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Maiju Lassila (1868-1918) - pseudonym for Algot or Algoth Tietäväinen Untola until 1901, later Algot Untola - wrote also as Irmari Rantamala, Väinö Stenberg, and J.I. Vatanen, essays under the pen name Liisan-Antti, Jussi Porilainen | |
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Author, journalist, and revolutionary, one of the most enigmatic figures in Finnish literature, who he hid himself under pseudonyms. Algoth Untola wrote under the pseudonym Maiju (Mary or Molly) Lassila in 1910 his best-known novel, Tulitikkuja lainaamassa, which has been filmed twice. Untola's way from a farm-hand to a celebrated writer in the 1910s was adventurous. Periods of his life, Untola lived in the backwoods of Finland as a teacher, he then went to St. Petersburg as a businessman, and eventually became a Socialist agitator, dying during the Civil War in 1918. '"Niinhän se meni senkin Malisen naiminen ihan itsestään ennen kuin puhemies oli ennättänyt luontoansakaan karaista. Se Malinen oli vain istunut sen Tiinan viereen ja pannut kätensä Tiinan kaulaan tällä tavalla kuin minä tässä tämän Kaisan kaulaan, ja puhemies oli siihen ennättänyt vai sanoa: 'Ka johan se on valmis koko naimishökötys'..."' (in Tulitikkuja lainaamassa, 1910) Maiju Lassila was born Algoth (Algot) Tietäväinen in Tohmajärvi, North Carelia. His father, Jaakko Wilmelm Tietäväinen, was a farmer. Maria Simontytär Hakulinen, Lassila's mother, came from an influential and socially active farmer family. Algot's father died in 1881; his mother married next year a farm-hand, whose drinking brought poverty and misery to the family. However, at school Algot had showed exceptional talents. With the support of his relatives, Algot entered in 1887 a teacher's school in Sortavala, graduating in 1891. He then worked in Raahe and Kälviä, and from 1893 to 1900 he was employed as a teacher in Vyborg. There he started to use the name Untola, and made business trips to Russia. Little is known what Untola made between the years 1900 and 1904. He moved to St. Petersburg, where he run trade in timber. Possibly he participated in the activities of revolutionaries and made speeches under the pseudonym A. Aleksev. In 1903 he married Therese Marie Johanna Küstring, a Russian woman, but separated soon, officially in 1913. According to some sources, Therese Marie was a hermaphrodite, and another source claims that Untola left his wife immediately after the weddings. It has been assumed, that Untola studied at the University of Moscow, but between the years 1904 and 1906 he was back in Finland, teaching in Lohja (1904-05) and Kaustinen (1905-07). In Lohja Untola had an affair with a widow, who had two children. When their relationship was revealed, Untola was dismissed from his post. In 1906 Untola went into politics and began to write columns under the pseudonym 'Liisan Antti' for the newspaper Kokkola. His writings attracted much attention. After leaving his career as a teacher, he was a district secretary and travelled as a speaker in election campaigns in Ostrobothnia. From 1907 to 1909 he edited the newspaper Satakunta and ended his relationship with Olga Jasinski, a widow, who according to some speculations poured sulfuric acid on the author's genitals. Untola's first novels, Harhama and Martva (1909), were decadent, symbolistic works, which denounced the contemporary society. Olga appeared in Harhama as Helga Riuttula. This book had 1801 pages and Martva the respectable 1056 - for a debutant writer a gigantic enterprise. Both were published as works of "Irmari Rantamala". One of the leading journalists and authors of the time, Eino Leino, said in his review that the only think that was monumental in the book was its size. Untola's Tulitikkuja lainaamassa was a version of the proverb "much ado about nothing." It is a story of two farmers, Vatanen and Ihalainen. Vatanen notices that matches have run out at home and goes over to borrow matches from his neighbor. The friends are drawn into a comic adventure after taking too much liquor. Vatanen returns to home with one burned match. For the book, Untola created a new pseudonym, "Maiju Lassila"; the first name is female. Unlike Harhama and Martva, this relatively conventional novel was read and appreciated by such well-known writers as V.A. Koskenniemi, Volter Kilpi, and Kyösti Vilkuna. In the early 1910s, when Untola lived in Kouvola, he wrote several plays, including Kun lesket lempivät (1911), Kun ruusut kukkivat (1912), Luonnon lapsia (1912), and Nuori mylläri (1912), a sentimental comedy, which gained success in Tampere: 20 performances. In 1912 he published nine books under the pseudonyms J.I. Vatanen, Maiju Lassila, and Irmari Rantamala. During his highly productive period Untola also wrote the novel Portto: syntinen nainen, which dealt with prostitution, but this book was not published until 2002. Mimmi Paavaliina (1916) portrayed a woman, who has six illegitimate children, whom she names after a police chief, the substitute minister, a sexton, and so forth. There are many legends about Untola's productivity as a writer - according to some sources the short story 'Manasse Jäppinen' (1912) was written in a few days. When writing as Maiju Lassila, he took the role of a folk humorist, littering his work with dialectical words he had heard or had invented himself. Like the peasants in the paintings of Bruegel, his characters are led by their whims, dresires, and fantasies. Basically, the laughter was not aimed at the common people, but at human follies and foibles, and the literary taste of the day. The novel Liika viisas (too wise) was produced in the spirit of Cervantes and Rabelais. Sakari Kolistaja, the protagonist, believes that worldly wisdom is evil, and he begins to preach against wisdom. At the end Sakari, the "too wise" of the title who has become the director of an insane asylum, leads a group of patients off in a wild procession of fools. Sakari's sermons are parodies but Untola's attitude toward religion was ambivalent - his unpublished manuscripts reveal that he was concerned with faith and spiritual things. "Sillä ei tarvitse suomenkansa viiautta eikä turkkia se joka löylyssä kylpee. Ei, vaan usko ja sana, pelkkä sana on meidän voimamme aina ollut. Leivällä ja sanalla, eikä viisaudella on suomenkansa ennenkin elänyt... Aamen! Herran nimeen ja selkiän sanan voimalla aamen." (in Liika viisas, 1915) From 1917 to 1918 Untola worked for the leftist newspaper Työmies, and became its last journalist. From that time one contemporary remembered his Chaplinsque appearance, resigned look, unkempt trouser legs and shoes. During the Civil War (1917-18), when Helsinki was captured by the German troops, Untola wrote his last column. In his vision he saw in the morning a proletarian woman, a rifle on her shoulder, as the greatest gift the Finnish working class has given and will ever give for its cause. This belief was not shared by the White Army, who considered the female Red guards the worst kind of enemy. Untola's last days are still open to much speculation. He was arrested with a bag which contained some clothes, photographs, books, and some four or five thousand pages of writing. As the most prominent agitator after the victory of the White Guards, he was probably condemned to death. Untola was shot dead on May 5, 1918 on his transport by a boat to the execution place in Sveaborg, a sea-fortress located off the shore of Helsinki. For further reading: A History of Finnish Literature by Jaakko Ahokas (1973); Maiju Lassila. Legenda jo eläessään by Leo Lindsten (1977); Maiju Lassila by Elsa Erho (1957); 'Maiju Lassilan Kuolleista herännyt' by Veijo Meri, in Kaksitoista artikkelia (1967); 'Ihmeellinen Maiju Lassila' by Veijo Meri, in Goethen tammi (1978); Hiidenkiven arvoitus by Juhani Niemi (1985); A History of Finland's Literature, ed. George C. Schoolfield (1998) - Other writers killed in Civil Wars: Ambrose Bierce (during the Mexican Civil War in 1914); Federico García Lorca (during the Spanish Civil War in 1936) Selected works:
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