Release date is 2026-01-26

Tuula Temonen

Vainon ajoilta by Hilja Tamminen is a collection of poems written in the early 20th century. The book turns to the aftermath of civil strife and social persecution, focusing on prisons, labor camps, fugitives, grief, and the endurance of love and friendship, often set against Finnish nature and folk-ballad cadences.

The collection moves from narrative ballads and scenes of flight, arson, illness, and a mother’s Christmas vigil, to the central prison sequence where iron shackles, barred windows, starvation, executions, and mass graves are depicted with uncompromising clarity. A defiant prisoner refuses to wash enemy corpses and is shot; women risk bringing food to leirien gates; families are “cut from their roots”; two nurse-sisters lie embraced, killed by a single volley; graves “demand justice.” Interludes show a fallen young woman haunted by memory, a pastor’s uneasy visit rebuffed by a clear-eyed inmate, a child Eemi’s blunt innocence, the poor girl Helmi mocked while queuing for milk, and brief window-side vignettes where birds, flowers, and seasons pierce the gloom. Amid the sorrow, a section of intimate love lyrics celebrates desire, parting, jealousy, and rapture, entwining personal tenderness with collective loss; throughout, nature imagery and songlike rhythms carry a voice that mourns, accuses, and comforts in equal measure. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Tampere: Tampereen työväen sanomalehti O.Y., 1923