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Viljo (William) Tarkiainen (1879 - 1951) - also wrote as -nen, V.T. | |
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Finnish literature researcher and critic. Viljo Tarkiainen's major work from the 1910s was his study of the Finnish national writer Aleksis Kivi, in which he lay foundations for later research and deeper understanding of the author. His Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden historia (1934) was the first large scientific presentation of the history of Finnish literature. Between the years 1933 and 1943 he supervised the editing of Suomen kansalliskirjallisuus anthology (15 vols). Tarkiainen was married to the writer Maria Jotuni, whose novel Huojuva talo (1963, The Quaking House) was a story of a marriage, in which the adulterous husband is a family tyrant, sadist, and egoist too. Due to his influence in literary circles and his support to his wife, Tarkiainen occasionally faced accusations of partiality. "Sillä kirjallisuudessa elää ja vaikuttaa se, mikä kansassa on yhteistä ja kestävää: yhteinen kieli, yhteiset tavat ja elämäntunnot. Kirjallisuudessa ja kirjallisuuden avulla kansa kokoontuu ja luo itsensä, tulee tietoiseksi omasta olemuksestaan, omasta menneisyydestään ja nykyisyydestään, voipa joskus saada aavistuksen omasta historiallisesta kutsumuksestaankin. Suuret kirjailijat ja ajattelijat ovat kansakunnan henkisiä omiatuntoja ja oppaita." (Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden historia by V. Tarkiainen, Helsingissä: Otava, 1934, p. 328) William (Viljo, also called Viljam and Viljami) Tarkiainen was
born in Juva, the son Jeremias Tarkiainen, a farmer, and Ulla
Fredriikka (Pasanen) Tarkiainen. At the age of tree or four Tarkiainen
learned to read – in this he was encouraged by his father who had in
his bookshelves besides religious works Defoe's Robinson Crusoe
in Finnish (Robin-poika Kruusen ihmeelliset elämänvaiheet). He
also bought to his son an ABC book and gave him magazines to read.
Jeremias Tarkiainen died in 1889. The young Viljam was taken care by
his uncle; his mother remarried. During his school years at the Lyceum
of Mikkeli Tarkiainen wrote short stories, essays, and poems for the
school magazine Veikko. He graduated in 1897 and entered the
University of Helsinki in the same year. Among his teachers was E. N. Setälä. His friends included Otto Manninen, and later, upon gaining fame as
a critic, Teuvo Pakkala, Eino Leino, and Joel
Lehtonen. He voted for awarding the 1906 state literature prize to
Manninen for his collection of poetry,
Säkeitä
(1905). He was one of the few prominent reviewers who defended the
book, which was generally criticized for being complex, and the lack
of feeling. From 1899 to 1900 Tarkiainen collected folk poetry and dialect
form his birth region and published the results in the study Äänneopillinen
tutkimus Juvan murteesta (1903). After receiving his M.A he worked
as a teacher and contributed to the
newspapers Helsingin Sanomat and Uusi Suometar and the
magazine Valvoja. When Setälä added his wife Helmi Setälä to its editorial staff, Tarkiainen had enough and suggested in 1907 to the poet and critic V. A. Koskenniemi the founding of a new journal. The plan never realized. In his notebook Tarkiainen wrote that Koskenniemi had a fierce temperament, a tendency to dominate the others, and to be always right. At that time he was still on good terms with Koskenniemi, but a certain kind of rivalry between them led to mutual distrust and hostility. As a drama critic Tarkiainen was very active. In the 1910s he
published some 400 writings, most of them dealing with theatre.
Tarkiainen's sharp opinions stirred up controversy, but from the 1920
he started to focus more on his scientific work. As a literature critic
Tarkiainen was considered radical. He didn't have many good words to
say about contemporary Finnish writers, including the leading poet Eino Leino. But Leino had his revenge, when
Tarkiainen published an unlucky study dealing with Kalevala's
women, Aino ja muut Kalevalan naiset (1911).
"Unfortunately, I cannot recommend it to anybody, but downright
consider it an offence against good taste," the malicious Leino wrote.
Next year he compared Tarkiainen's penname "V.T." to "W.C." (Viljo Tarkiainen:
suomalainen humanisti by Kari Tarkiainen, Helsinki: Suomalaisen
Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1987, p. 175) Tarkiainen resigned from the
Union of Finnish Writers – Leino was a member of the board. The enmity
ended when Tarkiainen wrote a praising review of the second part (1916)
of Leino's Helkavirsiä
(Whitsongs). Tarkiainen showed much interest in French literature. He
admired Anatole France, and translated from French his short story
'Jenny' (1903) and in 1907 Alphonse Daudet's Lettres de mon moulin.
After Tarkiainen had published several studies on literature, he
received his Ph.D. in 1917. After the death of Paavo Cajander (1886-1913), Tarkiainen applied for the post of lecturer of Finnish language at the University of Helsinki. (Cajander spent much of his life translating all Shakespeare's plays, except Pericles, into Finnish.) However, it was Manninen, who was appointed to the post. From 1913 to 1924 Tarkiainen was a docent at the university. As teacher Tarkainen was somewhat unorthodox – he could be carried away by his ideas, and make outspoken comments on writers he did not like at the moment. Politically he was a man of progressive ideas, a pacifist, who supported democracy in time when nationalism and totalitarian ideas spread in Europe. In 1924 Tarkiainen was appointed professor of Finnish literature, retiring in 1946. Before the post was filled, his rival Gunnar Castrén had received more votes and he was appointed full professorship, but at same time a new chair, with the same name, was established for Tarkiainen. Noteworthy, Koskenniemi put him in the first place, though Tarkiainen announced that if Koskenniemi is asked to write a statement for the appointment committee, he will make an appeal. Tarkiainen also taught at the Social High School and served as its chancellor from 1947. Between the wars, Tarkiainen was the most influential figure in Finnish literature research. He stressed the importance of source criticism and used a number of methods in his own publications. Among his studies were biographies of such writers as Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1918), Minna Canth (1921), Gustaf von Numers (1922), and the poet Eino Leino, whose work Tarkiainen became to admire, especially Leino's mythical collection Helkavirsiä (1903), which based on folk poetry. When Leino founded the literary association Kirjalijan työ (Writer's Work) in opposition to the Finnish Writers' Union, Tarkiainen became its member with Maria Jotuni, Viljo Kojo, Joel Lehtonen and others. In 1920 Tarkiainen was appointed president of Writers' Union and Leino's group joined it too. "Kaiken sen rinnalla, mikä Euroopan kirjallisuudessa on sairaalloisesti pingoitettua, teennäisesti suurentelevaa tai sirosteltua, vaikuttaa sentapainen runous kuin Kiven viihdyttävästi ja vapauttavasti, siellä se on ytimeltään puhdasta ja tervettä. Mahdollisesti se ei pystyisi herättämään erikoista ihastusta noissa suurissa sivistysmaissa, missä luonto on ammoin voitettu kanta niin hyvin elämässä kuin taiteessa. Mutta sen ei tarvitse meitä huolestuttaa. Taiteen suuruus ei riipu siitä, miten laajalle se on tunnettua ja tunnustettua" (from Aleksis Kivi: elämä ja teokset by V. Tarkiainen, Porvoo: Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö, 1915, p. 628) Tarkiainen's acclaimed biography Aleksis Kivi (1915) gave birth to the "Kivi cult." In the early 20th-century, August Ahlqvist's crushing critique of the author was still well-remembered, but after Tarkiainen's monumental work there was no doubt about Kivi's importance. Koskenniemi's study on the author from 1934 was partly written as a reaction to Tarkiainen's book and focused on Kivi's psychology and inner calling. Koskenniemi challenged the view that Kivi was a misunderstood and neglected genius. When Kivi's statue, made by the sculptor Wäinö Aaltonen, was unveiled in 1939 in front of the National Theatre, Tarkiainen's speech at the occasion was considered a defense of Finnish culture. However, privately he expressed his disappointment in Aaltonen's work – he preferred the earlier, unrealized cubist version in which Kivi did not look so depressed. Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden historia (A history of Finnish literature), published by Otava, came out in Finnish in 1934 and in Swedish sixteen years later. The names of Yrjö Jylhä, Kössi Kaatra, P. Mustapää (=Martti Haavio), and Elina Vaara are not in the index, nor does Tarkiainen say anything about Aaro Hellaakoski, whose Jääpeili (1928, Ice Mirror) is now considered a classic of Finnish modernist poetry. Moreover, Hellaakoski had written a poem in martial spirit which Tarkiainen could not accept – literature shouldn't advocate war. The Finland-Swedish poet Edith Södergran is referred to in connection with Uuno Kailas; Tarkiainen's emphasis is on literature written in Finnish. Maiju Lassila (pseudonym of Algot Untola), who became a fiery Socialist agitator during the Civil War, is almost ignored: ". . . viimeksi mainittu on sepittänyt huvinäytelmiäkin." (Ibid., p. 304) However, Tarkiainen's studies on literary history are still valid and valuable in terms of facts. From the 1940s Tarkiainen collected material for his large biography on Mikael Agricola, and published several separate studies, but in 1950-51 he realized that he will never finish the work. Mikael Agricola, Suomen uskonpuhdistaja, was publishd in 1985. The work was concluded by Kari Tarkiainen, his grandchild. Viljo Tarkiainen died of cancer on May 20, 1951, in Helsinki. He did not want any headstone on his grave, a wish which was not followed. His separate studies of Eino Leino appeared posthumously in 1954 under the title Eino Leinon runoudesta (1954). Pentti Saarikoski mocked Tarkiainen's interpretations of Leino's poems 'Jumalien keinu' and 'Nocturne': "Tuo Tarkiainen. / Hän tietää minusta enemmän kuin minä itse. / Hän tietää mitä minä aavistan ja tunnen. / Hän on selvänäkijä." (Eino Leino: legenda jo eläessään by Pentti Saarikoski, Porvoo: WSOY, 1988, p. 29) Tarkiainen married in 1911 the writer Maria Jotuni (1880-1943); he had been her suitor since 1903. In the following years Jotuni wrote some of her most famous works. The comedy Tohvelisankarin rouva (The wife of the hen-pecked hero) provoked in 1924 a public discussion because it was considered by some politicians sexually too liberal. Tarkiainen was dismissed from the board of the National Theatre, although he was not present when the play was accepted in the repertoire. With
his wife, Tarkiainen bought in 1919 a small house on the
shore of Lake Tuusula, a summer home for the family. His hopes that she
would enjoy herself there, did not come true. The light summer
nights got on her nerves, and she rather stayed in the city in the
summertime, writing alone in their apartment on the Cygnaeus Street.
The reclusive periods in empty rooms, filled with furniture covered
with sheets, were not good for her. She developed fears and anxieties,
but maintained a cheerful tone in letters to her family. In the 1920s, Tarkiainen
confessed in a bitter note on the situation, that he has only
partially fulfilled his obligations as a husband and a father. His
wife, who suffered from jealousy, constantly
asked where he had been, what he had been doing etc. There is no
evidence of him being unfaithful. Although the couple never resolved
their differences, they kept up the
facade of a happy marriage, except when they went for a walk: they left
home together but then chose different directions. Huojuva talo, Jotuni's novel about a destructive marriage, was written in the 1930s, but not published until 1963. Strindberg would have loved the work in which a husband boasts: "I am possessed by an evil spirit." With this book Tarkiainen secured his apparently unforgettable reputation as a violent home tyrant, without a possiblity for rehabilitation. Maaria Koskiluoma's expressionistic stage adaptation of the novel in 1983 at Oslo Theater Festival was a huge sensation. Eija-Elina Bergholm directed in 1995 an acclaimed five-part television drama based on Huojuva talo. For further reading: Maria Jotuni: vain ymmärrys ja hymy by Kari Tarkiainen (2013); Arki ja tunteet: Maria Jotunin elämä ja kirjailijantyö by Irmeli Niemi (2001); Viljo Tarkiainen - suomalainen humanisti by Kari Tarkiainen (1987); 'Viljo Tarkiaisen muistelmia' by Esko Aaltonen, in Suomalainen Suomi 6 (1964); 'Tarkiainen ja suomalainen kansanrunous' by Sulo Haltsonen, in Kalevalaseuran vuosikirja 32 (1952); 'Muistopuhe Viljo Tarkiaisesta 14. XII. 1951' by Aarne Anttila, in Suomalaisen tieadeakatemina esitelmiä ja pöytäkirjoja 1951 (1952) Selected works:
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