Release date is 2025-11-26

Tuula Temonen

"Rajan lapset" by Signe Stenbäck-Lönnberg is a novel written in the early 20th century. It portrays a Karelian border community through an intimate family drama of love, faith, and belonging, centered on Gregor, his resolute wife Hilkka of Tyrni farm, and their thoughtful son Asko, with Gregor’s mother Jelisaveta and the Orthodox monk Iirak deepening the moral and cultural crosscurrents. As border tensions rise and loyalties divide, the story probes what it means to live—and grow up—between languages, religions, and homelands.

The opening of this novel follows eight-year-old Asko on a freezing day as he awaits the lapphund puppy his mother brings home; the pup, Nikke, becomes his fierce little companion after a comic, rough initiation into farm life and even an illness that forges an unexpected truce with the house cat. The narrative then turns to Gregor’s origins: raised by Jelisaveta, marked by the memory of his father Nikita the singer, his childhood among the Orthodox graves, a painful encounter with scorn, and a journey east to his father’s burial—followed by schooling, seminary, and the love for Hilkka that pulls him toward a new home and faith, leaving his mother lonelier. We return to Tyrni’s work and winter nights: Gregor’s quiet doubts, a midsummer memory of Aunus traders, and the proud, needling presence of former master Jaakko, even provoking Nikke’s misdirected bite. As summer ripens, Asko puzzles over the meaning of the border while a plane drones toward Aunus; isä Iirak arrives with tenderness and caution, blessing eager local youths yet warning that deliverance may not come by force, before praying alone in the chapel and hearing Jelisaveta’s confession. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Porvoo: WSOY, 1928