Literary reminiscences and the symbols of modern Finland in Ismo Alanko’s poetry

Abstract

The article discusses the imagery system in the work of the modern Finnish poet Ismo Alanko. Literary and folklore traditions in his poetry are well researched. The poet has created a rather critical image of Finland as a Lutheran country full of national markers, but well-aware of its literature: “Martti Luther ja muovipussi” (Martin Luther and a plastic bag). Images of Finnish architecture, gray buildings in glass and metal, and a heavy gray northern sky connect Alanko’s poetry to Russian culture, to the name of Isaak Levitan who negatively described Finland as a kingdom of gray. Alanko clearly knows about Levitan’s words “Gray water and gray people, gray life”, but he gets into a debate with the artist, proving that gray has many shades of joy. One of the leaders of Finnish expressionism, Uuno Kailas, associated the nature and people of Finland with gray. But Kailas’ gray is clearly negative and lifeless. Alanko, on the other hand, distinguishes in gray all kinds of positive signs of life. His poems are characterized by the description of the lyrical hero’s irrational states against the background of the fantastic landscapes of Lapland, creating mythological images not immediately amenable to interpretation. For example, in the image of Mooneye from the North (kuusilmä pohjoisesta), there is a motif of turning a girl into a fish, typical for Finnish and Karelian epic songs, also familiar to us from Kalevala and Eino Leino’s poetry. Alanko comprehends serious worldview problems with poetic elegance, with the power of poetic word removing the contradiction between religious and common, rational, and irrational. Alanko revives Kalevala meter not in a “museum” form, but with modern accents and in his native Finnish language.