Sangen ialo Rucous : Schwenckfeldiläisten rukouskirja Mikael Agricolan lähteenä

Sangen ialo Rucous. The prayer book of the Schwenckfeldiens as a source for Michael Agricola The significance of the prayer book published by the Finnish reformer Michael Agricola in the year of 1544 has not been comprehended enough among the prayer literature of the Reformation century. Especially in foreign research literature one of the era s most extensive and versatile prayer books has been practically disregarded. According to the prayer book, Agricola appears to be a traditionalist, who derives most of his source material from medieval and old church prayer books. The low number of the prayers from Evangelical prayer books is noteworthy. The study in hand examines Agricola s theology expressed in his translation work of the prayer book of the mystic spiritualistic Schwenckfeldien movement. The prayer book of the Schwenckdeldiens diverged from Lutheranism was called Bekantnus der sünden and it was composed around the year of 1526. Agricola is the only prayer book collector who has regarded it as necessary to add all the 45 prayers of the Schwenckfeldien prayer book and its introduction to his book. In the prayers containing the Schwenckfeldien communion theology and Christology Agricola has not changed the content of the text, apparently because he was not aware of the problems involved in the Schwenckfeldien theology. On a few occasions Agricola added points of view concerning the church, priesthood, preaching the Word and sacraments to his prayers, which the Schwenckfeldiens despised. From the ten additions four Agricola created himself, the rest he borrowed from Wolfgang Capito s prayer book. As a source Agricola used Capito s Latin prayer book together with the German text from Bekantnus. When looking at the studied material, Agricola does not turn out to be a creative translator. Even though he had a model for a less restricted translation in Wolfgang Capito s prayer book, he sticks to his habit of translating word by word. Because not even a good example has had a liberating effect on his translation principles, Agricola cannot be considered a theologically orientated writer. The translation of the Schwenckfeldien prayers Agricola starts with Capito s prayer book. Very soon he takes the Bekantnus alongside Capito s text and abandons the use of Capito s prayer book in the middle of the translation process. Comparing Agricola s translation with the two texts in different languages has made it possible to create the disposition theory described above. On the basis of the disposition theory it can be concluded that Agricola first worked out a precise plan for his prayer book. Then he translated prayers theme by theme using multiple sources at the same time. Later Agricola fixed the disposition, which does not seem to have a direct paragon. From the prayers of the Schwenckfeldien prayer book Agricola translated 26 texts using the Bekantnus as an only base, from Capito s prayer book he translated four texts and 17 texts he translated using the two basic texts simultaneously. In the previous studies, words and texts added by Agricola have been examined as one problem unit. In this study the additions have been placed into three different categories: additions consequential on tautological parataxis, specifying additions and additions significant to the content. Due to Agricola s meticulous translation techniques, there are so few additions. Agricola does not show his own creativity even in the additions significant to the content but uses there some complete sentences or word fragments from the other prayers he has translated. In the translations of the prayers there are some unique appearing words and the analysis of the translation work shed a new light on the background of their first literary appearance in Finnish. Agricola s linguistic abilities turned out to be great. In those prayers where Agricola uses both the German and Latin basic texts at the same time, the translation process is a very intensive twine made on the basis of the two sources.

Sustainable development indicators : Much wanted, less used?

For the past twenty years, several indicator sets have been produced on international, national and regional levels. Most of the work has concentrated on the selection of the indicators and on collection of the pertinent data, but less attention has been given to the actual users and their needs. This dissertation focuses on the use of sustainable development indicator sets. The dissertation explores the reasons that have deterred the use of the indicators, discusses the role of sustainable development indicators in a policy-cycle and broadens the view of use by recognising three different types of use. The work presents two indicator development processes: The Finnish national sustainable development indicators and the socio-cultural indicators supporting the measurement of eco-efficiency in the Kymenlaakso Region. The sets are compared by using a framework created in this work to describe indicator process quality. It includes five principles supported by more specific criteria. The principles are high policy relevance, sound indicator quality, efficient participation, effective dissemination and long-term institutionalisation. The framework provided a way to identify the key obstacles for use. The two immediate problems with current indicator sets are that the users are unaware of them and the indicators are often unsuitable to their needs. The reasons for these major flaws are irrelevance of the indicators to the policy needs, technical shortcomings in the context and presentation, failure to engage the users in the development process, non-existent dissemination strategies and lack of institutionalisation to promote and update the indicators. The importance of the different obstacles differs among the users and use types. In addition to the indicator projects, materials used in the dissertation include 38 interviews of high-level policy-makers or civil servants close to them, statistics of the national indicator Internet-page downloads, citations of the national indicator publication, and the media coverage of both indicator sets. According to the results, the most likely use for a sustainable development indicator set by policy-makers is to learn about the concept. Very little evidence of direct use to support decision-making was available. Conceptual use is also common for other user groups, namely the media, civil servants, researchers, students and teachers. Decision-makers themselves consider the most obvious use for the indicators to be the promotion of their own views which is a form of legitimising use. The sustainable development indicators have different types of use in the policy cycle and most commonly expected instrumental use is not very likely or even desirable at all stages. Stages of persuading the public and the decision-makers about new problems as well as in formulating new policies employ legitimising use. Learning by conceptual use is also inherent to policy-making as people involved learn about the new situation. Instrumental use is most likely in policy formulation, implementation and evaluation. The dissertation is an article dissertation, including five papers that are published in scientific journals and an extensive introductory chapter that discusses and weaves together the papers.