UNDER THE NORTH STAR - III

Author: Väinö Linna
Year: 1988 (1962)
Publisher: Wahlström & Widstrand
Language: Swedish (Translator N-B Stormbom) 

Yea, drive us together with scourges,
and bluest spring shall bud.
You smile, my people, but with stiff features,
and sings, but without hope.*

Verner von Heidenstam’s famous poem “Invocation and Pledge” from 1899 reflects upon a Sweden basking in its own comfortable complacency at the turn of the century. With the discerning eye of a poet, Heidenstam contends that only through the bitter taste of adversity might the Swedish people awaken and re-discover the sweetness of unity, patriotism, and freedom. In the same manner that an individual having faced a near-death experience comes to value life more deeply, Heidenstam aspires for an existential challenge to invigorate the Swedish nation with a newfound strength and energy.

It was, of course, a trifle for a nobleman such as Verner von Heidenstam to recline in his gilded upper-class bubble and bemoan the lack of sufficient trials for his less fortunate countrymen. Sweden in the early 20th century was by no means overflowing with riches. Poverty in the wake of rapid industrialisation and urbanisation was widespread, infant mortality was around ten percent, and famine and diseases ravaged many parts of the kingdom. Between the years 1850 and 1920 over 1.5 million Swedes, driven by hunger and despair, sought solace and sustenance across the Atlantic in North America.

Even so, no Nordic nation has experienced a transformation more brutal and profound than that of the Finns. After their independence from Russia following the First World War, a brief but savage civil war between the landowning and capitalist elite on the one side and the landless and the proletariat on the other (see my review of Linna from April 2024) ensued. The war, although short-lived, inflicted deep wounds upon Finnish society. Wounds that would prevail until the Finnish people was ‘driven together with the scourges’ of the Second World War.

Individuals who had once grown up together only to later find themselves locked in blind rage and mortal combat, now stood shoulder to shoulder in the trenches defending Finland from the Soviet onslaught in 1939. Communists and Nazis fighting side by side, presenting the Red Army with an unexpected and formidable resilience.

During the interbellum years, progress did not omit Finland. Both men and women were granted the right to vote, crofters were allowed to acquire the land they worked, technology opened up for new business opportunities and improved productivity. The world changed and Finland changed with it.

Väinö Linna in the final instalment of his trilogy “Under the North Star” captures this transformative process with unparallelled sublimity. Despite the horrendous memories of the civil war and the harrowing loss of loved ones at the hands of their fellow countrymen, life slowly finds a new equilibrium. Amidst an atmosphere thick with suspicion, scorn, and silent resistance, a fragile tranquillity engulfs the small town. However, it is the cataclysm of the Second World War that ultimately serves as the catalyst for the national healing.

With “Söner av ett folk”, Väinö Linna ties his magnum opus together in the most spectacular way and sends his beloved Finland off into the future as a fatigued but united, confident, and free nation. This literary masterpiece should be mandatory reading for all Nordic school children and the literature of choice for anyone who values an exquisitely crafted narrative featuring vivid characters over some of the most troublesome and yet auspicious decades in Finland’s history. Putting this book down for the last time was like parting with a group of dear friends. I cannot recommend this trilogy enough.

*Shady, uncredited translation I found on the internet. Couldn't be bothered to make may own this time.