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Olli (1889-1967) - pseudonym for Väinö Nuorteva - surname until 1919 Nyberg |
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Finnish journalist, humorous columnist, who wrote 42 years for the conservative newspaper Uusi Suomi. Väinö Nuorteva is best known for his 10.000 sketches published under the pseudonym "Olli". Among his most popular fictional characters is the anarchistic Black-Bearded Man (Mustapartainen mies), who is always in conflict with bureaucracy and trivial cultural phenomenon. "Syntyi nuorena, tuli vanhemmalla iällään ns, jokapäiväiseksi pakinoitsijaksi. Etsiessä syitä jälkimmäiseen onnettomuuteen voinee havaita, että alun alkujaan ensimmäisen kipinän sytyttäjänä oli Mäntsälän vapaaehtoinen palokunta." (Olli in Aleksis Kivestä Olavi Siippaiseen, ed. by Martti Haavio, 1944) Väinö Nuorteva was born Väinö Albert Nyberg in Mäntsälä. His father, Karl Emil Nyberg, was a pharmacist. When Nuorteva was 14, his father died, and the family moved to Helsinki. In 1910 Nuorteva entered the University of Helsinki, where he studied folklore. He participated in student's club activities, gaining fame as a writer of short plays and an actor. After receivinng his M.A. in 1914, Nuorteva began then to prepare his doctoral thesis, dealing with "comical elements in folkpoetry".From 1914 to 1922 he contributed to several publications, incuding Ylioppilaslehti (Student magazine), Uusi Päivä, and Iltalehti. In accordance with the patriotic spirit of the time, he changed officially his name to Nuorteva in 1919. Nuorteva buried his plans to finish his thesis in the early 1920s. He edited only a collection of folk tales about legendary "simpletons" or "noodleheads", entitled Hölmöläiset (1924). In 1925 he married Ebba Erika Lindroos; they had two sons, both of whom made a distinguished career at the University of Helsinki. "Maailman menoa katsellessa näyttää siltä että asiain kehittäjät ovat teroittaneet järkensä tahkojuustolla." (from 'Hok- ja haksahduksia' in Pilkillä pilkkaillen, 1965) The pseudonym "Olli" made its first appeared in 1914 in Ylioppilaslehti, which published 33 of Nuorteva's informal essays. In 1922 he moved to the National Coalition Party's main organ, the newspaper Uusi Suomi, where he worked as a columnist until his retirement in 1964. During this period, he wrote over 10,000 causeries, many of which were later collected in book form. His first book, Mustapartainen mies herättää pahennusta, came out in 1921. It was a collection of his humorous short stories, starring The Black-Bearded Man, the ultimate horror of every bureaucrat. Usually Olli introduced him with the phrase, "Good, said The Black-Bearded Man, day." The stories were illustrated until 1938 by Toivo Vikstedt (1891-1930) and then by Erkki Koponen (1899-1996). Other popular characters were "my friend and roommate Kalle Niemeläinen," an inventor of many unpractical ideas, the senior accountant Jakari, and the poet Otso Kirjosiipi (Oswald Scribalwing), who is devoted to his art without any success. "Tämä keksintö on nykyajan siunauksellisin keksintö. Se tietää rauhan palaamista maan päälle. Ihmisten hermojen tyyntymistä. Tuhansien ihmishenkien pelastumista, turvaa raajarikkoisuutta ja onnettomuuksia vastaan. Kaasujen saastuttaman ilman puhdistumista. Tämä on 100 kertaa parempi keksintö kuin lentokone, joka kulkee ilman moottoria. Tämä keksintö on autonkuljettaja, joka kulkee ilman autoa! Tämä on kaikkiruokainen ja juo mitä tahansa paitsi vettä. Vaadin patentin!" (from 'Ilman' in Kuusi tusinaa, 1947) During the Soviet aggression against Finland in World War II,
Nuorteva's columns were patriotic. With humour as weapon, Nuorteva
contributed to the Finnish war effort with such collections as Pisteet lopussa (1941), Vot, iivana (1942), and Vastikekastike 45 jutukkeesta
(1943). He caricatured the Russian people and mocked the Soviet system.
During the reign of Nazism, he did not show interest in criticizing
Germany or the Nazi leaders. After the war Nuorteva found the target for his parodies from
everyday life, human weaknesses, the social pretensions of the middle
class, modern art, the uses of language in newspapers and ordinary
speech. Generally he avoided touching topical or political issues, but examined the world from the viewpoint of an anarchist conservative.
In spite of Nuorteva's right-wing political position, his books enjoyed
a wide popularity among all kinds of readers, from liberal to
conservative. In 1953 Nuorteva received The State Award, and in 1964 he became a professor h.c. Nuorteva's humorous shorts stories with their linguistic jokes have inspired a number of Finnish columnists. His works have been analyzed in academic studies and reprinted several times after his death in Helsinki on February 2, 1967. In the 1960s, Olli's sketches were also adapted for television. In 1990, the Black-Bearded Man, played by Kaarlo Juurela, appeared in a TV series. Kirsti Manninen has noted in her study Ollista Bisquitiin (1987), that Olli's central form of essay during his years at the Ylioppilaslehti was an absurd short play. Olli was fascinated by breaking the norms of language. He could emphasize his apparent objectivity and distance by using minute details and numbers: "Yhdistyksen 3.452 jäsenestä oli ensimmäisessä kokouksessa läsnä 8, toisessa kokouksessa 9, kolmannessa 33 ja neljännessä 23. Siinä neljännessä kokouksessa valittiin yhdistykselle puheenjohtaja." (from 'Pieni Surullinen tarina', Ylioppilaslehti, November 23, 1916) According to Manninen ,Olli's playful deviations from the norms of language became early a concept and a yardstick for the following generations of essayists. In spite of the difficulties to translate Olli's verbal somersaults into other languages, his sketches have appeared in German and Estonian translations. For further reading: 'Ridiculing the Demon: The Comical Image of Lazy, Stupid, Ineffective, Helpless, Uncultured Russians During the Winter War 1939-1940 in Finland' by Vesa Vares, in Proceedings of the 9th European Conference on Information Warfare and Security, ed. by Josef Demergis (2010); Kansallisgallaeri: suuret suomalaiset, Vol. 4, ed. by Allan Tiitta, et al. (1996); Ollista Bisquitiin by Kirsti Manninen (1987); Suomalaista huumoria Ollista Bisquitiin, ed. by Timo Tiusanen (1978, 2nd edition); Verbien monitulkintaisuus Ollin kielessä ja nykysuomessa by Jorma Vuoriniemi (1974); Ollin kieli nykysuomen kuvastimena by Jorma Vuoriniemi (1973); Aleksis Kivestä Olavi Siippaiseen, ed. by Martti Haavio (1944) Selected works:
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