The directory «Plots»

Kivi Aleksis
(1834—1872)

Finnish national writer, playwright, poet, novelist, the creator of Finland's modern literary language. Kivi's major novel was SEITSEMÄN VELJESTÄ (1870, Seven Brothers). Kivi was the first professional writer publishing his works in Finnish. He died in poverty at the age of thirty-eight.

Aleksis Kivi was born at Nurmijärvi in southern Finland, some twenty miles north of Helsinki. He came from a poor background. His mother was Annastiina (Hamberg) Stenvall, the daughter of a smith, who was five years older than her husband. Eerik Johan Stenvall, Kivi's father, was a tailor, who could read and write. Eerik had learnt Swedish, the language every educated Finnish spoke, before a Finnish-language culture fully developed. Kivi also acquired a complete mastery of Swedish. However, in the wake of national awakening Kivi translated his Swedish surname (Stenvall, 'stone-bank') into Finnnish (Kivi, 'stone').

In 1846, at the age of twelve, Kivi left for school in Helsinki, where he found lodgings at the home of a prison warder. For a year his teacher was A.J. Cranberg, an old sailor, and at his small cottage Kivi studied among others Swedish. While living at the home of a master tailor, named Albin Palmqvist, he read widely in his library. With Palmqvist's daughter, Albina, who was five years his senior, he discussed of such writers as Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Byron. Kivi fell in love with Albina, and according to some sources, he proposed marriage. Albina went in 1853 to Denmark, where she started to use morphin for her neuralgia. During the following years, Albina spent much time in Denmark, but when she visited Finland, she met Kivi several times. Kivi never married and Albina also remained single. However, Albina possibly influenced a number of Kivi's female characters in his plays, including Liisa in YÖ JA PÄIVÄ (1866), Elma in KANKURIT (1866), Lea in LEA (1868), Marianne in CANZIO (1868).

Kivi finished in 1857 secondary school, although he occasionally neglected his studies and suffered from hunger. In 1859 Kivi managed to enter the University of Helsinki, where he read the classics of world literature and became interested in the theater. His first play, KULLERVO (1859), was based on the Kalevala and showed the influence of Shakespeare in its dramatic technique. In Helsinki Kivi made friends with J.V. Snellman, the famous philosopher, journalist and politician, who helped him economically. Among his friends were also such Finnish-speaking intellectuals as Fredrik Cygnaeus, Elias Lönnrot, Julius Krohn, and Emil Nervander, who later founded the Kivi cult.

At university Kivi studied sporadically. He was more interested in writing and intended to become a poet like Runeberg. Occasionally he vanished from sight and drank in taverns. Kullervo won a competition held by the Finnish Literature Society. With the prize money Kivi could continue his writing in Nurmijärvi and Siuntio, where he was helped by Charlotta Lönnqvist, a self-sacrificing benefactress, and perhaps also by the Adlercreutz family. From 1863 Kivi devoted himself to his calling. He published 12 plays, collection of poems and Seven Brothers, which he wrote for ten years. The work was crushed by the influential critic August Ahlqvist, who opposed its realism. Ahlqvist's hostile criticism became later a symbol of oppression of artistic freedom. "It is a ridiculous work and a blot on the name of Finnish literature," Ahlqvist wrote in the newspaper Finlands Allmäna Tidningen.

Seven brothers is a humorous novel depicting orphan brothers. To evade the Lutheran Church's requirement that they learn to read and write before confirmation, they flee to the wilderness. After encountering all kinds of disasters, the brothers return to society - matured and ready to take responsibilities. Kivi's individualism and his unconventional approach won him many enemies among the Fennoman movement, which emphasized agrarian and conservative values. Kivi also challenged taboos concerning what was considered decent. The seven brothers were considered too wild - they were not modelled on an idealized picture of the people, but revealed their deep ignorance, laziness, and 'Roussean' resistance to bourgeois values. Kivi's mixture of comical, mythological, and tragic was not understood. Nowadays Seven Brothers has been interpreted at many levels. -

In 1865 Kivi won the State Prize for his play NUMMISUUTARIT (The Heath Cobblers). He lived in Siuntio from 1864, reading, writing, visiting Helsinki - and drinking. Kivi also wrote a play about a beer outing at Schleusingen, OLVIRETKI SCHLEUSINGENISSÄ (1866) and a brisk drinking song: "Hail, brown barley juice, / Hail strong foaming cheer! / Let it all go down / So long as it's beer." (trans. by Keith Bosley) Although Kivi had influential supporters during his writing career, among them Kaarlo Bergbom, who established the Finnish Theatre, he was deeply depressed by the attacks of Ahlqvist and other critics. In the late 1860s Charlotta Lönnqvist could not support the author any more. Seven Brothers appeared in four volumes in 1870. Kivi's last years were shadowed by economical worries, and a physical and mental breakdown. Suffering from schizophrenia he was in a mental hospital in Lapinlahti. After nine months, on May 1872, his brother Albert brought him from Lapinlahti to Tuusula, where he spent his last months in a small rented cottage. Kivi died on the same year on December 31. According to the popular legend his last words were: "Minä elän!"- (I am alive!).

Finland, 1934, Aleksis Kivi

Finland, 1970, The Seven Brothers

Finland, 1970, Juhani on top of Impivaara

Finland, 1970, The Pale Maiden

Finland, 1984, Lines from «Songs of my Heart»

Finland, 1997, «Seven Brothers» (Alexis Kivi)

Finland, 1984.10.10, Paloyoki. Aleksis Kivi