Poyry or Finnish storytellers. The shortest distance from point A to point B

Fairy tales are both the childhood of the people and their maturity. Trolls and elves, evil sorcerers and good wizards, brownies... once upon a time in Scandinavia they believed that these creatures lived in dense forests, foggy fjords, and meeting them could change a person’s fate. There were many amazing, magical stories about this that remained in the folklore of the northern countries.

What features do Finnish fairy tales have? Who are they, the most famous great storytellers of Suomi, who to this day lead their people from childhood to adulthood?

Sacarias Topelius (Zacharias Topelius, 1818-1898).

Poet, novelist, storyteller, historian and publicist. Topelius's works have been translated into more than twenty languages ​​of the world. The theme of love for nature, kindness and compassion runs through many of the writer’s works. The Finnish storyteller makes extensive use of the tales of his Sami neighbors.

For example, the action of the famous fairy tale “Sampo - Loparenok” takes place in Lapland. An inquisitive boy, having decided to go sledding, suddenly found himself far from home, in the domain of a ferocious mountain king. A deer with golden antlers helps Sampo escape and hide in the pastor's house. The mountain king wants to take Sampo away since he has not yet been baptized. But the pastor manages to quickly baptize him, and the giant is forced to leave with nothing.

Opinion

Archpriest Vyacheslav Kharinov, confessor of the St. Petersburg Orthodox Theological Academy, rector of the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow” (St. Petersburg).

Reading Finnish fairy tales, everyone will definitely discover the closeness of Finns to nature. People live in harmony with nature, depending on what it gives them. Finns have humanized nature. In Finnish fairy tales, everyone participates in the story - living and inanimate objects, and always animals. Everyone says. There are amazing things that coexist in Finnish fairy tales. This is Christianity and paganism. The peculiarity of Suomi fairy tales is the presence of something pagan, at the same time completely framed as Christian. Adaptation of fairy tales to Christian ideals and moral values: love, hope, self-sacrifice, fidelity, devotion...

What is surprising about Finnish fairy tales? A certain integration into the fairy tale of Christianity. This applies to folk and even author's fairy tales (the same can be found in Russian fairy tales). Christmas and Easter organically entered Finnish fairy tales. The presence of Christmas, the presence of a miracle, the presence of special forces associated with religious life, with a religious atmosphere, makes fairy tales true, beautiful, balanced precisely at certain moments of the church year. And he talks about the deep roots of Christianity in Suomi. Moreover, it seems, not very ancient, no older than the 17th century. The fact that it organically entered the popular consciousness, so that it was naturally reflected in literature.

The religious life of the Finns in fairy tales determines the character and subject of the story. Only for an unenlightened person does religion always seem like some kind of fairy tale. In fact, a fairy tale is a derivative product of people's religious ideas.

Christmas tales are a small story about a miracle. They are similar to a sermon and are able not only to convey a thought, but also to change a person.

Tove Jansson (Swedish: Tove Marika Jansson, 1914 - 2001).

She gained worldwide fame thanks to her books about the Moomins. She wrote in Swedish. At the heart of Tove Jansson’s artistic world is the image of a home in which the lights are always on, loved ones are waiting for you, delicious food and a warm bed are ready. This is an unshakable citadel of security and love, one thought about which allows you to overcome any adversity and where you can always return.

Opinion

Eduard Uspensky about Tova Jansson:

- When I read Tove Jansson’s books, I see that many thoughts and ideas came to my mind much later than her.
- When Tova was given the Andersen Prize (small Nobel Prize), she said in her speech that in fairy tales there should always be something inexplicable, unspeakable, something that we can never depict. I myself think differently than she does. It is necessary that everything is clear to everyone, all the details are clear. The reader must know how the hero lives, what products he buys, what he eats and, in the end, how he will leave this earth.
- When Tove creates, then she does not follow any rules. At times, it feels like her text, which she writes passionately and tenderly, exists on some abstract level. And yet everything in him, in the end, everything one day becomes clear and understandable.

Writer Hannu Mäkelä:

During one of my meetings with Tove Jansson, I noted that Eduard Uspensky can never guess what she will write about on the next page, but still loves her books. She replied: “How nice, listen, if he wants to meet me, call and repeat what this Russian writer said about me. I will remember and accept you." And even then she didn’t accept almost anyone.

Materials used in preparing this article: s-skazka.org.ua

", and research in the field of Karelian-Finnish and Sami folklore. On the occasion of the master's anniversary, we are talking about him - and about children's books, which would not exist without his work.

Strokina Anastasia Igorevna

CompassGuide

Dotsuk Daria

CompassGuide

Maisonneuve Emmanuel

CompassGuide: Lunar Tom

Sakarias Topelius was born on January 14, 1818 in the family of a folklore collector. The father regaled his son with countless stories, myths and impromptu fictions - it is not surprising that Sakarias grew up as a child with an extremely developed imagination and began to compose himself at an early age. Actually, Topelius also chose a profession that suited him: after graduating from the University of Helsingfors in 1840, he took the position of editor-in-chief of the Helsingfors News - and held it for twenty years, publishing books along the way.

He became one of the pioneers of children's literature in Finland - for example, under his leadership, the series “History of Finland in Drawings” was published seven times in a row, which systematized scientific data on this topic. Later, Topelius became a doctor of historical sciences and rector of the university - while continuing to compose original and touching fairy tales in his free time.

Zakaria Topelius. Knut the Musician

You can play only three songs on the sea princess's pipe, but they are magical! The first song - a playful one - will make the listeners laugh and amuse themselves, the second song - a lullaby - can put all the fish in the sea to sleep, the third song - a very sad one - will make even the stern snow king cry. Knut is a simple boy who lives with his grandmother in a small hut on the seashore. One day, the rich Mr. Peterman invites him to dinner. And, despite his grandmother’s warning, Knut decides to take a short route through the Kiikalsky forest to the dinner party.

Winter tales from around the world

Winter has come - it's time for cozy snowy fairy tales and magical icy adventures. Countries whose inhabitants are very familiar with snowdrifts and blizzards have given us stories from the life of Father Frost, the adventures of Merry Matty, the riddles of Lady Blizzard and a story from the life of a boy who wanted a New Year tree more than anything in the world. When a blizzard is creeping outside the window and cold stars are twinkling, there is nothing better than opening a thick book full of color pictures and finding yourself in a real fairy tale. Maybe you will meet not one, but two Frosts there. It turns out that this happens...

Anastasia Strokina

The young writer poetizes the Russian north: the Leningrad region, Karelia, the Komi Republic, Chukotka - all these amazing, unlike any other lands are acquiring a new mythology thanks to Anastasia Strokina. Okay, not so new: Anastasia processes genuine legends of the Aleuts, Karelians and other peoples, and even ordinary urban legends, of which there are so many in St. Petersburg, and creates wonderful fairy tales based on them - fascinating, kind, wise.

“A Whale Swims North” is Anastasia Strokina’s debut story, which every adult will read as a philosophical parable: a mysterious but cute-looking (thanks to the artist Irina Petelina) animal Mamoru is looking for his island, lost somewhere in the ocean. The island that is intended for Mamoru is only one in the world, and how can one find it in the endless space? A whale comes to the rescue, ready to go on a long, difficult journey, full of unexpected encounters.

“The Pocket Dwarf's Bead” is an Andersen story in spirit: the girl Vera rushes headlong into adventure in order to save her sister Varya. Numerous dangers and pleasant surprises await her along the way - and her best friends will help and support her: the dog Lille and a bird named Birdie. Oh, yes, an important detail: the magic medicine that will save Varya is owned by... a storyteller named Topelius. This is where Vera needs to get - along the way, meeting a couple of ghosts and a crowd of other amazing creatures.

Emmanuel Maisonneuve

Perhaps the French writer is not familiar with the work of the Finnish storyteller, but her works are in many ways similar to Topelius’s books: fictional and real creatures coexist peacefully in them, nature and the human world are also closely intertwined, animals, birds and insects too endowed with the gift of speech and thinking. And even more than that: in the forest there is a secret society of Velikoznaev, whose members have determined the rules of interaction between a variety of species, from worms to humans.

Moon Tom is a little man whom forest animals discovered in a potato, rescued from there and helped to understand his origin. It is truly mysterious: why is Tom similar to people, but so small? Why doesn't he remember how he ended up at the edge of the forest? Where did he learn to speak a language that everyone in the forest could understand? The baby, as usual, will go on an eventful journey, the result of which should be new knowledge about himself - and soon the second part of the story about Lunar Tom will be published by the CompassGuide publishing house.

Maria Boteva

The fairy tale genre is new for Maria Boteva, author of the popular book “Ice cream in waffle cups,” however, the first experience turned out to be extremely successful: the story “Lighthouse - look! "became one of the main hits of the KompasGid publishing house in 2017. There is something northern/Scandinavian in this story: either the image of a lighthouse, or the characteristic minimalism, or the feeling of light breaking through the eternal darkness, like a ray of sunshine finding its way to the ground through clouds and fog.

The action takes place a little at sea, a little on land, and more in the heads of the characters: the brave and extravagant Edwin, the inept and inquisitive Elsa, the businesslike and extremely active Kaporyaks. Something is definitely happening in the head of the wolf Kulik-Soroka, but the reader learns the least about this - he, the reader, generally has a lot to imagine for himself. This is Maria Boteva’s signature style, which in this book has reached a new level: all the most important things remain behind the scenes, and the joy of guessing and thinking out the stronger the less the author says directly.

Daria Dotsuk

“The House on the Cliff” is more of a realistic story than a fairy tale or parable. The writer unfolds a large-scale psychological metaphor (we are talking about the emotional state in which Ksenchik is), weaving fantastic details into the everyday fabric - and so dinosaurs end up in the forest on the edge of a cliff, a neighbor turns into a werewolf, and butterflies and insects turn into good elves.

As children, we all have a rich imagination. But no fictional universe is like another, and that’s why immersion in someone else’s world is always so exciting. And it is all the more interesting the more clearly realities from the ordinary, earthly world appear between imaginary things and beings. When you’re eight, it’s not your fantasies that “spoil” reality—it’s exactly the opposite. After all, sometimes fiction is our most reliable defender.

Join these wonderful books with drawings by Tamara Yufa

prepared another one

Collection of Finnish folk tales
"Magic Box"
artists Tamara Yufa, Margarita Yufa
translation from Finnish by Arvi Perttu

The book was made to match the previous two, with a similar design, but at the same time all three books turned out different :)).
The block has a matte expensive chalk finish. on the cover - additional silk-screen printing plus blind embossing. We also added a bookmark ribbon (lasse).
The book is quite plump - 256 pages, in size it will be slightly (15 mm) larger than "The Three Magic Leaves".

In total, the book includes 39 fairy tales. Plus an introductory article by the famous Karelian folklorist Unelma Konkki (many may remember her as one of the authors of the collection “Karelian Tales” with Bryukhanov.
The Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Karelia helped us with the illustrations; many thanks to them for their help and support of our projects, for their concern.
Printed, of course, by Latvia;))

For the opportunity to join the Finnish folk art, the Russian-speaking reader should thank the famous Karelian folklorist with Finnish roots Unelma Konkka (1921-2011). It was she who compiled this collection. The collection includes the most interesting fairy tales and legends that most fully reflect the original world of the Finns. In Finland itself, they began to be published in the middle of the 19th century; it is noteworthy that almost at the same time in Russia, Alexander Afanasyev prepared for publication an eight-volume set of Russian folk tales.

The plots of many Finnish fairy tales are related to navigation, which is logical for a country with long-standing sea routes. Other stories tell about farmers, hunters and fishermen, others about princes and princesses, and others about animals. Some plots will seem familiar to the reader, for example, from Karelian or Western European fairy tales. To this Unelma Konkka replied: “The more we read fairy tales from different countries, the more often we are convinced that most of them belong to the peoples of the whole world. But this similarity concerns only the plot of the fairy tale, its skeleton. Each nation gives a well-known plot its own unique form. The fairy tale reflects the history, psychology, living conditions and other characteristics of a given people.”

The fairy tales were translated into Russian by the writer Arvi Perttu, who lives in Finland.
The collection was illustrated by famous Karelian artists Tamara and Margarita Yufa.

To the reader

Finland, like our Karelia, is very rich in works of oral folk poetry. What we have in common are the epic “Kalevala” and the collection of lyrical songs “Kanteletar”. Many songs and runes, proverbs, riddles and fairy tales among Finns and Karelians are surprisingly similar. This is explained by our common origin, historical roots. The initial period of collecting fairy tales in Finland is geographically connected with Karelia: the first fairy tale was recorded here in September 1833 by Elias Lönnrot? on his fourth voyage. He headed from Kajaani through the villages of Kivijärvi, Chenaniemi and Ponkalahti to Vuonninen (Voinitsa), where, as he was told, good storytellers lived. There Lönnrot met the wonderful rune singer Ontrey Malinen, whose runes, along with others, influenced the creation of “Kalevala” and formed the basis of its composition.

During the short waterway from Ponkalahti to Vuonninen, Lönnrot had two brothers as rowers. According to the collector, one was between fifteen and twenty years old, the other seven or eight. To brighten up the monotonous road, the eldest of the brothers sang runes about Väinämöinen, Joukahainen and Lemminkäinen?.

They interested Lönnrot, and he began to write them down. To his question where the guy learned these runes, he replied that “anyone can sing that much, if not laziness.” Lönnrot promised to give the guy another twenty kopecks on top of the rowing fee so that he “wouldn’t be lazy” to sing as much as he knew.

The younger brother also wanted to earn something and asked if the visitor would give him a penny (two-kopeck coin) for a fairy tale he wanted to tell. Lönnrot promised to give two pennies if the boy would be patient while his older brother’s runes were written down. But when the village of Vuonninen was already very close, and his brother’s songs still did not end, the boy burst into tears. Lönnrot writes about this in his travel notes very movedly: “I had to stop writing down the runes and start writing his tale. The wind was driving the boat towards the shore, and I told the boys not to row in order to stretch out the time.” The boy told a fairy tale about the daughter of the old woman Suoyatar, who seduced one guy. Lönnrot wrote it down and came to the conclusion that fairy tales “deserve to be collected.”

Following the example and call of Lönnrot, many Finnish students began to collect fairy tales both in Karelia and in Finland. We can say that the little boy from Ponkalahti, whose name remains unknown, influenced the collection of fairy tales, giving it the first impetus.

In the summer of 1850, two students - twenty-year-old Erik Rudbeck and his friend - collected fairy tales in Central Finland. The recorded tales aroused great interest among researchers, and Rudbeck was asked to edit a collection of tales. All the fairy tales accumulated in the archives of the Finnish Literary Society were placed at his disposal. Eric Rudbeck set to work with enthusiasm, taking the pseudonym Ero Salmelainen. The first volume of “Fairy Tales and Legends of the Finnish People” appeared in 1852, the next three volumes in 1854, 1863 and 1866, respectively. It is interesting to note that almost simultaneously in Russia, A. N. Afanasyev prepared an extensive collection in eight volumes - “Russian Folk Tales”.

Salmelainen’s collection was immediately highly appreciated, it was even put on a par with “Kalevala” and “Kanteletar”. The book truly represented the best fiction of its time and, one might say, made a revolution in the development of the Finnish literary language. Based on folk tales and their distinctive language, Salmelainen created his own style - a leisurely, detailed narrative that reflects the Finnish character. Time has no power over him, just as it has no power over folk tales themselves. It should be noted that Salmelainen’s collection contains not only Finnish, but also many Karelian fairy tales.

While editing the collected tales, Salmelainen noticed that other nations also have similar tales. And indeed, the more we read fairy tales from different countries, the more often we are convinced that most of them belong to the peoples of the whole world. But this similarity concerns only the plot of the fairy tale, its skeleton. Each nation gives the well-known plot its own unique form. The fairy tale reflects the history, psychology, living conditions and other characteristics of a given people. In this collection the reader will find tales that are very close to the corresponding Karelian subjects (for example, about animals) or reminiscent of some of the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm.

Telling fairy tales has been one of the favorite leisure activities for many centuries. Fairy tales were listened to in rich palaces and poor huts - wherever a good storyteller happened to be. Merchants, artisans, soldiers, sailors and tramps - everyone who traveled a lot around the world - at inns or returning home from travels, talked about everything they saw and heard, not forgetting about fairy tales.

Thus, despite language barriers, fairy tales were passed on from one people to another. A Karelian carpenter, plying his trade somewhere in Rus', listened to Russian fairy tales in the evening hours and, knowing the language, memorized some of them. If he had the makings of a storyteller, then he later conveyed these tales in his native language, in his village, reworking them in the Karelian way as the story progressed. Likewise, a Karelian peddler, going around Finnish villages, could tell a fairy tale brought from Russia to Finnish listeners, who, in turn, accepting the fairy tale in the Karelian version, then told it in the traditions of the Finnish fairy tale. Thus, fairy tales of the same type received a flavor characteristic of a given people. We must not forget that each storyteller retold the tale he heard quite freely. He, of course, tried to preserve the main action, but in the episodes and details he showed himself as a free artist.
Finnish fairy tales reflect the connections of the Finns with both the East and the West - with Karelia and Russia, Sweden and mainland Europe. The plots of many fairy tales are related to navigation, because Finland had centuries-old sea routes to other European countries. On the other hand, do they depict folk crafts familiar from Karelian fairy tales: hunting, fishing, shifting agriculture? And so on. Connections with the city are felt more strongly in Finnish fairy tales than in Karelian ones; princes and princesses are borrowed from Western European fairy tales.

The tales in this collection are selected from four Finnish collections. Two of them are familiar to everyone in Finland: these are “Fairy Tales and Legends of the Finnish People” compiled by Ero Salmelainen and “The Big Book of Fairy Tales of the Finnish People” by Raoul Roine. In addition, tales are taken from the book "Finnish Folk Tales", which contains many of Salmelainen's texts, but retold in modern Finnish. Short fairy tales-novels - from the scientific collection of Pirkko-Liisa Rausmaa “Legends and Novels”.

These days, it is very rare for fairy tales to be told in natural settings, as they have been for centuries. But somewhere in a forest hut, fishermen and boatmen can spend the night. or hunters. There is no electric light, no radio, no television. And one can imagine how, on a dark evening, by the fire of a comfortably glowing hearth, which softly illuminates the faces of those sitting in the hut, someone, remembering previous years, will begin to tell a fairy tale, heard more than once in childhood on winter evenings. And the listeners will then be seized by an amazing feeling - as if they were transported back in time, returned to their childhood, when the fairy tale seemed true. Happy is the one who today has had the opportunity to touch this primordial world of a fairy tale and the environment in which its soul still lives.

Unelma Konkka. To the reader 5
Truth and lies 10
Royal Soldier 23
The Tale of the Golden Bird and Living Water 39
Pekka the Brave 56
Three dogs 60
Imanti 68
Magic box 80
Brother and sister 89
Potter's son 109
Twelve King's Sons 113
Stepsisters 124
Cat castle 139
The Sergeant and the King's Daughter 147
The merchant's son checks the networks 163
Keg Guy 167
Antti Suchok 172
Brawler looking for an opponent 188
Dispute over foal 192
Where is the wealth buried 195
Peasant's prediction 198
Peasant and King 200
The Old Man and the Scammers 203
Four stupid women 211
Flight of the Lion 213
Wolf, fox and lion 216
Judge Bear 218
The Fox and the Hare 219
Tricks of the red fox 220

The Adventures of the Fox, the Wolf and the Bear
Fox and wolf cultivate grain field 226
Wolf and fox go hunting 230
The fox finds himself a servant?234
The bear and the wolf throw a feast in honor of the cat 235
A goat and a ram threaten to eat a wolf 238
The wolf and the fox harvest and take the bear's share 241
The bear, wolf and fox each cook their own porridge 243
The fox deceives the bear and remains innocent 244
A bear and a peasant cultivate a field together 245
The bear and the peasant start a lawsuit 248
The mouse frees the bear from trap 252

Tales of an old bookworm

Topelius, Sakarias. Royal ring. Stories of a paramedic: a novel / trans. with Swedish L. Braude, N. Belyakova; ill. K.U. Larsson. – St. Petersburg: publishing house “Russian-Baltic IC BLITs”, 1999. – 240 p., ill.
Topelius, Sakarias. Fairy tales/ retelling by A. Lyubarskaya, S. Khmelnitsky; ill. T. Yufa. – Petrozavodsk: Karelia, 1988. – 144 pp., color. ill.
Topelius, Sakarias. Ska Languages ​​of the Mountain King/ lane with Swedish L. Braude, M. Yasnova; ill. S. Lark. – St. Petersburg: Amphora, 2003. – 204 p., ill.
Topelius, Sakarias. Tales of the Sea King/ lane with Swedish L. Braude, M. Yasnova; ill. S. Lark. – St. Petersburg: Amphora, 2004. – 202 p., ill.

My friends!
Our conversation today is dedicated to the remarkable Finnish writer of the 19th century, a younger contemporary of the great Dane Hans Christian Andersen, Sakarias Topelius (1818 - 1898). And this is even symbolic, because this winter here is almost as cold as in those very northern regions that the famous storyteller talks about. Like Andersen, he is known in the world primarily for fairy tales, but his creative activity is far from being exhausted by them, for Topelius was an excellent poet, historical novelist, journalist and scientist - historian and philologist-folklorist. We, who do not know the Swedish language, can only guess what kind of poet Topelius was, and two or three decades ago we could only guess about what kind of storyteller he was, but I’ll tell you about that a little later.

Topelius wrote both prose and poetry in Swedish, which is not uncommon among Finnish authors, especially those who worked in the 19th century, when literary Finnish was just beginning. To make it clear to you why this is so, it is enough to say that the first secondary school in Finland with instruction in Finnish was opened only in 1858, and, by the way, I will tell you this fact: having conquered Finland at the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian Emperor Alexander I planned to introduce Russian as the state language there, which would gradually supplant both Swedish and Finnish. However, the Russian Tsar is just a man - he makes assumptions, but does not have time for his assumptions, as Bulgakov said, for at least any long period of time. As is known, Alexander died at the end of 1825, less than eight years after the future classic of Finnish literature, writing in Swedish, Sakarias Topelius, was born in Nykarleby. After the death of Alexander, a Decembrist uprising took place in St. Petersburg, brutally suppressed by the younger brother of the late sovereign, Nicholas I, and the government had no time for Finnish problems. And at the end of the reign of Nicholas, after the defeat of Russia in the Crimean War and the accession to the throne of Alexander II, who had no time for the linguistic problems of the northern province, the experiment with the introduction of Russian as the state language in Finland was completely closed. Well, as I already mentioned, by the middle of the century the era of the Finnish language begins, gradually replacing Swedish.
Let's return to Topelius. His biography is quite typical for an armchair person - a scientist and writer. By the way, it is briefly and succinctly told by the translator Lyudmila Yulievna Braude in the preface to both “Tales of the Mountain King” and “The Royal Ring”. I hope that after our conversation you will read these books, so here I will say only a few words about the life of Topelius.
The writer's father, also Sakarias Topelius, was a doctor and collector of Finnish runes - ancient written and oral texts and songs. Topelius Sr. came from peasants, treated them, distributed vaccinations, but his main service to Finnish culture is that, having collected many records, he processed them and published, being already an elderly and seriously ill man, a five-volume collection “Ancient Runes of the Finnish People and the newest songs." It is this book, as reported by L.Yu. Braude, “paved the way for the great folk epic Kalevala,” published in 1849. “Kalevala” is a huge and very interesting poem - you can easily find it in any library; it has been published many times in Russian translation. I really hope that Topelius's tales will encourage you to get to know her. By the way, Henry Longfellow’s famous poem “The Song of Hiawatha,” which poetically retells the legends of the American Indians, was written under the influence of “Kalevala” and brilliantly translated into Russian by Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, precisely in the meter of the Finnish epic.
Topelius Jr. grew up in an atmosphere of humanistic culture, as a child he listened to runes and fairy tales, and having learned to read, he discovered the beauty of not only Finnish runes and fairy tales and Swedish poetry, but fell in love with the romance of Walter Scott, the fairy tales and fables of La Fontaine, and most of all - in Homer's epic poems. Following the example of his father, he went to study to become a doctor, but ultimately received a liberal arts education. After graduating from the University of Helsingforg (now Helsinki), in 1841 Topelius headed the newspaper Helsingforg News, which he edited for almost two decades. He taught history at the gymnasium, in later years he was a professor of history at the main university of Finland and its rector. Awarded by the Swedish Academy a gold medal for literary merit. Topelius, among other things, is in a sense the creator of the national flag of Finland. He proposed a design for a flag that would feature three slanting blue stripes on a white background and a white star in the center. White color represented snow, and blue color represented lakes. The current flag of Finland retains the color symbolism proposed by Topelius.
Topelius began writing poetry as a child, but, unlike many of his brothers, he moved on to mainly in prose, did not part with poetry. Unfortunately, little of his poetry has been translated here, mainly only those poems that were included in his fairy tales. To get at least some idea about them, it is best to compare the same poetic inserts to fairy tales, made in Soviet times by S. Khmelnitsky, and in ours by Mikh. Yasnov.
Generally speaking, when reading Topelius’s tales, it is advisable to compare the translations of L.Yu. Braude with old retellings by A.I. Lyubarskaya. These are different stories. The point is not only that a retelling is not a translation, but, so to speak, a free essay on a given topic. It's also a matter of ideology. In Soviet times, one of the main tasks of the communist government was a merciless and, of course, senseless (Pushkin, who called the Russian rebellion “senseless and merciless” was absolutely right!) fight against religion. She, this power, wanted people to believe in her, having lost faith in God. Someone believed it, but it did not bring anything good to the believer.
So, Topelius was a deeply religious writer. Each of his tales is a hymn to the Christian faith. You can see this for yourself by reading the translations made by L.Yu. Braude. In almost every fairy tale, it is faith that helps the hero win. In Soviet times, such transfers were unacceptable and impossible. The then translator of Topelius, Alexandra Iosifovna Lyubarskaya, is well known to all of you for her three-fold abbreviated, but very vivid retelling “ Have a wonderful trip Nils with wild geese"Selma Lagerlöf, was forced to retell not what was written by the author, but what the publishers demanded, eliminating all religious passages from the text, and often adding connections and endings of her own in order to give a logical justification for the plot, which the author directly related to religion.
Have Topelius's tales been lost due to such vivisection? Yes and no. No - because Lyubarskaya’s retellings were real literature and because it never occurred to children raised in an atheistic society that a book could deceive them. Yes - because, reading A. Lyubarskaya’s text, we received a false idea about the writer she was translating.
Now justice has been restored; at the beginning of this century, the St. Petersburg publishing house “Amphora” published complete, accurate, professional and talented translations of Topelius’s tales, made by the oldest, and now deceased, translator and philologist Lyudmila Yulievna Braude, whom we have already mentioned more than once in previous conversations. The fairy tales - not all, of course, written by Topelius - have been collected by the publishing house into two collections: “ Tales of the Mountain King" And " Tales of the Sea King" The names accurately reflect the theme of the fairy tales and at the same time the two elements surrounding the Scandinavian - northern, harsh and at the same time spiritually warm, somehow homely - way of life. The tales that make up the collections are quite diverse, partly they are literary processed folklore, and partly they are original texts. But the latter also firmly rely on Scandinavian legends and tales. I could not choose one collection over another, since each of them is good in its own way. Maybe it’s not worth mentioning some individual fairy tales that I particularly liked, such as, for example, the completely romantic story “The Old Brownie of Abo Castle” from the collection “Tales of the Mountain King” or the poetic cycle about Unda Marina from the collection “Tales of the Sea King.” They are all good, the only advice is to read slowly, understanding the text and taking breaks between reading fairy tales. Such reading will allow you to perceive each fairy tale in all its artistic richness and remember it forever.
As I already said, Sakarias Topelius began to compose fairy tales, inspired by the example of Andersen. That is, in some indirect, but most important sense, he was his student. That is why, of course, Topelius’s tales are in many ways similar to Andersen's - they are small in volume, very poetic, but, perhaps, not so varied and airy. While not generally reaching the level of the teacher, the student, however, achieved the main thing in literature - his fairy tales leave no one indifferent and decorate any fairy-tale collection. It is enough to name such short stories as “Sampo the Lover,” “Knut the Musician,” or “The Old Brownie of Abo Castle,” which long ago became classics of world children’s literature.
What distinguishes Topelius's tales from Andersen's tales is their greater realism. It’s not that there is much less magic in them, but rather that it coexists equally with reality. It is precisely in this regard that Topelius’s influence on later storytellers probably affected. But for some readers, it is the realism of the fairy tales of the Finnish classic that is their special advantage.
It is known that Andersen not only composed fairy tales, he also wrote novels. The same can be said about his Finnish student. Topelius penned historical-mystical and historical-folklore novels, or rather, perhaps, stories - they are not large in volume. In the Russian translation (by the same Lyudmila Braude), it seems that only one small book was published, representing the first trilogy from the series “Stories of a Paramedic” (the total volume of the cycle is 18 novels). It was released under the title " Royal ring"in 1999 and... did not become a noticeable phenomenon in the reading community.
It would be possible to reflect on the reasons, but, to save time, we will limit ourselves to just stating the fact and a short description of the work itself.
“The King’s Ring,” like the entire series “The Paramedic’s Tales,” was once popular in Scandinavia; it was highly valued, for example, by Selma Lagerlöf. The point, I think, is that in those days there was almost no decent historical fiction in Scandinavian literature, and historians did not have time to spoil the reader with any high-quality popular science works. And in the literature devoted to Finnish history, Topelius was, without a doubt, a pioneer. Judging by the “Royal Ring,” he used the achievements not only of his beloved Walter Scott’s childhood, but also a decade earlier, before Topelius began writing historical novels, when the new king, Alexander Dumas, ascended the literary throne. True, the stories of the Finnish romantic are more similar to Dumas' short stories than to his novels, and this is not only a matter of volume. Dumas was not just a master of a large genre, he had, so to speak, a broad, epic breath, and Topelius was, above all, a storyteller. Which is perhaps natural for a poet. It is at a short distance that a born short story writer is able to express himself with the utmost completeness.
What is “The Royal Ring” about? About European history, more precisely, about the history of European wars, in particular, the bloody Thirty Years War, about the Club War - the peasant uprising of the 16th century, about battles, about knights, but also about peasants, on whom, first of all, always and at all times, the war falls with all its unbearable weight.
In short, it was from Topelius’s novels that the Finns and Swedes of his time, for the most part, learned their national history. Probably, anticipating this, the author chose a special literary form for his works: like oral stories of an old, experienced paramedic in the evenings, surrounded by a few devoted friends. The paramedic tells them about what he himself experienced, as well as about what he heard from faithful people in his many years of wandering around Europe. It is clear that such stories for the evening cannot be too long; they should last about two to three hours and, accordingly, take 15-20 pages of text each. Then they will be easy to read and just as easy to remember, and besides, if the public likes them, they will demand continuations. Of course, Topelius wrote them for his newspaper, in the “feuilleton novel” genre, fashionable with the light hand of Dumas, Eugene Sue and other French fiction writers. Because the feuilleton was that such novels were published daily in the newspaper “basement” and, like today’s television series, kept the reader in suspense for many months, thereby bringing both the publisher and the author considerable profit, because when an exciting novel like “The Three Musketeers” was published in the newspaper, the circulation publications increased significantly.
The action of "The Royal Ring" takes place during the time of the famous Swedish warrior king Gustav II Adolf, that is, during the era of the Thirty Years' War (1618 - 1648). The main character - a knight without fear and reproach Bertel - is in fact not Bertel, but the peasant son of Bertil. He, a Protestant by religion, falls deathly in love with an Austrian aristocrat, an ardent Catholic, incited by the Jesuits to kill the main enemy of Catholicism of that time - King Gustav. But the fearless Gustav Adolf is, as it were, charmed from bullets and cannonballs. According to legend, because he wears a magic ring on his hand...
That’s where I stop, those who are quick-witted can guess what’s next, and those of you who love works in the spirit of Dumas and Sienkiewicz are already looking at their watches: will the bell ring soon and it will be possible to run to the library?..
I'm letting you go, my friends, run. Interesting reading and good health to you.
See you again!

“About the Finnish Andersen – storyteller and historical novelist Sakarias Topelius”
Year of publication: 2004

So, the Russian representative office of the Peuru company was involved in the development of the EIA (environmental impact assessment) of the Zeus project for the construction of a pulp and paper mill on the Rybinsk Reservoir.

In our opinion, they are once again trying to reassure us with statements about foreign standards: “This is a Finnish company of international level, which has an excellent reputation in the global forest industry and conducts serious environmental research and safety assessments of cleaning systems of large industrial enterprises,” says a representative of Sveza.

However, as we wrote earlier, even the Europeans themselves have an ambiguous attitude towards this company. Below is a summary of the translation of an article by a well-known activist who studies the issue of deforestation and deforestation and their impact on climate change, which talks about the Peuru company.

“Peuru: the economic killer of the pulp industry.

Peuru is the world's largest logging consultancy. Founded in Finland in 1958. Since then, it has worked on projects in more than 100 countries and has offices in 45 countries with a staff of 7,300 specialists. Peuru describes itself as a “growth-oriented company.” Over the past 10 years, Peuru has tripled its sales. In 1998, net sales amounted to 259.7 million euros. By 2007, net revenue was 718 million euros.

Peuru worked on more than 400 pulp and paper mills. One of Peuru's most important roles in the pulp and paper mill organization is the provision of information, in particular through forecasts of paper consumption in the world. These forecasts are for the most part invariably optimistic. In 2002, the company released a report entitled "European Paper Markets to 2015". Peuru expected that between 2005 and 2015. demand for paper and board will increase by 120 million tons from 35 million tons growth in China. In January 2006, Peuru published her report "World Paper Markets to 2020", which predicted even greater growth: 2.1% annual growth in global paper demand to a total of 490 million tons per year by 2020.

Of course, Peuru is interested in the forecast for increased paper consumption.

The new pulp and paper mills must meet predicted demand, and Peuru is keen to win contracts to research, develop and build these plants.

In addition, Peuru's forecasts are not always accurate. For example, in 1994, Peuru predicted that per capita paper use in the United States would grow 1.6% per year through 2005. In fact, paper consumption in the US peaked in the late 1990s and fell 12.75% between 1999-2005.

The company's director's public statements provide a glimpse into Peuru's role in promoting the pulp and paper industry. For example, at one conference he said: "Re-establishing the image of pulp and paper as environmentally acceptable products is a necessity." This statement said nothing about the structure of the pulp and paper industry or about attempts to address the problem of massive deforestation. His solution is to use technology “to improve the environmental footprint.” He would be happy to continue providing technology consulting services, for a fee, of course.

The Phoenix Pulp and Paper Company's plant, mislabeled as a "green project," in northeast Thailand is one example of the kind of technology Peuru is promoting.

The Green Project was developed to address the pollution problem of the Phoenix Pulp and Paper Mill, which was polluting the Phong River. Instead of dumping the wastewater into the river, Peuru came up with a project to use the water to irrigate eucalyptus plantations. As part of this project, the yellow-brown foaming water from the Central Committee was piped into the irrigation canals of nearby eucalyptus plantations.

They then spread into nearby farmers' fields, destroying their rice crops. During heavy rain, water flows into the Phong River. Effluent penetrates into groundwater. The local population complains that the water has become salty and is undrinkable. When I visited the plant in 1998, people in the villages complained that the rice crop in the fields near the project had failed.

The main area of ​​interest of the company is the promotion of large pulp and paper mills and industrial tree plantations.

The company's lobby behind the scenes and in public demonstrates the conflict of interest that the company enters into every time it is hired to undertake a project. “Consulting companies enter into a conflict of interest, since they themselves can make a profit depending on the result,” shared a Nordic consultant on condition of anonymity.

“For example, if they see that a particular project is feasible, they are often in a better position to engage in subsequent research, design and construction supervision at later stages of the project (which often generate much greater returns than the initial feasibility studies of the project)… This conflict could have been avoided if the evaluation had been performed by an independent party who knew that they would not then be hired to do any further work related to the project, regardless of the outcome of the evaluation.”

Peuru's role in Indonesia illustrates this conflict of interest. In the 1980s, Peuru "experts" began working in Indonesia, they could explain that the massive expansion of the pulp and paper industry in Indonesia would bring with it billions of dollars in losses, land conflicts, forest destruction and river pollution. They could say that it might be better not to start this expansion. But if they did, Peuru would not have won contracts for several pulp and paper mill projects.

The operation of the Aracruz mill in Brazil is the other and most controversial pulp and paper mill project in the world.

The company's vast eucalyptus plantations took over the lands of indigenous peoples, destroyed areas of the Atlantic rainforest, and led to the drying up of water sources in a large area of ​​the province of Espírito Santo. Peuru played a key role in helping the company establish and develop its production.

Peuru explains his “business concept as being involved in the development of the client’s business at an early stage.” Indeed, Peuru's business concept is based on maximum involvement. Working as a consultant to governments, Peuru sets the policy framework for projects on which she can then sell her services. In the pulp and paper sector, Peuru convinces governments that producing pulp for export equals “development,” that planting monocultures of exotic tree species means “reforestation,” that a few dangerous jobs will solve unemployment, and that planting land is in poor condition—usually as a result of farmers living on them.

In the late 1980s, Peuru participated with the USSR in discussing the economic feasibility assessment of the economic potential of 200 million hectares of forest in the northeastern regions of Komi, Arkhangelsk, Vologda regions, Karelia, Leningrad and Novgorod regions. In 1-2 years, Peuru intended to prepare a diagram of the infrastructure needs and potential for establishing forest-based industries, including pulp and paper mills.

“The council approached us 1.5 years ago about this issue, and we spoke with the USSR Minister of Forestry,” Jukka Nirola, then Peuru’s managing director, told the Financial Times in 1989. “Once the study is completed, we hope to participate in subsequent project-specific studies.”

The project started in 1992 and included an assessment of the entire forestry sector in Russia. Peuru recommended doubling the share of Russian deforestation (increasing annual deforestation from 100 million cubic meters to 200 million cubic meters, which Peuru considered was far below the “optimal” level).

Peuru's role in the Baikal pulp and paper mill problem also illustrates the company's work.

Between 1998 and 2000. Peuru worked on the assessment of the existing Baikal and Selenga pulp and paper mills. Since it began operating in 1966 on the shores of Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia, the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill has been a disaster, leading to severe pollution of Lake Baikal. The Greenpeace campaign aimed to close the pulp and paper mill. Before the construction of the pulp and paper mill, scientists from the Irkutsk State Scientific Biological University opposed plans to build a plant on the shore of Lake Baikal. Peuru, of course, did NOT recommend closing the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill. Instead, they recommended expanding and "modernizing" the plant, converting it first to elemental chlorine-free production and then to completely chlorine-free production. Peuru was critical of logging, but still recommended expanding production. In 1998, wood for the pulp and paper mill was imported from a distance of 1,400 kilometers.

In 2003, Peuru's Know-How magazine concluded that Peuru was interested in Russia.

“Russia has almost half of the world’s softwood reserves,” writes Rainer Häggblom, chairman and CEO of Jaakko Pöyry Consulting. He believes that Russia's forests could be cut down at a rate of 500 million cubic meters per year, which is three times the current rate. “I am confident that our investment as a leading consultant in the Russian forestry sector will pay off in the future.”

Peuru also provides a wide range of services related to carbon credits. Peuru prepares design documents and sales strategies for companies that want to purchase carbon credits, allowing them to continue to pollute the environment.”

http://chrislang.org/2009/02/06/plantations-poverty-and-power/
https://vk.com/stop_cbk?w=wall-66333600_25600%2Fall