How to “Eat” the Centre–Periphery Model and Still Retain It? A Theory of Descending Cultural Values and Aleksis Kivi

Abstract

I examine Aleksis Kivi’s cultural and critical reception as a Finnish poeta laureatus under the double tension of international (European) and Finnish sources. My intention is to show that behind the need to prove Kivi to be a representative of original Finnish folk culture, there is a specific interpretation of center–periphery tension, which has been interiorized as a basic condition for Finnish culture, the theory of descending cultural values (gesunkenes Kulturgut), which was widely accepted at the turn of the century but still popular in the 1920s and 30s. – The theory may be briefly described as follows. As the nations compete on cultural (and other) fields, the leading nation(s) produce(s) the innovations and the (non-leading) receiving nations imitate them. Imitation can be detected on the individual level of a single work and author (oeuvre) or on the collective level of artistic genres, schools and movements. Imitation is explained as a chain of influence from center to periphery (positive method). – The chain of influences is understood to move on the scale of descending values: as the innovation moves ahead in the chain, it wears, and, finally, is reduced to a mere copy. Consequently, the center and the periphery acquire different value roles in the model. The sender is under stood as active, energetic and innovative; the receiver is stigmatized as passive, forceless and dependent with little inherent value. – As the creation of the artistic systems on European proceeded in Finland, a special strategy was created to “save” the new national culture from getting reduced to a passive mirror of exterior cultural influences. This general strategy was applied to Kivi, and a specific interpretative model was created that turned the direction of influences from top-down to bottom-up. – Two basic strategies were created for peripheral literary cultures to ward off the negative effects of their low status due to the descending value chain. The first one may be briefly described as follows: (1) cut the chain between the centre and the peripheral literature – (2) neutralize the positions of comparable literary works – (3) equalize the literary cultures of centre and periphery. The second one could be put like this: (1) prioritize the local elements of work under study – (2) minimize the exterior connections – (3) rebuild the chain within the peripheral literature. – The analysis produced the following results: (1) Kivi was regarded as a representative of Finnish folk culture instead of a student of European and Classical literatures, and (2) the genius of Kivi was explained as a representative of genuine spirit of the Finnish people, an ennobler the original material of Finnish folk culture into an original art form and a creator of an independent form of “truly Finnish” art.