Risto Repo

Journalist Risto Repo is a veteran of Finnish print and electronic media who has worked as special correspondent from Warsaw (1979–83), Moscow, (1988–1992), Stockholm (1997–2000, 2000–2005 as Press Counsellor at the Embassy of Finland), and Beirut (2005–2007). Most recently he has worked with Suomen Kuvalehti current affairs magazine and with national broadcasting company Yleisradio.

Repo is working on a biography of his father Eino S. Repo (1919–2002), who was an influential and controversial figure in Finnish cultural politics during his time as director of Yleisradio (1965–1969). Repo, a dominant figure at the organization, was part of the inner circle of an even more imposing figure in the country’s recent history, then-President of Finland Urho Kekkonen.

“The book is an attempt by an eldest son to come to terms with his father’s decisions “in love and war”. It is naturally a personal account, and takes a thematic approach to exploring Eino Repo’s most difficult personal and professional moral choices. Our family doctor during the war years gave perhaps the most accurate summation of the central character of the book in the following remark made to him: “I envy your ability to go with your feelings regardless of what your brain tells you”.