Seminaarin kahdeksan Augustaa : Isa Aspin tilapäisrunous ja nimipäivien vieton yleistyminen Suomessa

Abstract

Suomessa luterilainen nimipäivien viettämisen tapa, joka oli omaksuttu säätyläispiireihin Ruotsista, alkoi levitä kaikkialle maahan 1800-luvun viimeisinä vuosikymmeninä. Nimipäiviin liittyi monenlaisia juhlaperinteitä, joita noudatettiin esimerkiksi Jyväskylän seminaarin kaltaisessa oppilaitoksessa, mistä ne kulkeutuivat edelleen opiskelijoiden mukana eri puolille Suomea. Nuori seminaarilainen lsa Asp oli jo ennen opintojensa alkamista kirjoittanut paljon nimipäivä- ja muita merkkipäivärunoja. Onnittelurunous oli tärkeä osa hänen arjen kirjallista vuorovaikutustaan lähipiirinsä kanssa ja samalla keino tuoda julkisuuteen runojaan nuorena naisrunoilijana, jonka tekstejä ei ollut vielä juurikaan julkaistu.

The way in which name-days were celebrated in Lutheran circles in Finland, which was adopted from Sweden at the end of the eighteenth century by the upper classes, began to spread throughout the country in the nineteenth century. The Jyväskylä folk-school teacher-training college was the source for many of the customs of annual celebrations, such as, from the 1860s on, the Christmas-tree celebrations, which later spread to the schools where those who had attended the college served as teachers. The common name-day celebrations of the college students acted as a model for the celebration of name-days. The young poet lsa Asp had already composed many name-day poems before starting at the college in the autumn of 1871. Asp wrote a good deal of occasional and festive poetry like name-day poems in the course of her career as a poet. This was very typical of a female poet of the time: writing poems as part of everyday life, to order and at various home and family celebrations. The name-day poetry was a persona! greeting to someone close, but at the same time writing name-day poems offered the poet an arena to publicly display her compositions, since they were usually read or sung aloud during the celebrations. As Asp, as a young female poet, had not yet published her compositions, writing occasional poems was an excellent way not only to show off herself and her art, but also to find an audience. Asp's congratulatory poetry developed into a form of celebratory poetry that was more public than the earlier Iines aimed at the close circle of her childhood and youth. It also skilfully communicated contemporary ideals of Finnish nationalism and cultural aspirations in a literary form to a wider audience.