The love story of a goblin and a fairy gave way to birds

Yrjö Kokko’s most famous work is Pessi ja Illusia (Pessi and Illusia, 1944). Many Finns will have read or listened to their parents read them the children’s version, published by the author in 1963. This love story of a goblin and a fairy was one of Aholainen’s favourite books as a child. She directed a play based on it at her art-oriented general upper secondary school and wrote a proseminar paper and a bachelor’s thesis on it at university. At different stages of her life, Aholainen has focused on different aspects of the book. As a researcher and student, she was inspired specifically by its philosophy of art.

Pessi ja Illusia was a long-time candidate for her doctoral thesis too, but in the end Aholainen decided to limit her thesis to works in which birds play the main role. She published a separate research article on Pessi ja Illusia.

Aholainen had not read any of Kokko’s other works before starting her thesis. She wrote her thesis on his books about swans, Laulujoutsen and Ne tulevat takaisin, which are also the subject of the doctoral dissertation she is working on. The researcher says she still enjoys Kokko’s books, even after reading them several times. However, she adds that their quality is uneven.

“There are a lot of things in them that I like and a lot that I don’t like. That is probably one of the reasons why I decided to study them. I feel I can keep an open mind because I’m not tempted to defend my favourite books and I’m also not interested in just showing what is problematic about them.”

For example, Aholainen likes the lyrical scene of Laulujoutsen, which tells the story of how the protagonist Tiiti blends into the wilderness. She also likes the idea of combining folklore and biology. The gender roles in the books, on the other hand, seem outdated. The swan couple, Marski and Hanna, are described in a very humanised way in Laulujoutsen and also in a very gendered way. For example, when Marski returns to the nest after a long absence, Hanna starts to swim around, ignoring Marski. This is presented in the book as a protest by a wife who feels offended.

In Finnish literary historiography, not much time is usually spent on Kokko. Pessi ja Illusia and his nature conservation work have featured most prominently. Kokko does not fit into the history of genres and schools of thinking. He does not write like the modernists, nor can he be placed within the post-war rise of modernism. His conservationist ethos is different from those belonging to the 1960s and 70s environmental awakening. Kokko published works until the 1960s, but his main influences came from the early 20th century, such as the early nature thinking of National Romanticism.

According to Aholainen, this is one of the reasons why academic research has not been very interested in Kokko, despite the fact that his works are still more widely read than those of many other writers of the same era. Laulujoutsen and Pessi ja Illusia are currently available as eBooks and audiobooks.

A major influence on Kokko was the American book Two Little Savages (1903), Aholainen says. Written by Ernest Thompson Seton, the book was published in Finnishin 1917, translated by I. K. Inha. In it, two preadolescent boys explore nature and living in the wild under the guidance of an old hunter. Kokko’s works were influenced at least by Seton’s descriptions of the wilderness and of a return to nature, away from the city and modernisation.

“In Lapland, Kokko found the wilderness he had read about in American wilderness and nature literature,” Aholainen explains, adding that this is something other people have pointed out too.

Theory and the research subject on the same line

When a wave motion encounters an obstacle, the waves are refracted or propagated. This is the case for radio waves, sound waves, light waves or even waves in water. For example, when waves in water collide with a rock, the shape of the wave changes. The parts of the wave break up and overlap with each other.

This phenomenon is referred to in physics as diffraction. The humanities have borrowed the term. The main theorist quoted in Aholainen’s work is Karen Barad, an American Professor of Feminist Studies and Philosophy who has written about reading diffractively.

“For Barad, diffraction as a metaphor to guide research is about trying to look at things that overlap and extend into one another.”

In her research, Aholainen reads different texts through one another – for example, Barad’s theoretical texts and Yrjö Kokko’s novels. She also reads texts and the world through each other – Kokko’s novels and the real-life birds described in his books.

This differs from traditional literary research. A more traditional dissertation might have been structured like this: The subject would be, for example, humans’ relationship with nature in Yrjö Kokko’s novels. By close-reading the novels, the researcher would examine what kind of a relationship with nature is revealed in the books, and the research result would be as accurate a description of this relationship as possible.

In such a case, the novels would be seen as a place where Kokko’s relationship with nature is preserved. It would not be diffraction, but reflection. Kokko’s novels would be thought to reflect a certain kind of relationship with nature. 

One of the problems with this kind of research, according to Aholainen, is the fact that the literature is easily seen as simply describing something else. This could be, for example, the author’s relationship with nature or their national romantic ideological heritage. The titles of such studies sometimes take the form of ‘this here’, such as ‘The Enlightenment Ideals in the Works of Aleksis Kivi’ or ‘Perceptions of Mental Health Problems in Dostoevsky’s Novels’. 

Aholainen says she by no means wants to belittle this tradition of literary research. However, she stresses that she herself does not study literature from the point of view of how it represents something else.

“My focus is on how the text happens or how it exists, not on attempting to find hidden meanings in the text.”

This is also reflected in the way Aholainen uses theory. Theory is often used to interpret the work being studied, so that the theory is above the text, a bit like a magnifying glass. Aholainen, on the other hand, wants to put the theories she uses and Kokko’s novels on the same level as much as possible, to read them together. The result is not just observations on the books, but broader reflections.

“I am trying to say something philosophical about the relationship between literature and the world by reading both the theory and Kokko’s books.”

To Aholainen’s knowledge, her Kokko dissertation applies Barad’s theory more widely than any other Finnish literary study. She has seen the main theorist of her thesis once, via Zoom, giving the keynote speech at a conference.

“It was nice to see that she is a real person, because I’m used to only reading her texts.”

Karen Barad started her career as a physicist and has combined quantum physics (in particular the ideas of Niels Bohr) and social science in her theories. In the same spirit, Aholainen is interested in combining biology and art research in the future.

Yrjö Kokko knew how to marvel at nature

Aholainen says she has found many things in Kokko’s works that resonate with posthumanism. Of course, schools of thought similar to posthumanism existed even before the term became widespread in the 2000s.

“Kokko says very directly in the books that humans are part of nature. In them, he criticises humans’ attempts to separate themselves from nature and present themselves as special.”

In addition to the human condition, another theme linked to Kokko’s posthumanism is a sense of wonder. Karen Barad wants academic research to take seriously the possibility of expressing a sense of wonder at the world and taking pleasure in it. This presents a clear connection to Kokko.

“Above all, Kokko’s production shows a strong delight in and wonder at nature. Reading about nature can provide emotional experiences of wonder at how diverse the world is. This is where Kokko could contribute to debates today.”

Wonder and delight could, in Aholainen’s view, provide motivation for tackling the environmental crisis. Ecology and improving the status of animals are the ethical principles guiding his own research. Protecting life forms from the threat of climate change could draw support from joy and wonder.

There are also passages in Kokko’s works that suggest that nature has ways of functioning and being that cannot be explained by scientific theories,” Aholainen says.

As Aholainen’s research progresses, these views are likely to become clearer. One topic that Aholainen has not yet explored is the influence of the Sami worldview on Kokko. She speculates that the Sami theme in the books has been coloured by the American literature Kokko read. There may be interesting tensions to be found when exploring this aspect.

Literary historian studying biology

The study of the swans she has encountered in literature has inspired Aholainen to take up new studies. She started studies in biology at the University of Turku at the same time as writing her doctoral dissertation. So far, the courses she has found the most inspiring have been those in ecology. They explore the relationship between organisms and the environment.

For example, studying how ecosystems and biosystems are formed so that things interact with each other and nothing works in a vacuum has made an impact on her. Everything is intertwined. It is not possible to understand things in isolation.

Karen Barad’s thinking also emphasises connections and relationships in general, not separation. This means not having the view that the world consists primarily of separate things and secondarily of their interrelations. Instead, interrelationships come first, and individual things can only be seen through them.

“Getting to know the biotic community and the ecosystem has reinforced the idea that it makes sense to think in terms of interrelations. And to see animals as part of wider communities.”

“It inspired me to think that even literature could not be what it is if it had not been formed in the system and society in which it was formed. And that, in my view, includes non-humans.”

Like the two whooper swans that Yrjö Kokko found in Lapland more than 70 years ago.

Katri Aholainen is a doctoral researcher in Finnish literature at the University of Turku. With funding from Kone Foundation, she is writing her doctoral dissertation on four novels by Yrjö Kokko.