Teatteri liikkeessä : Työväenteatterit Suomen teatterikentällä ja työväenliikkeessä kaksiteatterijärjestelmän syntyyn asti vuonna 1922

Workers' theatres in Finland until 1922 The topic of this dissertation is the workers' theatres in Finland before the year 1922. The main question is: why did these amateur theatres within the workers' associations become part of the professional theatre field in the 1910s by getting state subsidy as local theatre institutions? How is it possible that they received this status even after the civil war in 1918 when new professional theatres were founded all over the country? The study also asks, what kind of position did workers' theatres have in the workers' associations and in the workers' movement, what did the Social Democrats and Communists think of theatre and in particular of workers' theatre, and what kind of repertoire did the workers' theatres perform? It is a particular feature of Finland that the professional theatre field was not organised and that the workers’ movement had a relatively strong political position. The study concludes that some workers' theatres were the only steady theatre institutions in their surroundings, and thus functioned as local popular theatres performing to all social groups. Although amateur-based, they started to resemble professional theatres. Even though the Social Democratic Party did not have a specific theatre policy, the leaders of the Party appreciated and supported the workers' theatres as educational institutions and worked for their artistic improvement. The workers' theatres were also largely approved of and seen as people's theatres thought to unite and educate the nation and the working class. This reveals the need for national consensus, in the 1910s against the Russian government who worked to dissolve the autonomous position of the Finnish state, and after the civil war (1918) against the threat of a communist revolution. A wave of agitating proletarian theatre was felt in Finland in the early 1920s but it was marginalised by the large anti-communist majority.

Double-Edged Imitation : Theories and Practices of Pastiche in Literature

This study concentrates on the contested concept of pastiche in literary studies. It offers the first detailed examination of the history of the concept from its origins in the seventeenth century to the present, showing how pastiche emerged as a critical concept in interaction with the emerging conception of authorial originality and the copyright laws protecting it. One of the key results of this investigation is the contextualisation of the postmodern debate on pastiche. Even though postmodern critics often emphasise the radical novelty of pastiche, they in fact resuscitate older positions and arguments without necessarily reflecting on their historical conditions. This historical background is then used to analyse the distinction between the primarily French conception of pastiche as the imitation of style and the postmodern notion of it as the compilation of different elements. The latter s vagueness and inclusiveness detracts from its value as a critical concept. The study thus concentrates on the notion of stylistic pastiche, challenging the widespread prejudice that it is merely an indication of lack of talent. Because it is multiply based on repetition, pastiche is in fact a highly ambiguous or double-edged practice that calls into question the distinction between repetition and original, thereby undermining the received notion of individual unique authorship as a fundamental aesthetic value. Pastiche does not, however, constitute a radical upheaval of the basic assumptions on which the present institution of literature relies, since, in order to mark its difference, pastiche always refers to a source outside itself against which its difference is measured. Finally, the theoretical analysis of pastiche is applied to literary works. The pastiches written by Marcel Proust demonstrate how it can become an integral part of a writer s poetics: imitation of style is shown to provide Proust with a way of exploring the role of style as a connecting point between inner vision and reality. The pastiches of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Michael Dibdin, Nicholas Meyer and the duo Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr illustrate the functions of pastiche within a genre detective fiction that is itself fundamentally repetitive. A.S. Byatt s Possession and D.M. Thomas s Charlotte use Victorian pastiches to investigate the conditions of literary creation in the age of postmodern suspicion of creativity and individuality. The study thus argues that the concept of pastiche has valuable insights to offer to literary criticism and theory, and that literary pastiches, though often dismissed in reviews and criticism, are a particularly interesting object of study precisely because of their characteristic ambiguity.

Vähemmistövaltiokirkon synty : Ortodoksisen kirkkokunnan ja valtion suhteiden muotoutuminen Suomessa 1917-1922

The Birth of the Minority State Church Development of the legal relationship between the state of Finland and the Finnish Orthodox Church 1917 1922 Mika Nokelainen, University of Helsinki, Finland. The present research seeks to explain how the legal relationship developed between the state of Finland and the Orthodox Church of Finland. The main focus is on three statutes: 1) the Statute of the Orthodox Church in Finland as stated by Prime Minister J. K. Paasikivi s cabinet in November 1918, 2) The Republican Constitution of July 1919 and 3) The Freedom of Religion Act of 1923. This study examines how different political goals influenced the three statutes mentioned above. Another important factor that is taken into account is the attitude of the Lutheran Church of Finland, the church of the national majority, towards the Orthodox minority and its judicial position in the country. Finland became independent in December 1917, in the aftermath of the November Revolution in Russia. The Orthodox Church already had hundreds of years of history in Finland. In the 19th century, several statutes by emperors of Russia had made the Orthodox Church an official state church of Finland. Due to the long history of the Orthodox Church in Finland, Prime Minister Paasikivi s cabinet made the decision to support the church in the spring of 1918. Furthermore, the cabinet s goal to occupy East Karelia increased its willingness to support the church. The Finnish-national Orthodox Church was needed to educate the East-Karelians. A new statute on the Orthodox Church in Finland came into force in November 1918, reorganising the administration, economy and legal relationship between the church and state in Finland. With this statue, the cabinet gained some authority over the church. Sections of this statute made possible, for example, the cabinet s interference in the internal affairs of the church. The Republican Constitution of 1919 included the principle of freedom of religion. The state, which previously had been Lutheran, now became non-denominational. However, the Republican Constitution explicitly mentioned the Lutheran as well as the Orthodox Church, which indirectly confirmed the position of the Orthodox Church as the second state church of Finland. This position was finally confirmed by the Freedom of Religion Act in 1923. In general, the Lutheran Church of Finland did not resist the judicial position of the Orthodox Church. However, some Lutherans regarded the Orthodox Church with suspicion because of its intimate connection with Russia.

Kriitkko Einari J. Vehmas ja moderni taide

The doctoral dissertation Critic Einari J. Vehmas and Modern Art deals with one of the central figures of the Finnish art scene and his work as an art critic, art museum curator and cultural critic. The main body of research material consists of the writings of Einari J. Vehmas (1902 1980) from 1937 to the late 1960s. Vehmas wrote art reviews for magazines, and from the year 1945 he was a regular art critic for one of the major newspapers in Finland. Vehmas was heavily inclined towards French literature and visual arts. Marcel Proust and Charles Baudelaire influenced his views on the nature of art from the late 1920s onwards. Vehmas is commonly regarded as the most influential art critic of post-war Finland. His writings have been referred to and cited in numerous research papers on Finnish 20th-century art. A lesser known aspect of his work is his position as the deputy director of the Ateneum Art Museum, the Finnish national gallery. Through his art museum work, his opinions also shaped the canon of modern art considered particularly Finnish following the second world war. The main emphasis of the dissertation is on studying Vehmas s writings, but it also illustrates the diversity of his involvement in Finnish cultural life through biographical documents. The long chronological span of the dissertation emphasises how certain central themes accumulate in Vehmas s writings. The aim of the dissertation is also to show how strongly certain philosophical and theoretical concepts from the early 20th century, specifically Wassily Kandinsky s principle of inner necessity and Henri Bergson s epistemology highlighting intuition and instinct, continued to influence the Finnish art discourse even in the early 1960s, in part thanks to the writings of Vehmas. Throughout his production, Vehmas contemplated the state and future of modern art and humanity. Vehmas used a colourful, vitalistic rhetoric to emphasise the role of modern art as a building block of culture and humanity. At the same time, however, he was a cultural pessimist whose art views became infused with anxiety, a sense of loss, and a desire to turn his back on the world.

The Far Eastern Question at the Washington Conference (1921-1922) with an outline of its implications for internal politics in China

This dissertation is a narrative account of the negotiations concerning the question of the Far East and the Shandong issue at the Washington Conference, leading to treaties, agreements and resolutions. In this dissertation, a certain stress is laid on the interaction between the Conference and the internal situation in China, particularly concerning the question of the implications of the Conference for Cabinet politics in Peking. Through the narrative account of the Conference, the general aim is an attempt to reassess the achievements of the Washington Conference. Too often the Washington Conference has been viewed negatively. The political aim behind the legal framework was to open the door to China as a sovereign State member of the international community whose territorial integrity was internationally recognized, despite its chaotic internal situation. It is undeniable that the Washington Conference opened a new chapter in modern Chinese history. The violations of the agreements concerning China that occurred in the 1930s should not lead to the belief that these agreements were of no value. Peace may not be lasting and evolves according to circumstances; agreements are transitory, and new situations need new arrangements. This dissertation tries to demonstrate that the agreements in themselves were not the cause of their failure, but the failure was due to the lack of determination on the part of the Signatories Powers to defend them.