Book review | Aulikki Oksanen’s life and choices can help to understand how the defiant vanguard of the fighters came into being

Nonfiction book

Helena Ruuska: Aulikki Oksanen – Jumping into the fire of lilacs. WSOY. 368 pp.

“No mine headache help me love capitalism more than ever. Take care of yourself,” the sister replies to her brother Aulikki Oksanen Bodyguardin the novel (1990).

The background of the pain is the brother’s financial and spiritual plight, with the collapse of state socialism as a broader framework.

The decade preceding the publication of the Runeberg-awarded work was exhausting for its author. There were enough headwinds in private life, commercialism replaced idealism and the book industry was tested. “Rust and tar”, Oksanen sums up the time for his biographer Helena Ruuska.

In the bodyguard however, there is joy, hope and atonement, themes that Oksanen has cherished throughout his abundant literary output.

The main color of the cover is bright yellow, as in the later poem Third sister (2011) and now again in Ruuska’s biography. Yellow refers at least to the lemon trees of Corinth Bay and the environment, which has offered relief and space to look for something new.

Left conviction has been consistently present in Oksanen’s art. A permanent direction was found in the Student Theatre, whose “Brechtian oxygen” the writer born in 1944 breathed in during the cultural upheaval of the late 1960s.

The main vein of Oksanen’s writing career is poetry, some of which are known as song lyrics. Kaj Chydenius composed by You, you I love (1968) and Whose side do you stand on? (1970) belong to the strongest legacy of the political song movement.

For the artist Oksanen, especially love has meant life force, rather than enchantment. Name of the book Jump into the fire of lilacs refers directly to Enchantmentto the verse of the poem (2014). Along with the search for love and justice, nature also became a main theme.

Biography is Helena Ruuska’s fifth work of this genre. He is a doctor of literary studies and a critic, which can be seen in his ability to open up the development of the topics most important to Oksanen and the forms they have taken.

Ruuska’s previous target persons have already passed away, but now the writing process has included direct interaction with Oksanen. It has meant especially unhurried discussion meetings, supported by the author’s annual calendars with abundant entries.

The biography is certainly most rewarding for those readers who already have a basic understanding, especially of the social atmosphere in which Oksanen’s influence as an artist began and grew.

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In art, making a difference was visible earlier than in the everyday activities of political organizations.

of the 1970s There is a certain distance in dealing with the militant phase that framed Oksasenki’s political participation at the beginning. In Oksanen’s life and choices, one can still find an explanatory power that is broader than the individual.

The defiant vanguard of those who spoke the language of the revolution was born because at that time there was room on the left for just such a movement. Grouping happened mainly through resistance, and it was easy to find wrongdoing nearby.

The youth looking for a new direction were moved by disappointment, perhaps even shame, that in societies proclaiming freedom and democracy, colonialism was tolerated and the progress of equality was hindered.

When relatively a young person commits socially, the choice with all its cracks and sides becomes part of an identity that is painful to shake. Therefore, it can be tempting to avoid self-criticism and hope that this time honesty will be enough.

Half a century ago, the most powerful side was the Soviet Union. It offered the orthodox a concrete support and great promises of peace and equality to cling to in the search for a common front. It took some time to realize and accept that the reality was quite different.

In art, the separation was visible earlier than in the daily life of political organization activities, where Oksanen and especially his spouse Alpo Halonen were actively involved.

Ruuska deservedly highlights Oksanen’s poetry Seven crabs, seven scorpions (1979). It speaks forcefully of the exhaustion that follows from the waning of faith. Not all contemporaries noticed this message yet.

In his afterwords Ruuska characterizes his book as sprawling, but the whole remains within the scope of Oksanen’s life and word art. Everyday life, family and other human relationships, literary work and the development of social thinking and participation are smoothly intertwined.

The narrative, which starts from early childhood and progresses chronologically, includes anecdotes, memories and reflection, through which the interaction with Oksanen is clearly conveyed. The whole is still quite traditional in form, an artist biography that is particularly attached to literary work and its fruits.

The end of the work is tinged with loss. Alpo Halonen died in the fall of 2023, and the number of cultural influencers born in the 1940s is also rapidly decreasing. They left last spring Pentti SaaritsaKaj Chydenius and Kaisa Korhonenin just a few weeks.

Biography it suits the genre that works are created using different methods. Distance usually facilitates the analytical approach, but interactivity can more sensitively reach the mental landscape of its target person.

Ruuska’s book is lively and toned down, like Aulikki Oksanen.

The author is a docent of political history.