Väinö Linna

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Väinö Linna (pronunciation (help·info)) (December 20, 1920 – April 21, 1992) was one of the most influential Finnish authors of the 20th century. He shot to immediate literary fame with his third novel, Tuntematon Sotilas (1954, trans. The Unknown Soldier) and consolidated his position with the trilogy Täällä Pohjantähden Alla (1959–1963, Under the North Star, translated into English by Richard Impola).

Väinö Linna was born in an agrarian village, Urjala, western Finland, near the city of Tampere. His parents were Viktor (Vihtori) Linna (1874–1927) and Johanna Maria (Maija) Linna (1888–1972). After finishing his education, he moved to Tampere, where he worked as a manual laborer and a factory worker before being conscripted into the army. Linna kept on writing notes and observations about his and his unit's experiences in the frontline throughout the Continuation War. The failure to get the notes published led him to burn them; however, the idea would later lead him to write Tuntematon Sotilas. After the war he started pursuing his literary career whilst working in the factory during the day. The later literary success allowed him to dedicate himself to literature full-time.

Linna's social realism has had a profound influence in Finnish social, political and cultural life. Both of his major works have been filmed, The Unknown Soldier twice.

Linna was pictured on the 20 markkaa banknote in use from 1993 to the introduction of the Euro.

Literary works

Tuntematon Sotilas was the first Finnish war novel to depict war (in its case the Continuation War) in a realistic way instead of turning his experience into heroic epic, romance or a chronicle. Linna later said that Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front had a great influence on him. He first saw Milestone's film and only later read the book. But unlike Remarque's book, Tuntematon Sotilas lacks a central character, following in its stead a journey of a single platoon from the build-up of hostilities 1941 to the final armistice 1944. Obviously his main influence were Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Regarding the former Linna himself pointed out in his literary essays that plans are so often really invented after the events and that in general speech and action seldom meet.

This might be a reason that despite the novel's enormous success - more than 300 000 copies sold in a country of 4 mill. inhabitants, the literary elite long had difficulties understanding the modern and "existential" elements in this allegedly traditional novel. After the studies of professors Jyrki Nummi (1993) and Yrjö Varpio and Linna's long-time friend Jaakko Syrjä Linna's position is now uncontested.

The film by Edvin Laine is broadcast by the national television every Day of Independence (Dec. 6th).

The main characters of the novel are as familiar to Finnish readers as Huckleberry Finn or David Copperfield for American and British readers. Many quotations from this work need no explanation, and politicians and public speakers use them as proverbs.

Linna's style was particularly influential in its adoption of the vernacular dialects of the characters and his excellent rendering of different social levels of speech.

Like most major innovations, the novel was heavily criticised by Linna's contemporaries when it was first published. It was rather vehemently attacked by officers - even generals in a public proclamation. Simultaneously many respected military thinkers with personal knowledge of war hastened to point out that here was a very trustworthy depiction on the cruelty, the tedium and camaraderie of war. For decades this novel has been mandatory reading in military academies.

The novel was a success even in other Nordic countries. The first German and English translations were exceedingly bad and the American publisher seems to have taken the book as adventure. However, Linna's role as a national figure could be compared to that of Orhan Pamuk in Turkey - some iconoclasm, much wisdom.

Täällä Pohjantähden alla is a large epic in three parts starting from late 19th century and following the fates of a village Pentinkulma and its inhabitants through Tuntematon Sotilas up to the welfare state Finland. Even this novel caused a vehement debate because of its view on the Finish Civil War 1918 and the red insurgents. The picture given by right-wing extremists on thirties is not flattering, either.

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