Finnish Literature Day

I had my third drawing class tonight, we were outside drawing landscape. After sitting two hours in the Tampere Catherdal park, I'm still feeling cold. Brrr! At seven it was do dark we had to stop and move inside. The picture is from the school building.

We have celebrated Finnish Literature Day and Finland's national writer Aleksis Kivi today. Aleksis Kivi (1834–1872) spent ten years writing the Seven Brothers, which was published in 1870 to mixed reviews. It forms a scathing, yet truthful depiction of Finnish rural life. Exhausted by work and illness, Kivi passed away as a destitute man at the age of 38. Today he has been promoted to the rank of national writer, for he is reputed to have paved the way for Finnish-language literature (before him, the bulk of Finnish literature was written in Swedish). He also left behind many poems, some of which have been turned into songs.


+7°C, cloudy morning, sunny evening