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(Otto) Olavi Siippainen (1915-1963) |
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Finnish writer with a working class background. Olavi Siippainen entered in the 1940s the literacy scene with autobiographical works, but from the 1950s he attempted to enlarge his literary oeuvre. His most famous work is the trilogy Nuoruuden trilogia (Suuntana läntinen, Maata näkyvissä, Menon yksinäisyys), which came out between 1942 and 1959. "Tuskin koskaan hän istuessaan papereittensa ääressä kirjoitellessaan tarinoitaan tulee ajatelleeksi, ettei hän siinäkään suhteessa ole mikään poikkeus. Kaikkialla kirjoitellaan. Tukholmassa, Lontoossa, New Yorkissa, Tokiossa, Kairossa ja Moskovassa palavat himmeät lamput ja kumarat hartiat painuvat alas, kömpelöt kädet piirtävät merkkejään valkeille arkeille. Syntyy jotakin hyvin uutta ja hyvin vitkallisesti, jotakin, joka tajutaan vain hämärästi, mutta tajutaan kuitenkin." (in Maata näkyvissa by Olavi Siippainen, Porvoo: Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö, 1946, p. 55) Olavi Siipainen was born in Kuopio. His father, Otto Siippainen, was
a painter, who died when Olavi was four years old. Anna Kustaava
Happonen, Olavi's mother, supported her children by working at a
matchstick factory factory and as a cleaning woman. The family of seven
lived a one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen. After studies at an
elementary school and lyceum, where he spent only one miserable year,
Siippainen made his living from odd jobs, among others as an errand boy, printer,
mailman, cabinet maker, and stock clerk. During the periods of unemployment, Siippainen devoured books – he tells in an autobiographical article that everyone in the family were readers. "Ja minä todella luin. Se ei ollut mitään joutilaan nuoren ihmisen velttoa harrastusta, se oli sisäinen pakko, ja minä heittäydyin suinpäin tämän. usean minua vanhemman ja viisaamman mielestä turmiollisen intohimon vietäväksi." ('Olavi Siippainen,' in Uuno Kailaasta Aila Meriluotoon: suomalaisten kirjailijain elämäkertoja, edited by Toivo Pekkanen and Reino Rauanheimo, Porvoo: Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö, 1947, p. 519) While still at school, Siippainen began to write poems. Inspired by such novels as Knut Hamsun's The Hunger, Jack London's Martin Eden and Toivo Pekkanen's Tehtaan varjossa, Siippainen dreamed of becoming a writer and devoured in the evenings books which he borrowed from the city library. In 1935-36 he studied at the Workers' Academy in Kauniainen – later Siippainen recalled this period as the most beautiful in his life. His older sister helped him financially, and he could read and write as much as he wanted. He returned to Kuopio, and after serving in the army, he worked at a carpenter's shop. "Köyhä on työläispojan runotar:
In 1938 Siippainen married Lempi Maria Thuren; they dicorced in
1945. For a period, he worked as a journalist in Varkaus and Kajaani.
However, journalism was not his true calling. Siippainen's first book, Nuoruus sumussa (1940),
was a collection of short stories. During the Continuation War between
Finland and the Soviet Union (1941-44), Siippainen served in the army
as a front correspondent. Part of the war he spent in a hospital. Siippainen finished his first novel, Suuntana läntinen (1942), in dugouts. It became the first volume of his major opus, Nuoruuden trilogia (A Trilogy of Youth), set in an unnamed city, which is fairly obviously Kuopio. The second volume, Maata näkyvissä (1946), came out after the war, and the third, Menon yksinäisyys, in 1959. Siippainen rewrote them many times. Verisavotta, a documentary work about the Winter War (1939-40), remained unfinished. The protagonist is a young construction worker, Aarne Korhonen, an aspiring writer, who has lost his father at young age. He joins the Social Democratic Party, fells in love with a girl named Toini, also a social democrat, makes his military service, loses his virginity, dreams of future with Toini, and becomes a warehouse manager. Then the Winter War breaks out. Basically Siippainen tells the same story as Kalle Päätalo did in his Iijoki series (26 volumes), but Päätalo was the son of a forest worker. Loppuun saakka (1942) was a collection of suggestive war
stories, which drew from Siippainen's experiences at the front. He also published a volume of poetry about the ongoing war, Ylistän rakkautta (1943,
I praise love). Considering the atmosphere of the time, Siippainen
takes a bold step when he urges to laugh at the front: "Naurakaa
korsunoen mustaamin kasvoin! / Antakaa palttua
kaikelle, mikä raskauttaa elämänne, / sillä ettekö näe: / kirkas
valojuova levenee harmaalla talvitaivaalla – / talvipäivänseisaus on
ohite! / Naurakaa toverit. Naurakaamme kaikki!" (from 'Nauru,' in Suomen runotar 1, edited by Hannu Kankaanpää, Satu Mattila, Mirjam Polkunen, Helsinki: Kirjayhtymä, 1990, p. 707; first published by WSOY in 1943) Following the breakthrough of Soviet troops at Karelian Isthmus, Siippainen reported on the suffering of the Karelian refugees in the article 'Kolmas kärsimystie'. An exception in Siippainen's class-conscious fiction is Ikuisilla niityillä (1951), a fantasy novel. In the short story 'Pakolainen' (The Refugee) from Tarinaniskijä (1951), a homeless wanderer tells three different stories of himself, leaving it to the reader to guess which one, if any, is true. This kind of experiementation with the point of view technique was typical for modernist writers, but it was also utilized in Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon (1950). Before the war Siippainen was a prominent member of the leftist literary movement Kiila
with Elvi Sinervo, Arvo Turtiainen and Viljo
Kajava. Turtiainen, a member of the Communist Party, criticized him
for working against Kiila's ideological stand. Siippainen supported the
cultural policy of the Social Democratic Party and tried in vain to
build a counterweight to Kiila's influence. For Siippainen, Socialism represented freedom of spirit, but he
also criticized some younger colleagues, who advocated modernist ideas. To Olavi Paavolainen's disappointment, Siippainen was among the voices, who quetioned the authenticity of his war diary, Synkkä yksinpuhelu: Päiväkirjan lehtiä vuosilta 1941-1944 (1946). Siippainen published his comment in Suomen Kuvalehti, a magazine to which Paavolainen contributed. Paavolainen felt himself offended by a brother in arms and wrote two comments (Suomen Kuvalehti
5/1947 & 7/1947), saying: "Synkän yksinpuhelun tapaisen teoksen
teilaukselle on psykologinen maaperä kieltämättä varsin otollinen,
Siksi on Sinun kirjoituksellasi, veli Siippainen, ollut eräissä
piireissä niin ilmeinen menestys." (Loistava Olavi Paavolainen: henkilö- ja ajankuva by Matti Kurjensaari, Helsinki: Tammi, 1975, p. 256) The literary scholar and writer Markku Envall summarized Siippainen's later career as follows: "Siippainen also published short
stories, whose success varied between average and brilliant, but the
rest of his novels had no solid foundation or program." (A History of Finland's Literature, edited by George C. Schoolfield, Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press, 1998, p. 177) In 1956 Siippainen founded the literary-artistic society Ukri. His interview in a local newspaper stimulated the founding of the literary association Vestäjä. Siippainen was inspiring conversationalist, who encouraged insecure writers in their first steps. Among the participants of his literary gatherings ("Siippaisen salonki") were the former fighter pilot Heimo Lampi (1920-1998), who became President of the Eastern Finnish Court of Appeal, Jouko Puhakka (1922-2002), who became known for his fishing stories, plays, and books for young adults, Eino Säisä (1935-1988), a novelist and playwright, and Erkki Ahonen (1932-2010), a novelist and poet. The youngest attendant was Lasse Lehtinen, who was still at school. ""Katkaishe napanuorashi, eroa koulushta ja lähde maailmalle", oli Siippaisen suorasukainen ohje. Paksu ässä Siippaisen puheessa johtui löysistä tekohampaista." (Lasse Lehtinen in his memoir, Luotettavat muistelmat, 1, Edellinen osa, Porvoo: WSOY, 1996) Siippainen's advises were always practical and realistic: "By the way: you want to develop as a writer. To solve that problem, the best thing to do is to start writing letters. So get four-five correspondents. Some of them must be women. There is no better way to learn how to change the tone than in letters." (Kirjeitä kirjailijatovereille vuosilta 1945-1963, edited by Laura Latvala, Porvoo: WSOY, 1975, p. 168) Olavi Siippainen died on November 11, 1963, in Siilinjärvi. He received the State Literature Award four time, in 1942, 1951, 1955, and 1959. From 1946 Siippainen was married to the writer and psychiatrist Laura Latvala (1921-86). With her Siippainen published the poetry collections Menon yhteisyys (1951) and Toisillemme (1965). Her husband, who did not toleraty any kind of falseness or pretensions in writing, was Latvala's first reader. In a poem she wrote: "There is no other, who lashes me, without mercy and with stern accuracy, like you do . . . " Siippainen's letters from 1945 to 1963 to colleague writers appeared in 1975. It was edited by Laura Latvala, who influenced Siippainen's views of the connection between a neurotic character and writing – he saw anxiety as a major factor in creative work, as he wrote in Kirjeitä kirjailijatovereille: "Loppujen lopuksi lienee niin, että neuroottinen luonne lienee lähtökohta luovalle taiteelle. Mutta vaikkapa niinkin, olen vankasti sitä mieltä, että luova työ on pelastanut useampia neurootikkoja elämälle kuin koko psykoanalyyttinen koulukunta." (Ibid., p. 78) Their home first in Paihola, then in Harjamäki in Siilinjärvi, was a meeting place for aspiring writers and established names. Latvala's Pikku-Marjan eläinkirja (1947), illustrated by Helga Sjöstedt, has been one of the most popular children's books in Finland. By 2001, it had sold over 300,000 copies. For further reading: 'Olavi Siippainen,' in Uuno Kailaasta Aila Meriluotoon: suomalaisten kirjailijain elämäkertoja, edited by Toivo Pekkanen and Reino Rauanheimo (1947); Kirjailija ja omatunto: Pekkanen, Linna, Siippainen ja Viita eettisinä kirjailijoina by Leo Vuotila (1964); A History of Finnish Literature by Jaakko Ahokas (1973); Kirjeitä kirjailijatovereille vuosilta 1945-1963, edited by Laura Latvala (1975); Kapinalliset kynät: Itsenäisyyden työväenliikkeen kirjallisuus II-III by Raoul Palmgren (1984); A History of Finland's Literature, edited by George C. Schoolfield (1998); Kirjailijakohtaloita: Olavi Siippainen, ohjaaja Pekka Tarmio, suunnittelu Hannu Tarmio (DVD, 2013) Selected works:
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