Kohti lyyristä abstraktismia : Anitra Lucanderin 1950-luvun modernismi

Towards Lyrical Abstraction Anitra Lucander s Modernism in the 1950s Anitra Lucander (1918-2000) was one of the early pioneers of abstract art in Finland. During the Second World War Finnish art and cultural life was isolated and stagnated and figurative art was still dominant after the war. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, new international abstract art movements started to come to Finland. Anitra Lucander was one of the artists of the younger generation after the war who took an interest in the abstract movements in the early 1950s. At the beginning of the 1950s, abstract art came to Finland primarily in the form of Concretism, but simultaneously, a more delicate abstract movement emerged, and Anitra Lucander was among those cultivating such conceptions in her art. In this thesis, I observe and analyze through Anitra Lucander s art this central movement in Finnish modern art that has not yet been extensively studied. I examine how Anitra Lucander s art connects with the style change in Finnish art. I scrutinize the factors that affected Lucander and turned her towards abstract expression, and the effect her art had on emergence of abstract art in Finland. I will also consider the development of her art, the reception and critique of her art and the effect the critique had on her position in the 1950s art world. Because of a lack of earlier studies, I will undertake basic research, relying on empirical primary source material, where the starting point is to place the phenomenon under examination in the historical and cultural context. The most significant study materials are the artist s paintings and graphics from 1948 to 1960, newspaper and magazine articles from the same era, archive sources and interviews with Lucander s relatives, fellow artists and friends. An interesting aspect of the topic is the fact that Anitra Lucander was the only woman among the important pioneers of early Finnish abstract art. Through Lucander s art, I also examine the position of female artists in the tradition of Modernism as well as in the Finnish art world of the 1950s. This theoretical background is provided by the studies of feminist art historians, such as Marsha Meskimmon, Gill Perry, Griselda Pollock and Anne Middleton Wagner. Lucander s position in the male-dominated Finnish art scene of the 1950s, and how she achieved her position, emerges as one of the central themes of the study. I will also observe whether gender is evident in Lucander s art and expression, as well as her reception and critique compared to the reception of her male colleagues art. From a woman s point of view, I reveal the masculine rhetoric and gendered attitudes in the critique of the era. As a theoretical and methodological frame of reference, I use discourse analysis. Anitra Lucander encountered modernistic, international art movements during her journeys to Paris in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Her art evolved from the geometric Concretism of the early decade towards more delicate and painterly abstract expression. After the mid-1950s, she had developed her signature expression; through Cubism and a collage technique, she developed in her painting a delicate, coloristic imagery, which can be characterized as Lyrical Abstraction. Lucander did not consider abstract expression to be categorical, but saw the abstract and the nonfigurative as equals: the line between the abstract and the figurative is very often fleeting in her art. Already in her own time, Lucander achieved a position as one of the most talented young artists of her generation and her work was included in significant exhibitions. This success can definitely be attributed to the fact that she embraced Modernism in its extreme form, abstraction, already at the beginning of her career and networked with male painters who shared her outlook and modernistic expression. For her, this was either a conscious or an unconscious method of adapting to the male-dominated Finnish art field in the 1950s. In spite of acclaim and attention, Lucander had to encounter the gendered attitudes in the critique of the time, and her art was often perceived through stereotypical views as overly feminine and dependent. However, with her art, Lucander played an important role in the breakthrough for colorism and abstract art in Finland in the 1950s.

”Herkkä-omatuntoiset” : Alamaisideologia ja aseistakieltäytyminen 1960-luvun Suomessa

Tutkielman aiheena on aseetonta palvelua koskevan lainsäädännön kehitys ja siihen vaikuttaneet voimat Suomessa 1960-luvulla. Tutkimuksen kohteena ovat omantunnon syistä kieltäytyneet aseistakieltäytyjät ja täyskieltäyneet Jehovan todistajat, sekä työlaitosviranomaiset ja lainsäädäntökoneisto. Tutkimuksessa käytetään oikeustieteilijä Martin Schneinin käsitteitä alamaisideologiasta ja laitosvallasta sekä näiden vastakohdasta perusoikeusideologiasta. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on osoittaa tutkimusaineiston avulla miten alamaisideologia oli vallitseva asenne suomalaisessa asevelvollisia koskevassa virankäytössä. Aineistona käytän Karvian erityistyölaitoksen sekä Aseettomien työlaitostoimikunnan arkistoja, joita ei ole aiemmin käytetty tutkimuksen lähteinä. Tutkimuskirjallisuuden lisäksi käytän aikalaiskirjoituksia sekä lehdistöä. Esittelen laajasti Jehovan todistajien vallanalaista asemaa, aseistakieltäytymiskeskustelua ja -demonstraatioita Sadankomitean johtamana, lainsäädäntötyötä, asevelvollisten tutkijatoimikunnan toimintaa sekä yllytys- tai Schüller-jutuksi kutsuttua oikeudenkäyntisarjaa. Osoitan tutkimuksessani sen, miten asevelvollisuusviranomaisten vallitsevana asenteena oli juuri perusoikeuksia vähättelevä alamaisideologia. Sama ideologia hallitsi myös oikeudenkäyttöä ja lainsäädäntöä. Osoitan myös, miten tämä ideologia käytännössä pyrki vain mahdollisimman pieniin myönnytyksiin ja muutoksiin, jotta koko järjestelmän perusteita ei olisi tarvinnut muuttaa. Vastapainona toimi yksilön- ja omantunnonvapautta korostanut perusoikeusideologia, jonka edustajia aseistakieltäytyjiä tukevat piirit olivat.

Yksilöllisyys ja yhteisöllisyys K. E. Nipkowin uskonnonpedagogisen teorian kehityksessä 1960-1990

Individuality and the Community in the Development of K. E. Nipkow's Theory of Religious Education from 1960 to 1990 The purpose of this study was to describe and analyze the development occurred between 1960 and 1990 of the theory of religious education as proposed by K. E. Nipkow, the German Religious Education specialist, from the point of view of individuality and the community. Nipkow's methodological approach of dialectic convergence theory resulted in a dialogue between theological and educational factors, which supported the thirty-year development of Nipkow's models, theoretical foundations, and theory of religious education. Nipkow's doctoral dissertation, published in 1960, deals with individuality in the thinking of Pestalozzi, Humboldt and Schleiermacher. Nipkow regarded individuality as one of the basic concepts of education, which were to be interpreted anew as social and historical situations changed. In the late 1960s Nipkow developed the so-called experiential hermeneutically oriented context model for the needs of religious education. In this model, individuality is expressed in the attention paid to pupils' life situations and the educational reality. The multi-dimensional theoretical framework of religious education in 1975 emphasized supporting identity as a fundamental task of religious education. The concept of individuality was thus given a new form, in accordance with contemporary theories of developmental psychology. Other fundamental tasks, such as the socio-ethical task, the task of critical religious thinking, and that of ecumenical learning, meant a more specific emphasis on the community. It was an outline of a liberating education, which faced the individualistic-existential and social-ecclesiastical challenges of the time with a critical attitude. The further development of the theoretical outline in 1982 continued to uphold the perspectives of both individuality and the community, as Nipkow combined a historical-social dimension with theories of developmental psychology, especially that of life-span research. According to him, the development of the individual and communal life-reality belonged together. The fundamental task of religious education came to be learning to live and believe together. Nipkow transferred the idea of dialogue into inter-generational learning and developed elementarization as a methodology of Religious Education, which takes into account the point of departure of each age group. His theory of educational responsibility in the church (1990) contained the tasks of walking alongside the individual and the renewal of church communities as prerequisites of communicating the Christian faith in an era characterized by multifaceted Christianity. The "geisteswissenschaftliche" school and its concepts (Ger. Individualität; Bildung) were found to be the explanatory factor of the concepts of individuality and the community in the development of Nipkow's theory of religious education. The concept of education employed by Nipkow (Ger. Bildung) implies, on one hand, the individuality, autonomy, freedom and personal responsibility of people of different ages, and on the other hand, the dialogical nature of education in the community facilitated by this concept. Theologically, Nipkow associates himself in his views on individuality and the community with Schleiermacher's understanding of faith, of which openness towards the world was characteristic. The significance of individuality and the community in Nipkow's thinking was, furthermore, deepened by his participation, as a member of working parties, in the educational discussions of the World Council of Churches.

Valoa itään? : Kansanlähetys ja Neuvostoliitto 1967-1973

Light to the East? The Finnish Lutheran Mission and the Soviet Union 1967 1973 The Cold War affected the lives of Christian churches, especially in Europe. Besides the official ecumenical relations between east and west, there existed unofficial activity from west to east, such as smuggling Bibles and distributing information about the severe condition of human rights in the USSR. This study examines this kind of unofficial activity originating in Finland. It especially concentrates on the missionary work to the Soviet Union done by the Finnish Lutheran Mission (FLM, Suomen Evankelisluterilainen Kansanlähetys) founded in 1967. The work for Eastern Europe was organised through the Department for the Slavic Missions. FLM was founded within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, but it was not connected to the church on an organisational level. In addition to the strong emphasis on the Lutheran confession, FLM presented evangelical theology. The fundamental work of the Department for the Slavic Missions was to organise the smuggling of Bibles and other Christian literature to the Soviet Union and other countries behind the iron curtain. They also financed several Christian radio programmes produced and aired mainly by the international Trans World Radio. The Department diversified its activity to humanitarian help by distributing material help such as clothes and shoes to the unregistered evangelical and baptist groups, which were called the underground churches . In Finland the Department focused on information services. It published its own magazine, Valoa idässä (Light in the East), 5 to 6 times per year. Through the magazine and by distributing samizdat material received from the unregistered Christian groups, it discussed and reported the violations of human rights in the Soviet Union, especially when the unregistered Christian groups were considered the victims. The resistance against the Soviet Union was not as much political but religious: the staff of the Department were religious and revivalist young people who thought, for instance, that communism was in some way an apocalyptic world power revealed in the Bible. Smuggling Bibles was discussed widely in the Finnish media and even in parliament and the Finnish Security Police (SUPO, Suojelupoliisi) and in the Lutheran Church. From the church s point of view, this kind of missionary work was understandable but bothersome. Through their ecumenical connections, the bishops knew the critical situation of churches behind the iron curtain very well, but wanted to act diplomatically and cautiously to prevent causing harm to ecumenical or political relations. The leftist media and members of parliament especially accused the work of the Department of being illegal and endangering relations between Finland and the Soviet Union. SUPO did not consider the work of the Department as illegal activity or as a threat to Finnish national security.

Ihanne ja todellisuus : Jäsenyyteen sitoutuminen Suomen evankelis-luterilaisessa kirkossa 1960-luvulta 2000-luvulle

The subject of the study is the ideal and reality of commitment to membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland from the 1960s to the 2000s. The research task is to ascertain what manner of commitment the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland expects from its members (the ideal) and how in reality membership of the Church is realized (empiria). The research object is also to study the extent to which the ideal of commitment evinced by the Church and the actual relation of commitment to the Church changed during the research period. Additionally, those factors were analysed which influence the relation between the ideal and reality of commitment. In the analysis of the ideal of commitment the research data are official documents of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. They include confessions of the Church, Catechisms, Christian doctrine, joint strategies and plans of the Church, likewise the Church Act and Church Order. The reality of commitment is explored on the basis of Church membership, participation in parish activity and the private practice of religion, likewise attitude to Christian faith. The empirical data of the study comprise Church statistics, material from Statistics Finland and relevant surveys implemented during the research period. The ideal of commitment alongside membership includes knowing the basic tenets of Christian faith and family life based on prayer and participation in liturgical cycles. A member of the Church is expected to take care of his/her faith by living in participation of the Word and sacrament, bearing responsibility for the parish and faithfully discharging his/her worldly obligations. There have been no major changes in the ideal of commitment during the research period. On the contrary, the reality of commitment has changed. Although the majority of Finns are still members of the Church, there has been a constant decline in their share of the population. The same can be stated with respect to parish life. This has its own strengths, among them Church rites, parish activity around feast days and also work with children and confirmation training. However, the general trend is towards a decline in participation. There has also been a decrease in commitment to belief in God as taught by the Church. On the other hand, private religious observance has not changed at all. From the perspective of commitment the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland exists in a state of tension between the theological ideal and sociological empiria. Matters exerting a particular influence over the relation between ideal and reality are communality and varying conceptions of the Church, likewise contextuality and the related private Christianity. Societal change poses a challenge to traditional Church communality. A decline in communality has in turn led to a decline in belonging to the Church. Weakening awareness of membership has undermined the handing down of the tradition among younger generations. Modernization has influence the identity of the Church and brought the Church to an internal divergence. This way it has been able to retain its structure as a folk church but at the same time it has lost its opportunities for the formation of a clear identity. The Church has adjusted to societal change by outward-directed activities (performance) alongside the purely religious message (function). The tension between an unchanged message and a changed operating environment has increased. The challenge of contextuality has led the Church to review parish life, the nature of teaching and activity and the language used by the Church, likewise the cultural modus. Increasingly privatized Christianity challenges above all the theology and teaching of the Church, but also the life of worship and relation to cultural life.

Vallankumous kotona! : Arkielämän visuaalinen murros 1960-luvun lopussa ja 1970-luvun alussa

Revolution at home! Visual Changes in Everyday Life in Finland in the Late 1960s and Early 1970s The purpose of my research was to investigate the visual changes in private homes in Finland during the 1960s and 1970s. The 1960s is often described as a turning point in Finnish life, a time when the society's previous agricultural orientation began to give way first to an industrial orientation and then, by the end of the 1970s, to a service orientation. My title refers to three elements in the transition period: the question of daily life; the timeframe; and the visual changes observable in private homes, which in retrospect signalled a kind of revolution in the social orientation. Those changes appeared not only in colours and designs but also in the forms and materials of household objects. My premise is that analysing interiors from a historical perspective can reveal valuable information about Finnish society and social attitudes, information that might easily escape attention otherwise. I have used the time-honoured method of collecting narratives. As far back as Aristotle, formulating narratives has been a means of gaining knowledge. By collecting and classifying narratives about the 1960s and 1970s, it is possible to gain new insight into these important decades. The archetypal 1960s narrative, involving student demonstrations and young people's efforts to improve society, is well known. Less well known is the narrative that relates the changes going on in daily life. Substantially the study focuses mainly on fabrics, porcelain ware and the use of plastics. Marimekko's style is especially important when following innovations in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Porcelain production at the Arabia factory was another element that had a great influence on the look of Finnish homes and kitchens; and a further widespread phenomenon of the late 1960s and early 1970s was the use of plastics in many different forms. Further evidence was sought in Anttila department store mail catalogues, which displayed products that were marketed on a large scale, as well as in magazines such as Avotakka. The terminal point of the visual evolution is the real homes, as seen in the questionnaire "Homemade". I have used the 800 pages of the oral history text that respondents of the Finnish Literature Society have written about their first home in the 1960s. I also used archival material on actual homes in Helsinki from the archives of the Helsinki City Museum. The basic story is the elite narrative, which was produced by students in the 1960s. My main narrative from the same time is visual change in everyday life in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I have classified the main narrative of visual change into four subcategories: the narrative of national ideas, the narrative of a better standard of living, the narrative of objects in the culture of everyday life and the narrative of changing colour and form.

Fertility in Namibia : Changes in fertility levels in North-Central Namibia 1960-2001, including an assessment of the impact of HIV

The aim of this study was to estimate the development of fertility in North-Central Namibia, former Ovamboland, from 1960 to 2001. Special attention was given to the onset of fertility decline and to the impact of the HIV epidemic on fertility. An additional aim was to introduce parish registers as a source of data for fertility research in Africa. Data used consisted of parish registers from Evangelical Lutheran congregations, the 1991 and 2001 Population and Housing Censuses, the 1992 and 2000 Namibia Demographic and Health Surveys, and the HIV sentinel surveillances of 1992-2004. Both period and cohort fertility were analysed. The P/F ratio method was used when analysing census data. The impact of HIV infection on fertility was estimated indirectly by comparing the fertility histories of women who died at an age of less than 50 years with the fertility of other women. The impact of the HIV epidemic on fertility was assessed both among infected women and in the general population. Fertility in the study population began to decline in 1980. The decline was rapid during the 1980s, levelled off in the early 1990s at the end of war of independence and then continued to decline until the end of the study period. According to parish registers, total fertility was 6.4 in the 1960s and 6.5 in the 1970s, and declined to 5.1 in the 1980s and 4.2 in the 1990s. Adjustment of these total fertility rates to correspond to levels of fertility based on data from the 1991 and 2001 censuses resulted in total fertility declining from 7.6 in 1960-79 to 6.0 in 1980-89, and to 4.9 in 1990-99. The decline was associated with increased age at first marriage, declining marital fertility and increasing premarital fertility. Fertility among adolescents increased, whereas the fertility of women in all other age groups declined. During the 1980s, the war of independence contributed to declining fertility through spousal separation and delayed marriages. Contraception has been employed in the study region since the 1980s, but in the early 1990s, use of contraceptives was still so limited that fertility was higher in North-Central Namibia than in other regions of the country. In the 1990s, fertility decline was largely a result of the increased prevalence of contraception. HIV prevalence among pregnant women increased from 4% in 1992 to 25% in 2001. In 2001, total fertility among HIV-infected women (3.7) was lower than that among other women (4.8), resulting in total fertility of 4.4 among the general population in 2001. The HIV epidemic explained more than a quarter of the decline in total fertility at population level during most of the 1990s. The HIV epidemic also reduced the number of children born by reducing the number of potential mothers. In the future, HIV will have an extensive influence on both the size and age structure of the Namibian population. Although HIV influences demographic development through both fertility and mortality, the effect through changes in fertility will be smaller than the effect through mortality. In the study region, as in some other regions of southern Africa, a new type of demographic transition is under way, one in which population growth stagnates or even reverses because of the combined effects of declining fertility and increasing mortality, both of which are consequences of the HIV pandemic.

Alppihiihdon alkutaival : Pujottelu- ja tunturihiihto Suomessa 1920-luvulta 1960-luvulle

The object of study in this thesis is Finnish skiing culture and Alpine skiing in particular from the point of view of ethnology. The objective is to clarify how, when, why and by what routes Alpine skiing found its way to Finland. What other phenomena did it bring forth? The objective is essentially linked to the diffusion of modern sports culture to Finland. The introduction of Alpine skiing to Finland took place at a time when skiing culture was changing: flat terrain skiing was abandoned in favour of cross-country skiing in the early decades of the 20th century, and new techniques and equipment made skiing a much more versatile sport. The time span of the study starts from the late 19th century and ends in the mid-20th century. The spatial focus is in Finland. People and communities formed through their actions are core elements in the study of sports and physical activity. Organizations tend to raise themselves into influential actors in the field of physical culture even if active individuals work in their background. Original archive documents and publications of sports organizations are central source material for this thesis, complemented by newspapers and sports magazines as well as photographs and films on early Alpine skiing in Finland. Ever since their beginning in the late 19th century skiing races in Finland had mostly taken place on flat terrain or sea ice. Skiing in broken cross-country terrain made its breakthrough in the 1920 s, at a time when modern skiing techniques were introduced in instruction manuals. In the late 1920 s the Finnish Women s Physical Education Association (SNLL) developed unconventional forms of pedagogical skiing instruction. They abandoned traditional Finnish flat terrain skiing and boldly looked for influences abroad, which caused friction between the leaders of the women s sports movement and the (male) leaders of the central skiing organization. SNLL was instrumental in launching winter tourism in Finnish Lapland in 1933. The Finnish Tourism Society, the State Railways and sports organizations worked in close co-operation to instigate a boom in tourism, which culminated in the inauguration of a tourist hotel at Pallastunturi hill in the winter of 1938. Following a Swedish model, fell-skiing was developed as a domestic counterpart to Alpine skiing as practiced in Central Europe. The first Finnish skiing resorts were built at sites of major cross-country skiing races. Inspired by the slope at Bad Grankulla health spa, the first slalom skiing races and fell-skiing, slalom enthusiasts began to look for purpose-built sites to practice turn technique. At first they would train in natural slopes but in the late 1930 s new slopes were cleared for slalom races and recreational skiing. The building of slopes and ski lifts and the emergence of organized slalom racing competitions gradually separated Alpine skiing from the old fell-skiing. After the Second World War fell-skiing was transformed into ski trekking on marked courses. At the same time Alpine skiing also parted ways with cross-country skiing to become a sport of its own. In the 1940 s and 1950 s Finnish Alpine skiing was almost exclusively a competitive sport. The specificity of Alpine skiing was enhanced by rapid development of equipment: the new skis, bindings and shoes could only be used going downhill.

Gender and female entrepreneurship in a pro-entrepreneurship magazine

In this working paper I discuss gendered entrepreneurship by exploring how the media writes about female entrepreneurship. The starting point is that the media when talking and writing about female entrepreneurs and female entrepreneurship, mould meanings of gender in entrepreneurship. I view entrepreneurship and gender as socially constructed, discursive phenomena. To uncover the processes of constructing gender in female entrepreneurship this paper applies a discursive framework, which treats language as a representational system producing and circulating meaning. The focus on language use as action implies that practises of writing and talking about female entrepreneurship ‘make’ gender as much as the women entrepreneurs) themselves: both involve working on culturally shared meanings to make reality intelligible. The data consists of articles published in Yrittäjä, a pro-SME magazine, in 1990-1997. In the analysis I show how gender is constructed in media talk. as a women’s issue Women entrepreneurs are constantly compared with men and with an implicitly masculine ideal of entrepreneurship and with strengths and weaknesses of women are displayed pointing out that the meaning making of gender taking place in the data refers to equality discourse. Finally I discuss possible consequences of the hegemonic equality discourse and suggest lines of further research.

Vesistöjen veden laadun muutoksista 1960-luvulla

Engl. summary: Changes of water quality in water courses in the 1960's