August Annist

August Annist worked harder than anyone else to introduce Finnish literature and folk poetry to the Estonians. Ülo Tedre, who was an accomplished Estonian expert on folklore studies characterised Annist’s work as the best translation of the Kalevala that has ever been done anywhere. During the time that Estonia was a part of the Soviet Union, August Annist, however, fell into disgrace and he was forgotten both in Estonia and in Finland.

Annist and Haavio, ideological brothers

Annist belonged to a generation who was badly hit by the year of 1940 and its consequences. His research work was disrupted in the midst of the most productive phase, when he was imprisoned in 1945 as an enemy of the Soviet Union. He was held in prison for six years. The new regime banned and declared most of Annist’s pre-war production as illegal. All research work on the history of the sister nations Finland and Estonia was forced to stop and the old friends lost contact with each other. However, Annist was not completely forgotten. Matti Haavio described Annist, in his memoir Nuoruusvuodet (1999) as follows:

 

“”[Annist] has finished his Estonian translation of the book by F. E. Sillanpää Hurskas kurjuus ((Vaga viletsus). He has previously already done a very skilful translation of Helkavirret by Eino Leino. His appearance resembles a Mongolian, Korean or an Uzbek, but he is a Greek philosopher, Italian humanist, French poet and, above all, a Fennoman and Estoman”.

Haavio had known Annist since 1920. The were ideological brothers, and they had their work on the history of the Finnish and Estonian people in common. Both had been the founders of the “tribe club” in their respective home countries. Haavio was an expert on folklore studies and he worked for a long time as an editor at a large book publishing company. Annist also worked with research on literature and folklore studies. His reasons for being so interested in Finland were many. Estonian authors and the intellectual elite had, since the days of Lydia Koidula, viewed Finland with admiration and with a desire to learn more. The literary movement Noor-Eesti (Nuori Viro, in English: Young Estonia) enhanced this attitude. The leaders of the movement lived and studied in Finland and they saw the Finnish and Scandinavian culture a necessary counterweight to the German and Russian influences that grew stronger and, consequently, suppressed the Estonian culture.

When August Annist began his studies at the university in Tartu, several teachers from Finland had already arrived or were arriving there. They had been invited them in order to transform the university, that used Russian as the teaching language and was influenced by Germany, into the university of the Estonian republic. Among Annist’s teachers were Lauri Kettunen, Ilmari Manninen and A. M. Tallgren. Those Finns, who did not feel comfortable with the German-influenced corporative atmosphere, founded together with Estonian students the association Eesti Üliõpilaste seltsi (Virolaisten ylioppilaiden seura, in English: the Association of Estonian students) Veljesto (Veljeskunta, in English: Fraternity). Annist became the ideological leader of this association. The association was, particularly in the beginning, noticeably pro-Finnish.

 

Annist continued his studies at the University of Helsinki in 1925–1926. The network of acquaintances and friends that he acquired during these years were very useful for him later on in his work as he introduced Finnish literature and ethnology in Estonia. Annist’s research was connected to the national epic of Estonia and through this to Estonian and Finnish folk poems, but he also studied the Finnish students’ movement and followed with great interest the societal development in Finland and more broadly in Europe. He was a part of the young people who studied ethnology and who wanted to be active in the society and also outline the ideology and future of the national culture. In Helsinki, his supervisors were professor Kaarle Krohn, who was a professor of folk poetry, and Viljo Tarkiainen, who was a professor of literature. Annist, who was a fast writer, regularly published in the 1920’s and 1930’s in the Estonian literary magazines Looming and Eesti Kirjandus reviews of new pieces of work in Finnish literature. His long and professional reviews were both on fictive works and on ethnographic research. Never before had Estonian readers’ general knowledge of what happened in the literary field in Finland been this good.

In 1924, a book edited by Annist, Soome maa, rahvas ja kultuur, was published. The book included articles, mainly written by Finns, but Annist wrote a general overview in the book called ”Soome ja Eesti” (in English: Finland and Estonia) and he also translated the poem Meie maa (Maamme, in English: Our Land) by Runeberg. In 1926, an equal book, Viron kirja (in English: the Book of Estonia) was published in Finland. Annist participated in the work on the book.

An enemy of the Soviet Union

The tone of the ethnographic sciences in Finland and Estonia during the time between the world wars was heavily influenced by the researchers and intellectuals of the generation of Annist and Haavio. The ideology of tribe was supported and welcomed in these circles. Finnish university students and a group of the intelligentsia became members of the Akateeminen Karjalaseura (AKS), the Academic Karelia Society, which purpose was to support, besides the idea of Finnishness, also the existence of other Finno-Ugric people and their culture. As a result of this, the members of AKS supported the idea of Greater Finland. In Estonia, these ideas were supported only to some extent. The origin and background of the nationalistic ideas in Finland and Estonia differed from each other.

The vision of a “communal Finland” was a competitor to the ideology of Greater Finland, and it was, above all, August Annist who promoted this idea. Annist presented the idea of a communal Finland in his aforementioned overview “Soome ja Eesti”. In this text he aimed at demonstrating the similarities shared by the people of Estonia and Finland, their history and also the contemporary society. He also described the linguistic and cultural bonds between the countries, the mutual loans and the help that the wealthier Finnish people give to the Estonians. He saw that the collaboration in developing a communal Finnish culture would become stronger in the future. The notion of a communal Finnishness was, more than anything, a cultural construction and its goal was to open up the perspectives of what it meant to be Estonian. Annist declares: “The topic of a communal Finnish culture – it is not an outdated ornament or a special idea, it is, especially, a question of the existence or non-existence of our national culture”.

The fateful years of Estonia

When Martti Haavio became editor-in-chief of the magazine Suomalainen Suomi (in English: Finnish Finland) in 1931, he also welcomed articles from his Estonian friends who shared his ideologies. Annist was one of the most frequent Estonian contributors to the magazine. He also wrote about the problems in the society at that point of time and he explained, for the Finnish readers, the coup d’etat that had taken place in Estonia in 1934 as well as the circumstances in Estonia on a more general level.

His good connections, in particular to Haavio’s family, gave Annist had a chance to publish three books in Finland during the war. Soon after the translation of the Kalevala, Annist finished a study Kalevala kui kunstiteos (Kalevala taideteoksena, in English: the Kalevala as a Work of Art), which was supposed to be published in the popular scientific journal series Elav Teadus (Elävä tiede, in English: Living Science). However, the study was never completed because of the Russian and German military actions. Annist was demanded to make some ideological revisions to the text. Annist did some of these and by the year of 1944 the text was already in the printing machine. The first chapters were printed before the power shifted again. The copies that were finished were finalised and a couple of them were sent to Finland, where the book was published during the same year. Elsa Haavio had translated it into Finnish. The text did not become available to the Estonian people until in 1969, when publications on this topic were needed for the Finno-Ugric congress that was held in Tallinn in 1970.

The next works by Annist were published in Finland using a pseudonym. In 1942, WSOY published the book Viro neuvostokurimuksessa. Piirteitä Viron tapahtumista ja kehityksestä bolševikkivallan aikana vv. 1939–41 by “Jan Siiras”.  The book was translated into Finnish by E. A. Saarimaa. It is a colourful and very thorough description of how the Soviet Union was implanted in Estonia and of the people who did this. The identity of the author remained a secret and the book was on the list of not recommended books in Finland after the war. It was strictly forbidden in Estonia which means that the first excerpts were not published until 1991 with the name of the author on them. The book has not been re-published in either language. The reason for this may be that the spirit of this era – for example, the deterministic descriptions of the nations – are more strongly reflected here than is considered acceptable today. After the war, the Finnish people read the book by Ants Oranen Viron kohtalonvuodet (in English: The fateful years of Estonia) (1958) in which the author writes about the same years as Annist in his own book, but Oranen’s book is politically somewhat more moderate. Before the war ended, WSOY published in Finland a Finnish translation by Eino Parikka of the book Viron historia (in English: The history of Estonia), which Annist wrote together with his wife, the history teacher, Linda Annist and his companion from the Veljesto association Harri Moora.

When Annisto was imprisoned after the war, his wife was not allowed to work as a teacher and the family that had three children endured severe poverty. Annist was not sent to Siberia, but he was imprisoned in the camps Harku and Valga in Estonia and he worked, when he had the chance, on the translations of the Bylina. When he was released from prison, Annist first had trouble finding a job that would meet his experience and competence. It may be that he later received help from president Urho Kekkonen, who visited Tarto in 1964 and asked about his old friend August Annist. Annist was swiftly located with the help of the security service and he was escorted to the dinner table. After this, it is told that Annist’s career began to prosper again – at least to the extent that his deteriorated health permitted.

Annist’s extensive home archive was taken when he was arrested in 1945. Older material has been only sporadically preserved. Because of the changed circumstances his correspondence, which had been very extensive during earlier years, was now limited. Despite this, you can see how Annist tried to adapt to the new times and hold on to his love for Finland. Among other things, there is a manuscript from 1958 about the life and work of Hella Wuolijoki. This comprehensive study was never published.

The Kalevala, a communal Finnish epic

In Estonia, August Annist was punished for a long time because of his past which was considered bourgeois. Many of his works that he had done before the war, were hidden in a closed collection. His research in cultural history and literature about the spiritual life of the people were, especially, forbidden. When he was released from prison, Annist started to work with the scientific version of the Kalevipoeg. The book came out in 1962. Annist’s own studies from the 1930’s have not been re-published and they were not used as course material during the Soviet Union regime. Thus, they were forgotten. Annist tried to publish revised versions of the studies himself, but because of the censorial circumstances and the situation when attempting to publish something, he did not manage to do this. Annist’s studies on the Kalevipoeg were re-published as a compilation in 2005 and they, still, made an impression on the readers with their sense of novelty.

Besides working with the Kalevipoeg, Annist also worked on the Kalevala. In 1935, he said that the Kalevala is more close to the Estonian people and means more to them than any other piece of work in the Estonian language outside the country’s borders.

The Kalevala is not only an epic that represents Great Finland but also a communal Finnish epic, not only a monumentumaere perennius for ancient Finland and ancient Karelia but also for ancient Estonia and its spirit and culture, the only one that has been preserved for both of us as grand and – collective, belonging to both.”

Before Annist translated the Kalevala, he studied Finnish oral folk poetry and translated some of the poems into Estonian. They were published in the anthologies Kanteletar I and II. Annist wrote a comprehensive foreword in both versions in which he analysed the contents of Finnish oral folk poetry and their expressive originality.

Annist had chosen those Finnish folk poems that appealed most to himself and he commented on these by outlining a kind of ideal version of each of the poems. Martti Haavio used the same method after the war when he compiled the anthologies Kirjokansi and Laulupuu consisting of Finnish folk poems. The method, naturally, requires a particularly good knowledge and thorough studies of the poetic traditions.

Ruth Mirov, one of the most distinguished researchers on the life and poetry research of August Annist has stated that Annist ended up studying Estonian folk poetry through Finnish folk poems. Annist’s experience of Finland was decisive when it comes to his development as a researcher, although he did his life’s work in Estonia. When the Soviet regime had destroyed Annist’s possibilities to work as a cultural ideologist and Fennoman, he returned to the Estonian folk poems and the Kalevipoeg.

Although Annist, during his life, did not succeed in publishing new editions of his own scientific studies from the 1930’s of the Kalevipoeg epic, he got the chance to see the national enthusiasm that his own epic Lauluema Mari (1966) evoked when it was published. The censorship was alarmed by this and, consequently, delayed the publication of the next two large poetic collections (Karske Pireta, maheda Mareta ja mehetapja Maie lood;Udres-Kudres, Päeva poeg). These were published after Annist had died and when the circumstances had changed.

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Sirje Olesk: ”Vironkielinen Kalevala: August Annistin elämä ja työ” – Kalevala maailmalla. Helsinki: SKS. 2012.