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Kasimir Agathon (Lönnbohm) Leino (1866-1919) | |
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Finnish journalist, playwright, poet, and critic whose early works championed the ideas of freedom and humanism, but who later withdrew from daily polemics into dreams of beauty and historical imagination. Leino's prominent career in theatre gradually ended when his health deteriorated. He wrote his major works between the years 1886 and 1905. Mitä huolin valtikasta, Kasimir Leino was born in Paltamo, Russian Finland, the sevent child of Anders Lönnbohm and Anna Emilia (Kyrenius) Lönnbohm. His father was a land syrveyor, and his mother was the daughter Karl Henrik Kyrenius, owner of the Tuokslahti manor. Both of his parents were culturally active, but when Anders was a freetinker, Anna was very religious. At home the children produced small newspaper, and Kasimir wrote his first poems at the age of 12. In 1879 Leino moved to Oulu where he studied at the Swedish Lyceum, but after a few years of studies he moved to Kuopio where he graduated in 1884 from the Private Swedish Lyceum of Kuopio. Next year he entered the University of Helsinki, graduating in 1888. During this period he also worked as a journalist in Hämeenlinna at Hämeen Sanomat. Leino's first book Runokokeita, which was written in the spirit of Hippolyte Taine, came out in 1886. After travels in the Continent Leino continued his studies. He became the most influential literature critic of Päivälehti. and was considered along with Juhani Aho and Arvid Järnefelt among the leading writers by the end of the century. In 1895 appeared his doctoral thesis on the French writer Prosper Merimée. In the 1890s Leino wrote for several publications, including Hämeen Sanomat, Uusi Suometar, and Päivälehti (later Helsingin Sanomat). From 1899 to 1903 he worked as the director of the theatre Maaseututeatteri, and then as the director of his own group, Suomen Näyttämö, which functioned only one year. In 1898-99 Leino edited with his brother, the poet Eino Leino, the magazine Nykyaika, which took its model from the English Review of Reviews and the French Revue des Revues. Though they had 1,200 subscribers, the venture was not financially profitable and the brothers closed the magazine after a year. Although his poems were well received, Kasimir Leino did not gain such popularity as his brother Eino, and nowadays his work is mostly considered "formally faulty and factually shallow." He wrote short stories, a study of Minna Canth, the biography of the painter Aleksander Lauréus, and translated works from Merimée, Arthur Schnitzler, Guy de Maupassant, and Alphonse Daudet, and others into Finnish. For the composer Jean Sibelius he wrote lyrics for the Cantata for Conferment Ceremony of 1894. As a poet Leino represented realism in the early period of his career but became then interested in Neo-romanticism, and was among the first to make its theories known for the Finnish public. In France Leino acquainted himself with Symbolist movement and published two articles dealing with its program and central poets, Mallarmé and Verlaine. Leino suspected that Symbolism is a short-term phenomena, but in 1897 he stated that it has replaced Realism. As an art critic he was especially interested in Akseli Gallen, Albert Edelfelt, Eero Järnefelt, Pekka Halonen, and V. Westerholm – all central artists at the turn of the century. Leino was not a good lecturer, he didn't have a carrying voice, but the writer Maila Talvio noted in her memoir, that Leino was a social lion, who mastered the etiquette and technique of hand-kissing. In his major collections of poems, Ristiaallokossa (1890) and Väljemmillä vesillä (1893), Leino did not present new ideas that were emerging in the literature, but kept on the traditional basis, in which rhyme, regular rhythm, and melodious words were the central elements. More important was his work as a literature and art critic. After 1909 Leino did not publish any books although he contributed to the conservative Uusi Suometar and composed poems. In 1916 the Finnish Writer's Associoaton arranged a special celebration in honor of his work. At that time he was already seriously ill and had problems in taking care of himself. In the poem 'Aave' (ghost) he depicted "a black knight" riding through a forest. During his illness he used to watch and salute from behind his window the "ghost" a certain time of the night. "Ken on tää? Kuolon ruhtinas vai haamu / koleilta varjomailta tuiman tuonen? / Hän illoin ilmestyy ja musta ratsu / se hölkkää raskahasti metsän halki, / noin kengät kalkattavat kolkost' yössä –". Kasimir Leino died of cancer of liver in Helsinki on March 8, 1919. Luonnon kaiken tutkijalle Kaikkea hän harrastaapi For further reading: Suomalaisia kirjailijoita by Eino Leino (1926); Suomen kirjallisuus IV by Rafael Koskimies (1965); Nykyajan kynnyksellä: kirjoituksia suomalaisen kirjallisuuden modernisaatiosta, ed. by Minna Toikka (1993); Kasimir Leino runoilijana by Väinö Kaukonen (1966); Elämän meri by Annamari Sarajas (1961, pp. 20-31); A History of Finnish Literature by Jaakko Ahokas (1973) - Film: Runoilija ja Muusa (1978), directed by Jaakko Pakkasvirta, starring Esko Salminen as Eino Leino and Elina Salo as L. Onerva. The film also depicted Kasimir Leino's degration when he had lost his fight against a veneral desease that affected his nervous system. Selected bibliography:
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