Olavi Paavolainen

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1928

Olavi Paavolainen (born September 17, 1903 in Kivennapa , † July 19, 1964 in Helsinki ) was a Finnish writer and journalist.

Civil résumé

Olavi Paavolainen was born in 1903 in Kivennapa ( Karelia ), then part of the Grand Duchy of Finland within the Russian Empire , as the son of the lawyer and member of parliament Pietari Paavolainen († 1930) and his wife Alice Laura Paavolainen. In 1914 the family moved to Helsinki, where he soon began writing poetry at the age of twelve. From 1921 to 1925 Paavolainen studied aesthetics, literature and art history at the University of Helsinki ; In 1928/29 he completed military service.

In the 1930s Paavolainen worked in various Finnish advertising agencies. When the Winter War broke out in 1939, he was stationed in Mikkeli , an adjutant to an infantry general. He was injured in a Soviet bombing raid in 1940 but had to return to headquarters in Mikkeli in April 1941. The further war effort depressed him increasingly, even if he found enough time to write and was entrusted, among other things, with securing cultural and historical artefacts . Paavolainen was awarded the Finnish Order of the Freedom Cross 4th Class for his war effort .

Mostly he worked as a freelance writer in the 1930s and 1940s until he became head of the theater department of the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation in 1947 and stayed until the end of his life. In 1960 he was awarded the Eino-Leino Prize by the Finnish President Urho Kekkonen .

Olavi Paavolainen died on July 19, 1964 of cirrhosis of the liver caused by alcohol abuse. He was buried in Helsinki in the Hietaniemi cemetery.

Work and view

Portrait 1928 by the expressionist painter Väinö Kunnas

Olavi Paavolainen worked primarily as a poet and essayist . Writing poetry from an early age, his decision to embark on a literary career was decisively strengthened in 1924 when he was able to contribute to an anthology of poems by promising young Finnish poets. Soon the young poet , who was impressed by Oscar Wilde and likes to pretend to be dandy, was dubbed a “poet bohemian”. His Parisian impressions appeared in 1927 in the magazine Ylioppilaslehti , published by Urho Kekkonen , who later became Finnish president for many years . A first success was the poetry collection Valtatiet , published in 1928 with Mika Waltari , which contains twelve of his poems. In this early creative period, in which he wrote under the pseudonym Olavi Lauri , Paavolainen was strongly influenced by Futurism , namely by Marinetti . During this time, some close ties to the fascist Lapua movement can be seen in his extravagant circle of friends . In 1928 Paavolainen himself strongly opposed a book by the 'workers literary writer' Pentti Haanpää that was critical of the military .

In the later 1920s he was the central figure of the Finnish artists' association Tulenkantajat , which wanted to combine avant-garde with political claims; In 1930 he took over the editor-in-chief of the magazine of the same name Tulenkantajat . After the group broke up due to the internal conflicts between left-wing extremists and right-wing opponents inclined to fascism in the early 1930s, Paavolainen, who had been hit “very personally”, withdrew to the seclusion of Karelia. There he succeeded in his “real breakthrough work” Suursiivous eli kirjallisessa lastenkamarissa (' Cleaning up or in the literary children's room'), which appeared in 1932. The book contains an ambivalent and polemic view of the young writers in the field of tension between political extremes, which Paavolainen was also under the spell of, although his opinions remained inconsistent. Fascinated by the radical social plans of his time, he will also perceive them in a highly contradictory manner on site in Nuremberg and Moscow in the further course of the decade.

Through the mediation of his publishing house, Paavolainen was able to travel to Germany in 1936 at the invitation of the Reichsschrifttumskammer . There he attended with other selected Nordic writers, among other things, the Nuremberg party congress . He published his impressions in the form of an essayistic rhapsody , as is the subtitle of Guest in the Third Reich ('Kolmannen valtakunnan vieraana'). The loose sequence of descriptions of his experiences gives an ambivalent view of Nazi Germany, "initial enthusiasm turned into exact observations", which led him to experience "perhaps [the] greatest turning point [] in the history of Europe". In Finland, the book immediately became a controversial bestseller, soon translated into Swedish, the proceeds enabled him to finance further trips, first to South America and finally to the Soviet Union. What was special about the book at the time was that it did not take a position either specifically for Nazi Germany or against it. Due to satirical elements, Paavolainen was then no longer able to travel to the German Reich. While Paavolainen's impressionistic travelogue from Germany has been constantly being reprinted in Finland, it was only published in autumn 2016 with To Guest in the Third Reich. Rhapsody an edition in German based on the translation by Rolf Klemmt .

In the first phase of the Second World War, Paavolainen enthusiastically awaited the German victory, although he had toured the Soviet Union in 1939 and was admiring the modernity of Moscow. His hope for progress and enthusiasm for technical achievements, such as the Moscow Metro or the German highways , often characterize his articles and essayistic travel reports, which thematically broadly depict modern life in detail, even in everyday phenomena.

The extensive edition of wartime diary entries Synkkä yksinpuhelu ('Sinister Self- Discussion '), published in 1946, triggered tremendous indignation, especially among nationalist-minded people in Finland, which resulted in numerous polemics against Paavolainen, in which he was consistently branded as a traitor to the fatherland. Even though ten important critics had protested against the attacks and the writing had been received very positively in left-wing liberal circles, Paavolainen did not publish anything after these violent attacks.

Works (selection)

  • Nuoret runoilijat ('Young Poets', 1924; anthology of poems by young Finnish poets, Paavolainen is one of the authors under the pseudonym Olavi Lauri)
  • Valtatiet ('Fernstraßen', poems 1928 under the pseudonym Olavi Lauri, together with Mika Waltari)
  • Nykyaikaa etsimässä ('In Search of the Present', 1929)
  • Keulakuvat (' Figureheads ', 1932)
  • Suursiivous eli kirjallisessa lastenkamarissa (' Cleaning up or in the literary nursery', 1932)
  • Visiting the Third Reich , German translation 2016 ('Kolmannen valtakunnan vieraana', 1936)
  • Lähtö yes loitsu. Kirja suuresta levottomuudesta ('Awakening and Conjuring', 1937)
  • Risti ja hakaristi. Uutta maailmankuvaa kohti ('Cross and swastika. Towards a new worldview', 1938)
  • Synkkä yksinpuhelu. Päiväkirjan lehtiä vuosilta 1941–1944, I – II ('Sinister self-talk. From the diaries 1941–1944', 1946)
  • Pietari – Leningrad ('St. Petersburg – Leningrad', 1946)

Awards

  • 1940: Finnish Order of the Cross of Freedom 4th grade (see running text)
  • 1953: Honorary member of the Kiila Writers and Artists Association
  • 1960: Prize of the Eino-Leino-Gesellschaft (see running text)
  • 1962: Pro Finlandia Medal

Web links

Commons : Olavi Paavolainen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anssi Halmesvirta in: Guest in the Third Reich , introductory essay by the editor, p. 12
  2. ↑ Hietaniemi Cemetery: MERKITTÄVIÄ VAINAJIA , page 13. (PDF; 552 kB)
  3. ↑ authorscalendar.info: Biographical article on Paavolainen (English)
  4. ↑ Anssi Halmesvirta in: Guest in the Third Reich , introductory essay by the editor, p. 10f
  5. ↑ buecher.de: Guest in the Third Reich 1936. Rhapsody
  6. ↑ Anssi Halmesvirta in: Guest in the Third Reich , introductory essay by the editor, p. 13f
  7. ↑ fdhg-hamburg: INVITATION to a guest lecture and a book presentation
personal data
SURNAME Paavolainen, Olavi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lauri, Olavi (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Finnish writer
DATE OF BIRTH 17th September 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Kivennapa
DATE OF DEATH July 19, 1964
Place of death Helsinki