• 1 Ton Hoenselaars and Clara Calvo, “Introduction: Shakespeare and the Cultures of Commemoration,” Cri (...)
• 2 Ibid., p. 7.
• 3 Claro Calvo, Shakespeare and Cervantes in 1916: The Politics of Language,” in Shifting the Scene: S (...)
• 4 Clara Calvo, “Fighting over Shakespeare: Commemorating the 1916 Tercentenary in Wartime,” Critical (...)
• 5 Werner Habicht, “Shakespeare Celebrations in Times of War”, Shakespeare Quarterly 52.4, Winter, 200 (...)
• 6 Israel Gollancz, A Book of Homage to Shakespeare, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1916.

1In their introduction to the Critical Survey volume devoted to “Shakespeare and the Cultures of Commemoration,” Ton Hoenselaars and Clara Calvo note that in addition to “enhanc[ing] our appreciation of the function of authorship, the transmission of the text, and dynamics of literary fame” cultures of commemoration “also tend to be complex in social and political terms.”¹ As the wide-ranging volume shows, “we must be prepared to cross regional, national, continental, and linguistic borders, continually reminding ourselves of the very plurality of the cultures we study.”² Calvo does this admirably in two essays analyzing the 1916 tercentenary. In the first, she contrasts festivities celebrating Cervantes in Spain and Shakespeare in England, finding that “both Shakespeare and Cervantes, and the languages they wrote in, became cultural capital that was symbolically appropriated and molded into icons of patriotic enthusiasm in their respective countries with the help of very similar discourses of nationalism, colonialism, and cultural supremacy.”³ In a later article, she expands her focus to Germany and France, analyzing the “fights” over Shakespeare, where London and Stratford jostled for the tourist market, England and Germany struggled over ownership of the “Bard”, and French appropriations of Henry V affirmed Anglo-French bonds.⁴ Habicht discusses contrasts between German and English commemorations in 1864 and 1916, while Foulkes focuses on events in England during the First World War, with reference also to America and Ireland.⁵ In terms of the 1916 tercentenary, one of the most important surviving documents is Israel Gollancz’s monumental A Book of Homage to Shakespeare, published by Oxford University Press in 1916.⁶

• 7 Coppélia Kahn, “Remembering Shakespeare Imperially: The 1916 Tercentenary,” Shakespeare Quarterly, (...)
• 8 Ibid., p. 478.
• 9 Habicht, op. cit., p. 450-51; Kahn, op. cit., p. 465-467.

2Discussed most thoroughly by Coppélia Kahn,⁷ the Homage is striking both as a testament to the global appeal of Shakespeare (no doubt aided by the tenacity of its editor), but also for its revelation of challenges to the British imperialistic project. Kahn in particular focuses on contributions by Douglas Hyde (Ireland), Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje (South Africa), and Maung Tin (Burma), who “make Shakespeare their own, or make their own Shakespeare, employing him in a rearguard action on behalf of their own cultures in contradistinction to the Shakespeare who signifies England, empire, and Anglo-Saxon superiority for the British Academy.”⁸ The case of Douglas Hyde is particularly interesting, as Hyde had written his tribute in Gaelic, for which he supplied an English translation. Gollancz found the translation too inflammatory and removed or softened the most offensive passages.⁹

• 10 Many thanks to Monika Smialkowska for checking the archive, and providing me with photos of the rel (...)
• 11 Esko Piippo, personal communication, January 22, 2015. Piippo reports that in his travels, Leino ne (...)

5I have been unable to find out who might have translated the poem. In his form letter to contributors, Gollancz promises that contributions will be translated, but he makes no specific reference to a translator for this Finnish contribution. There is strong evidence that the poem was translated in Finland: a typed copy of the English translation, “signed by the poet” is included in the Gollancz archive at the Folger Shakespeare Library.¹⁰ In early 1916 Leino was in Helsinki working on his new literary journal, which will figure later in this story, so it seems likely he signed it there. The Folger archive contains no information on whether the translation was done by Leino himself, or by somebody else. Leino was himself an accomplished translator into Finnish, but it seems unlikely that he would have translated the poem himself into English.¹¹ Of the other foreign works in the Homage, some have named translators, while others do not.

• 12 Yrjö Hirn, “Shakespeare in Finland,” p. 536-537 and Juhani Aho, “Ensimäinen suomalainen Shakespeare (...)

7Despite its being on the very periphery of Europe, Finland is represented in Homage by three authors. In addition to Leino, there is a short tribute from the academic Yrjö Hirn, and a long and unfortunately mainly untranslated piece by the novelist Juhani Aho, who writes movingly about the first full-length Finnish-language performance of a Shakespeare play in Finland, a production of Romeo and Juliet in 1881 starring the actress Ida Aalberg.¹² Aho perceptively raises an important point about these foreign Shakespeares, that while the “mother country” is largely unaware of the fact of translation and performance in these “cultural colonies,” their impact can nevertheless be great:

• 14 Eino Lyytinen, Finland in British Politics in the First World War. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakate (...)
• 15 J. Dover Wilson, “Russia,” in R. W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern and Arthur Gre (...)
• 16 Lyytinen, op. cit., p. 68.
• 17 Ibid., p. 57-69.

8The presence of as many as three tributes from Finland, which then had a population of around three million, might seem surprising, but since before the turn of the century Finns had actively sought British sympathy in their struggles against Russian repression. In the years leading up to WWI, Finns such as Leo Mechelin and especially Aino Malmberg toured the British Isles trying to drum up support. There was a large pro-Finlandia rally in Trafalgar Square on May 29, 1910, and an Anglo-Finnish society was formed in 1911, operating until the start of the war. Through the early part of the war, the official line of the British government was that it had no treaty obligations with Finland. Finland was part of an important supply route from England through Norway and Finland to Russia, whose war efforts on the eastern front became increasingly important as the war dragged on. Parts of the British media, however, were far more supportive of the Finns’ claims for autonomy, and there were editorials especially in the Labour and Liberal press on behalf of the Finns.¹⁴ The future Shakespeare scholar John Dover Wilson, while on the whole sympathetic to Russia, nevertheless wrote in 1914 that “I have lived three years in Finland [1906-1609], and know the weariness of spirit and aching bitterness of heart that comes to a fine and cultured race in its perpetual struggle for liberty against an alien government to whom the word liberty means nothing but rebellion.”¹⁵ Both conservatives and radicals in the UK pointed to the links between the Finnish and the Irish situation.¹⁶ After the war started, Finland was essentially in a state of martial law, with the last vestiges of autonomy stripped away.¹⁷ Given this political climate, it is quite likely that Finnish intellectuals and artists would have seized the chance to contribute to a book which had the potential to publicize the Finnish cause in Britain, and clearly had the contacts to do so.

• 18 While many of the tributes in the Homage seem to rank Shakespeare as the pinnacle of English or wor (...)
• 19 Each table includes the Finnish original on the left, in the center column the English translation (...)

9As we saw above, Juhani Aho, like many others in the Homage, comments in his tribute on Shakespeare’s unique genius. Leino, by contrast, perhaps because of his political agenda of elevating the Finns, views Shakespeare as one of a line of great writers, starting with the Greeks.¹⁸ Leino’s poem begins with a two-part literary history: first the Greeks, and then Shakespeare, created unforgettable characters:¹⁹

• 20 Thanks to Maria Salenius for discussing these issues with me.

10In the third stanza, Leino introduces a third group “rising up” (9) in the bleak forests of Finland, though here the group seems not to be literary creations but producers of song. There may be something vaguely threatening about this third group, emphasized by the /k/ alliteration on four words in two lines, as well as by the trochaic beat (9-10). Leino’s poem is written in the same verse form as the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, trochaic tetrameter with heavy use of alliteration but not much end rhyme. These rhythmic and alliterative echoes of the Kalevala are an important part of the poem’s political effect, as the very form allows Leino to make references to the Finns without actually naming them (e.g. all the /k/ alliteration alludes to the word Kalevala and other words associated with the Finnish people and culture which happen to have the same sound).²⁰

• 21 Unfortunately I haven’t been able to work the kantele or another musical instrument into the transl (...)

13At the end of the poem, the focus returns to Finland, the tribe of the “kannel” or kantele. The kantele is a dulcimer-like folk instrument, with which the bards who originally sung the Kalevala accompanied themselves.²¹ The speaker wishes that their voice, too, will one day ring out along with the voices of the free. Here the alliteration on the /k/ sound is positively remarkable, repeating three times in the first line (with two further repetitions within the words), and twice in the second and third lines.

• 22 Painoasiain Ylihallituksen Painoasiamiesten kirjeitä 1915-1916. Aa41, item #237, p. 116.

Leino seems to have been fond of /k/ alliteration, and indeed of the words kaiku (echo), kauas (far) and kuulu (be heard), as he uses them in another political poem during the same period. In 1916, one of Leino’s books (Elämän Koreus, The Beauty/Brightness of Life) was being confiscated from bookshops.²² A poem in that book, called “Freedom!” and dedicated to “the martyrs of justice,” includes a few lines rather similar to the closing lines of the Shakespeare tribute:

• 23 Leino was editor-in-chief of the journal, with L. Onerva serving as secretary. In her biography of (...)
• 24 The poem appears on page 6 of the newspaper.

15And indeed it is now to censorship that I turn, as we examine the after-life of the poem in Finland. Leino’s poem was published twice more, under a different name. In A Book of Homage to Shakespeare, the poem is entitled “Shakespeare-Tunnelma,” which roughly translates as “The Spirit” or “The Feeling of Shakespeare.” On April 23, 1916, it appeared in the Shakespeare commemorative issue of Sunnuntai [Sunday], a weekly culture journal edited by Leino, under a title which literally translates as “Greetings to Shakespeare’s Native Country.”²³ In small print just above the author’s name at the bottom, it says “Poem published in a commemorative volume appearing around this time in England, written by EINO LEINO.”²⁴ As you can see (Figure 2), this version of the poem has been censored, as the last three lines are missing and there is a telltale white space between the last printed lines and the author’s name. Editors tried to leave white space if a work had been censored in order to inform the public that something was missing, although legally they were not supposed to do this. You can also see the initials “S.H.” at the bottom left, across from Leino’s name, which stand for Sotasensuurin hyväksymä, or “approved by the military censor.”

• 25 Eino Leino, “Tervehdys Shakespearen kotimaahan,” Runot 2, Helsinki, Otava, 1985, p. 917-918.

16The poem under this new name was published again in 1917 in Leino’s next volume of poetry, this time in an uncensored version. An epigraph informs the reader that the poem was previously published in “a certain English commemorative book, 23.4.1916.”²⁵ Given that Finland did not gain independence until December 6, 1917 I would imagine that the book actually came out before independence, but by that time the situation in Russia was so chaotic that they presumably had many other things to think about than censoring the Finnish press.

• 26 Päiviö Tommila, “Sensuuriolot ennen vuotta 1865 [Censorship practices before 1865],” in Pirkko Lein (...)
• 27 Yrjö Larmola, “Eino Leinon Tiet Sensuurin Ohitse” [Eino Leino’s Strategies for Getting Past the Cen (...)
• 28 Painoasiain Ylihallituksen Diario 1915, Aa40, p. 255, item #426.

17Given the subversive content of the lines, it is hardly surprising that they would have been censored in wartime Finland. Censorship of the press had long been an instrument of Russian control, with Finnish being mentioned for the first time in 1850, in a law which forbade the publication of works in the Finnish language, except those connected to the Church or improving the economy.²⁶ The Governor General at that time, Alexander Menshikov, commented that since nothing had been published in Finnish anyway, this prohibition was not taking anything away from the people.²⁷ In 1854, permission was granted to publish “useful” works in Finnish, and in 1860 the prohibition on Finnish was officially repealed. Except for a brief period between 1865-67, preventive censorship was practiced, which meant that all works for publication needed to be pre-approved by a censor. A Printing High Council (Painoasiain ylihallitus) was established to oversee censorship in 1865. With the growth of a nationalist movement known as Fennomania, censorship became gradually more repressive. In 1885 the Governor General was granted the right to close down newspapers without warning. In 1891, laws were passed requiring that all books and newspapers be licensed, and that anyone who wanted to publish or sell print material also apply for a permit. The application for Leino’s literary and cultural journal Sunnuntai [Sunday] can be found in the diaries of the Printing High Council, dated December 29, 1915 and approved on January 18, 1916.²⁸

• 29 Painoasiain Ylihallituksen Diario 1916, Aa43, item #25.

18After the General Strike of 1905, some press freedoms were achieved, including the end of preventive censorship. In 1906 the Printing High Council itself was abolished, but a version of it was re-established in 1910. Everything changed again in 1914 with the advent of war in Europe. Wartime censorship brought back pre-publication screening and confiscation of offensive materials. Newspapers were considered particularly dangerous, and they were fined or closed down if they crossed the line too frequently or too egregiously. In 1916, restrictions were made on the importation of foreign materials, including English-language magazines.²⁹

• 30 Larmola, op. cit., p.88.
• 31 Ibid., p.85.
• 32 Ibid., p. 89.
• 33 Ibid., p. 92-93.

19Leino himself was no stranger to censorship, and seems to have constantly tested its limits. As Larmola points out, at this time Finnish literature and journalism were still relatively young, and there were not a lot of domestic models on how to evade censorship.³⁰ According to Leino-Kaukiainen, one strategy often employed was the use of nature imagery in metaphorical meanings, such as frost, snowstorms, thunderstorms, east and north winds, and raging rivers.³¹ For example, in 1899 Leino published a poem on the theme of fog, where prominent Helsinki landmarks, representative of the Russian government, were gradually covered in fog, leaving visible only the University of Helsinki, symbolizing the national Finnish-language culture.³² In 1903, one of the regional governors wrote to Governor General Bobrikov, complaining specifically about Leino. His works “which had passed through the censor” were “often recited on public occasions” in such a way that would give the listener “the wrong impression about the current situation and incite them (as for example the poem “The Artist’s Night” and others).”³³ So clearly the Russian authorities were aware of Leino’s subversive tendencies, and moreover worried that people would use his poems as rallying cries for what they considered seditious activities. From Leino’s point of view, it seems that a tribute to Shakespeare provided an ideal occasion for promoting freedom of the press in Finland, if not also for celebrating Finnish literature more broadly.

• 34 Sunnuntai, op. cit., p. 2-3.

21Aside from Leino’s poem and the entirely safe contribution from a known radical which also bears the censor’s mark, I do not think anything else in the 1916 Finnish commemorative newspaper would have raised the censor’s eyebrow, with the possible exception of a rather negative comparison between Shakespeare, who represents “European” culture, and Tolstoy, representing “Asian.” Europeans like Shakespeare, says the author, seek out the best in people, whereas “Asians” search for their sins or, conversely, turn them into saints.³⁴ Shakespeare doesn’t preach, whereas Tolstoy does. It was forbidden to make deprecating remarks about the Czar’s family, the governments in Russia and in Finland, and so forth, but apparently it was allowed to criticize Russian literature.