Benedikt Hjartarson

Harri Veivo

David Ayers

Tomi Huttunen

Utopian hope and dystopian despair are characteristic features of modernism and the avant-garde. Readings of the avant-garde have frequently sought to identify utopian moments coded in its works and activities as optimistic signs of a possible future social life, or as the attempt to preserve hope against the closure of an emergent dystopian present. The fourth volume of the EAM series, European Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies, casts light on the history, theory and actuality of the utopian and dystopian strands which run through European modernism and the avant-garde from the late 19th to the 21st century. The book’s varied and carefully selected contributions, written by experts from around 20 countries, seek to answer such questions as: · how have modernism and the avant-garde responded to historical circumstance in mapping the form of possible futures for humanity? · how have avant-garde and modernist works presented ideals of living as alternatives to the present? · how have avant-gardists acted with or against the state to remodel human life or to resist the instrumental reduction of life by administration and industrialisation?

The Avant-Garde, Modernism and (Im)possible Life

Utopia

Current volume examines Finnish-Russian literary contacts that have not been thoroughly studied previously – the translation and reception history of Russian literature in Finland, and Finnish literature in Russia from 1800 until 1930. Personal contacts have influenced the decisions of what to translate and by whom more than the evident European context of Russian literature. In Finland, the relationship with Russia and attitudes to its literature have always been a political issue. Hostile relations have meant a remarkable decrease in translations, but maintained active discussion of Russian culture. During more friendly times, the inquisitive interest has increased and led to more intensive translation activities. However, since the early days of Finnish literature, only few intellectuals have known Russian well enough to translate literature into Swedish or Finnish. Consequently, translating has been highly dependent on individual mediators, often with a transnational identity.

Tomi Huttunen

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