Our school lunches where I work are a lot better then this but were also a petty good district in the state with decent funding.
Our school lunches where I work are a lot better then this but were also a petty good district in the state with decent funding.
What do you mean, later prints are bourgeosie-washed? Do you mean that they changed later editions of the book? If so I will have to see if I can find an old copy one day. I would love to read more from Finnish writers, it’s too bad most didn’t get translated. It took me about 15 years just to find a translated copy of the first Under the North Star book. It only got translated into English once, many years ago and all the copies got sold and never re-printed. After years of searching I found a library with a copy.
I would love to read more about how Finland came to be the way it is, it seems to have such an interesting history. I wanted to learn the language too (it sounds lovely) but I don’t have the energy to take on such a task and there aren’t that many resources for learning it. I learnt a little Swedish many years ago and there seemed to be a lot more resources for learning Swedish at home, very few for Finnish.
The bourgeoisie very much took on the nationalistic project and the works of Finnish authors and kind of claimed them. The original print Linna wrote was never published as it was as the publisher demanded parts of it to be censored and the local bourge press turned the book into a moral panic as it went against their narrative. The original book name would be just “A War Novel” and today you can find it printed under the name Sotaromaani. In it he takes clear stances againts nationalism and militarist for example and these are things that have been purged from The Unknown Soldier. There is a study about it here in Finnish that might be translatable. Linna also personally held some anti-Soviet brainworms and some of these were also purged so it’s complicated as well. But later the book and the movie both have been heavily utilized to advance nationalism, militarism and russophobia even though it was the Whites who used to hate this book.
It’s a shame that most if not all of the actual leftist history here is these days underground or only in Finnish. But I do know that O.W. Kuusinen also wrote in English and these works can at least be read online.
Thanks for the tip, I will check out O.W. Kuusinen when I have the energy. Too bad I can’t read the original A War Novel. I clicked on the link but it won’t translate the page. Do you know any other good novels or non fiction about Finnish history that are available in English?