Ryssän koulussa : Suomalaiset Venäjän stipendiaatit autonomian aikana 1812-1917

Finnish scholarship students in Russia during the autonomy (1812-1917) During the autonomy in Finland (1809-1917), an attempt to improve the knowledge of the Russian language was made through special language university scholarships. With these scholarships the students could go and study the Russian language and acquire cultural knowledge in Russia. Other member countries on the edges of the Russian Empire, like Poland and the Baltic provinces, did not have similar programs. The first two scholars started their journey in 1812. A system of travel allowances was introduced in 1841. Between the years 1812- 1917 a total of almost 400 students studied in Russia. The studies mainly took place in Moscow. These scholarship students were called the Master s of Moscow ". In this paper, Finnish-Russian relations are studied based on the attitude towards the Russian language and the people who studied it in Finland. Although the attitude towards them was neutral in the beginning, in 1844 there was a strong change. Students of Russian, and especially the scholars, received the stigma of being unreliable and unpatriotic, a stigma they were never able to get rid of. The study of the Russian language was voluntary in Finnish schools between 1863 and 1872. Starting from 1890, however, the study of the Russian language was enforced. In doing so, the Russians attempted to unify the Empire, while the Finns had the illusion that they had their own state. Thus, Russia saw the language as a way to unify the Empire and Finns as an attempt to make them Russians. The purpose of studying in Russia was to improve the student s practical language skills and overall knowledge of the customs and culture of the country. Besides knowing the language, knowledge of Russian culture and customs is essential in understanding Russia and Russians; therefore, the studies of literature, geography and history have been noted in this research. Without knowledge it is difficult to develop understanding. After their studies, almost all of the scholars returned to Finland and did not continue their careers in Russia. They worked mainly as teachers and civil servants, and managed to improve the Finnish people s weak knowledge of Russian and Russia through teaching, translations of literature and newspaper articles. Through these scholars, it is possible to see how the attitudes towards the language have been closely related to the political history between Finland and Russia. The language became the subject of resistance and these attitudes were transferred to its students. In 1917, the study of Russia and the Russian language ended and it was no longer possible to use the acquired knowledge of language and country in independent Finland.

Arvoja näkyvissä : Kaunokirjallisuuden etiikka Ludwig Wittgensteinin filosofian valossa

The goal of this dissertation was to study whether it is possible and meaningful to apply Ludwig Wittgenstein s distinction between saying (Sagen) and showing (Zeigen) to ethically oriented literary criticism. The following questions were used as the primary guidelines: 1. Is it possible, in the context of literary criticism, to put in practice Wittgenstein s ethical conceptions, which are quite theoretical and metaphysical by nature? 2. If so, what practical literary devices do authors use if they want to demonstrate their ethical values within the frame of a fictional work? 3. Does philosophy offer useful ethical consepts that open us new and interesting readings in fiction? The philosophical background of Wittgenstein s distinction is clarified in chapter I. This clarification is based on his main works, Tractatus logico-philosophicus and Philosophishe Untersuchungen, the published correspondence between Wittgenstein and Paul Engelmann, and selected Wittgenstein research and papers. Analyzing ethics and it s expression in Georg Trakl s poetry further elucidates Wittgenstein s concept of showing. The concept that a literary work is an act of an author was used as a starting point. The presumption was that analyzing this act of an author will reveal how ethical values can be demonstrated in literature. Categorizing an author s act at different levels of literary expression provides the structure of this study. In chapters IV - XIII literary devices useful for demonstrating ethics are examined and explained using examples from the works of Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, Nikolay Leskov, Ludwig Uhland, Eino Leino, Pentti Haanpää and Maria Jotuni. The concepts and views of researchers and writers such as Mihail Bahtin, Peter Juhl, E. D. Hirsch, Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen are used. The concepts outlined in previous chapters are then applied in three case studies: Aeschylus s Oresteia trilogy, J-L. Runeberg s poem Sven Dufva and Sofi Oksanen s novel Puhdistus (Purge). On the whole, Wittgenstein s idea that ethical values can be demonstrated (shown) by means of literature is revealed as a fruitful point of departure for a more exact ethical reading, offering a new perspective on literary works.