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184 Chapter 11 Literary Journalism in Twentieth-Century Finland MaRia Lassila-MeRisalo LiteRaRy jouRnalism is practically an unknown term in Finland. That does not mean the form does not exist there, however. On the contrary, literary reportage emerged in Finnish newspapers around the same time that journalism itself started becoming a full-time profession in the country, that is, at the dawn of the twentieth century. The problem instead is one of semantics and of recognition. This essay aims to recover the tradition of literary journalism in Finland by highlighting certain points relevant to the development of Finnish journalism throughout the twentieth century.1 To begin with, there are a couple of reasons why literary journalism as a specific genre has been historically neglected in Finland. One explanation can undoubtedly be found in the academy. Journalism education in general was built on positivist scientific beliefs and the ideal of objective reporting, and print journalism in particular has concentrated on newspapers and, more specifically, on hard news. Professional standards have required journalism students to perfect the inverted pyramid model.2 As a result, creative or emotive-style journalism, be it reportage, personality stories, or features, has been marginalized to a few select courses in university programs scattered throughout Finland. Moreover, as in the United States, literary journalism in Finland has been excluded from the curricula of library sciences.3 Even the first professorship in magazine journalism (which in Finland is virtually understood as non-news journalism) was not established until the beginning of 2007. Through all of this, Finnish literary journalists have had to educate themselves, and, consequently, a common culture of literary journalism has not developed there. Another explanation for the troubles facing a literary journalistic tradition in Finland can be found in the field of fiction. It has been said that the defining characteristic of Finnish reading culture is a desire for the truth. Because of this, the realistic novel traditionally has reigned. A book has to tell its readers about reality, things as they really are: “If the story is fictitious, at Literary Journalism in Twentieth-Century Finland 185 least the details have to be accurate and the events have to be potentially possible .”4 Finnish readers also use (popular) literature distinctively as a source of knowledge. Many of the most successful novels in Finland can be thought of as factual narratives: “They attempt to stay with the facts, and they are based on researched data, in so far as fiction can be. Narratives are believed to reflect the past as it was. Hence Finnish literature sometimes competes with history, and correspondingly with sociology when the stories are situated in the present time.”5 It could therefore be suggested that the distinctive role of “factual fiction” in Finnish literature has led to a situation in which there is less demand for “fictional fact.” Despite these two significant obstacles, literary journalism has made an appearance in Finnish media, though one long in coming at first. I begin tracing its journey here with the emergence of reportage at the start of the twentieth century, and then turn to the heroes, antiheroes, and storytellers of the 1950s and 1960s. Finally, I examine urban culture in Finland in the 1980s, which spawned a plethora of small magazines and an interest in the gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson. From an American perspective, given its strong traditions in both the practice and the study of literary journalism , Finland is indeed on the periphery. As the many examples discussed here will show, Finnish literary journalists of the second half of the century were greatly influenced by transnational sources, specifically America’s New Journalists . From a European perspective, however, Finland is perhaps more in line with journalistic trends that began looking to American New Journalism only when it was felt that objective journalism had begun to lose its bearings at home. Finnish Reportage: Where It All Began The Finnish press originally developed through new variations of earlier printed matter such as broadside ballads, books, and newsletters.6 In the nineteenth century, the line between the magazine and the newspaper—as well as the book—was very thin.7 What brought them together were travel stories.8 The first Finnish reportage—and consequently the country’s first piece of literary journalism—is considered to be a series called “Resebeskrifning öfwer Finland af en Stockholmsbo” (A Description of a Journey in Finland by a Citizen of Stockholm),9 which was published in eighteen parts during 1800–1801...

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