Alexis Kiwi Day – Finnish Literature Day
Description:
The Finnish writer was born in the family of a rural tailor. He studied at the University of Helsinki.
The first work is a romantic tragedy “Cullervo” (1860, published in revised form 1864) about a rebel slave, one of the heroes of the folk epic “Kalevala”. The Kiwi comedies Noummi Shoemakers (1864), Engagement (1866), and especially the novel Seven Brothers (1870) contain features of realism; the novel shows a Finnish village in the initial period of its capitalization.
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He also wrote romantic tragedies from the life of the middle and upper circles of Finnish society: The Fugitives (1867), Kanzio (1868, staged in 1872) and the plays Lea (1869) and Leo and Liina (1877-1878), which were not deprived of abstract religious and didactic motives.
Kiwi is the author of the collection of poems “Canervala” (1866), which includes lyrical-romantic and social-life poems.
The small poetic heritage of Kiwi reflects the daring impulse and humility characteristic of his work. Kiwi opened the way to a whole stream of literature in Finnish, however, was strongly influenced by foreign samples.