Eino Leino ja Italia : tutkimus kulttuurivaikutuksesta ja -vaikutteista

Abstract

Towards the end of the 19th century Finnish writers discovered Italian literature and also ltaly, the country. Several of them have had a marked effect on Finnish-Italian cultural relations, but of them, Eino Leino's contribution is the most significant in this regard, since he made a translation of the whole of Dante's "Divine Comedy" (1912-1914), thereby earning himself a permanent -position in Italo-Finnish literary relations. Leino was in Italy in the winter of 1908-1909. This trip had a profound effect in the writing of Leino's novel "Onnen orja" ("Slave of Happiness") (1913), this being the first Finnish novel with Italy as the milieu. In "Onnen orja", as in ali the novels of the slavetetralogy, there is structurally a distinct analogy to Titian's famous painting "Sacred and Profane Love" which Leino first saw in Rome. Rome was also to have a significant role in the writing of Leino's historical play "Tarquinius Superbus", written while the poet was on his Italian travels. Leino introduced Italian literature and culture to the Finns through numerous articles, the most significant being a series of articles on Dante, which analyse the "Divine Comedy" in a manner that shows his deep understanding of Dante's world of ideas. Leino is not particularly well known in ltaly, only a few of his poems having been translated into Italian. On the other hand, Leino is the only Finnish writer with a public monument to him in Italy. In 1971 a memorial plaque was unveiled by President Kekkonen on the wall of the house in Rome where Leino lived during the winter of 1908-9. Eino Leino was an intensely patriotistic poet, but at the same time, he was a cosmopolitan poet, well acquainted with the epitomes of European cultural and literary works which fertilised his creative work. As well as being a Finnish poet, Leino was also a poet of European stature. Italy has a central role in Leino's Continental culture.