursiivous, a literary housecleaning and adissection of the Tulenkantajat group. Paavolainen made a journey to England in 1932, but did not have the energy to write the travel book which his published expected. When his father died in 1930, Paavolainen saw an Oedipal dream and confessed that from that moment he fully believed in Freud. Elder women attracted Paavolainen, and among his friends was the notorious Minna Craucher, a spy, whose salon attracted a wide array of intellectuals, writers, and members of the extremist right-wing Lapua movement. Craucher was murdered in 1932 by one of her guests. In the late 1930s, Paavolainen had an affair with the writer Helvi Hämäläinen; their paths eventually separated in 1941. Hämäläinen was the only woman, "who dared to leave him," as Paavolainen later said. Before marrying the journalist Sirkka-Liisa Virtamo in 1945, Paavolainen had a short romance with the poet Sirkka Selja, who was 17 years his junior. The marriage did not bring happiness to either and ended officially seven years later. 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 – Paavolainen himself always dressed elegantly. After resigning, he returned to Helsinki without any work. Next year he made a journey to Nazi Germany, depicting his critical impressions in the travel book Kolmannen valtakunnan vieraana (1936). Paavolainen met politicians, writers, young Nazis, and intellectuals. He noticed that green – the color of uniforms – was in fashion in suits. Paavolainen also attended the annual Nazi Party rally in Nürnberg, where Josef Goebbels and Adolf Hitler made speeches. Paavolainen considered Reichspropagandaleiter Goebbels even better speaker than the Führer. "This small man is all nerves and brain – heart and soul are missing. His vanity is also obvious." Paavolainen's style was ironic. He felt himself uncomfortable in the solemn atmosphere and missed signs of good humour. Kolmannen valtakunnan vieraana was a huge success.
Also the
right wing radicals, who drew inspiration from Nazism, reviewed it
objectively. However, the book was never translated into German and he
never openly sympathized with the German cause like the most prominent
poet of the period, V.A. Koskenniemi. Satisfied with his role as a
guest of the Third Reich, Paavolainen did not feel compelled to say
everything he thought. Thus he did not have much to comment on the
position of Jews. His enthusiams over modern technology, fast cars and
the
Autobahn had cooled – to talk of the present was more important than
advocating the future. With the help of the publishing
company Gummerus, Paavolainen sailed in 1937 to South America. In Rio
de Janeiro, Paavolainen spent a night in a giant brothel. His account
of the journey Paavolainen gave in Lähtö ja loitsu (1938,
The spell and the separation). Essentially it was an expression of
disgust towards European culture. This work, which Paavolainen refused
to describe as a travel book, was dedicated to the memory of
the author of Martin Eden
(=Jack London). As a souvenir Paavolainen brought home a stack of
pornographic postcards. Since the 1930s, he had planned to write a book
on human sexuality and collected during the years an enormous amount of
material. Just before the Winter War, in 1939, Paavolainen also
travelled in
the Soviet Union. In Moscow he admired its new houses, streets, and the
Underground. (It took 43 years before the Helsinki Metro was opened.)
Paavolainen constantly complained of being tired; the journey took
about
four moths in total. Although he had plenty of time to see the cultural
life and visit attractions, he met relatively few
writers, of whom the most important were Vera Inber, Lev Kassil, Abram
Argo, and Yury Olesha. Paavolainen's
hosts noticed that he always chose his words very carefully and mostly
kept his thoughts to himself. Wherever he went, he was under
surveillance. His guide from VOKS (the All-Soviet Association for
Cultural Relations), Grigorii Heifetz, had long-time connections with
the Soviet secret service. It is possible that Paavolainen
destroyed on his return in September through France some of his notes
and material he had collected. There are no photographs from this
journey. In 1951, he again visited the Soviet Union, and had a
camera with him. During WW II Paavolainen served at the Information Department
of the
Headquartes. He was posted after the outbreak of the Winter War to
Mikkeli, eastern Finland, as adjutant to an infantry general. Much of
his time he spent following what the newspapers, foreign and domestic,
were reporting. In 1940
he was wounded when Russian planes bombed Mikkeli: a filing cabinet
fell on top of him and he broke his tail bone. For a long time he had
to sit on a rubber ring to avoid direct pressure on the anus.
Paavolainen was awarded the Finnish Cross of Freedom. The poet Yrjö Jylhä,
who served as a company commander in the infernal fights of
Taipaleenjoki (the Taipale River), often spoke ironically of his
friend's cross. In 1944, Paavolainen visited Vienola. His childhood
home with its famous palm tree room was destroyed. It was the last time
he saw his place of birth. Besides editing anthologies, Paavolainen
worked in 1943 on the screenplay
about the battle of the lighthouse island of Bengtskär, but the film
was never realized. Paavolainen's critical World War II diary Synkkä yksinpuhelu (1946, Gloomy monologue), was attacked because of its unpopular opinions of the war between Finland and the Soviet Union, and hidden anticipation of the defeat in the early war years. While the tone of Paavolainen's travel book from Germany was more or less enthusiastic, in this work he had his own reservations about the Finland's alliance with Nazi Germany. Paavolainen was generally called a traitor,V. A. Koskenniemi compared him with an old gossiping lady and labelled him in a letter as a hermaphrodite and fool. Koskenniemi's wife attacked Paavolainen behind the pseudonym of Pentti Hilli in the magazine Valvoja. She questioned the authenticity of the diary, and dismissed him as a writer whose literary status is not esteemed very high. The polemic against the book was so strong that eventually ten leading critics protested against the attacks. After the heavy criticism Paavolainen did not publish more books. In 1947 Paavolainen was appointed director of theatre department of Yleisradio (the Finnish Broadcasting Company) by his friend Hella Wuolijoki, at that time director of Yleisradio. Under Paavolainen, who reluctantly accepted the post, the radio theatre programs gained a wide audience. In the 1950s Paavolainen had a close relationship with the Communist politician Hertta Kuusinen, the daughter of Otto Wille Kuusinen, who was member of the central committee of the Soviet Union. During his last years Paavolainen often compained that he felt tired. He drank, ocasionally didn't bother to go to work, and nostalgically planned to write the history of Tulenkantajat. When he received the Eino Leino award in 1960, President Urho Kekkonen congratulated him, calling him a "man pushed into oblivion". Olavi Paavolainen died on August 19, 1964, in Helsinki. A few weeks before, his friend the poet Ilmari Pimiä who was visiting Venice had put an orchid on the grave of Eleonora Duse at his request. Paavolainen's friend Matti Kurjensaari published in 1974 a vivid, but coldly received portrait on him. It was born after exhaustive struggles with Paavolainen's heirs. Jaakko Paavolainen's biography from 1991 gave much new information about the childhood and youth of the author, whose Apollonic intelligence never found any true recognition. For further reading: 'Zeitgeist – menneisyys, nykyaika ja tulevaisuus Olavi Paavolaisen tuotannossa' by H.K. Riikonen, in Avantgade Suomessa, edited by Helena Sederholm, Laura Piippo & Irmeli Hautamäki (2021); Nukuin vasta aamuyöstä: Olavi Paavolainen 1903-1964 by H.K. Riikonen (2014); Tulisoihtu pimeään: Olavi Paavolaisen elämä by Panu Rajala (2014); Suuri levottomuus: Olavi Paavolaisen kulttuurinen katse ja matkat 1936-1939 by Ville Laamanen (2014); Paavolaisen katse: tulkintoja Olavi Paavolaisesta, edited by Ritva Hapuli (2012); Paavolaisen paikat, edited by Henri Terho (2003); Hamlet ystäväni: kirjeitä Olavi Paavolaiselle by Hertta Kuusinen, edited by Marja-Leena Mikkola (1999); Sota ja maisema: tutkimus Olavi Paavolaisen 1940-luvun tuotannosta by H. K. Riikonen (1995); Nykyajan sininen kukka: Olavi Paavolainen ja nykyaika by Ritva Hapuli (1995); Olavi Paavolainen - keulakuva by Jaakko Paavolainen (1991); Rajamaa by Johannes Salminen (1984); Metsästä kaupunkiin by Kai Laitinen (1984); Loistava Olavi Paavolainen by Matti Kurjensaari (1975); Tulenkantajat by Kerttu Saarenheimo (1966) Selected works:
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