The soft power of cultural diplomacy: Literature and politics in the lives and works of Aino Kallas, Hella Wuolijoki and Elin Wägner c. 1900–1950
Aino Kallas (b. 1878), Hella Wuolijoki (b. 1886) and Elin Wägner (b. 1882) are today recognized authors in Finland, Estonia and Sweden and their contribution to the national literary histories is unquestioned. But during their lifetime, all three contributed to several of the political and social movements of the time, such as the socialist movements, nationalist independence movements and women's movements. The political aspects are mentioned in previous research, but it has often been difficult to simultaneously highlight their prominent literary achievements and the clearly political goals. In this project, I conduct parallel readings of the political and the literary, and the national and international. The aim is to understand the flow between the literary and the political as mutually enriching.
Theoretically, the project contributes to a research field that connects cultural studies with more political science-oriented disciplines where the concepts of cultural diplomacy, soft power and intercultural mediation are key concepts. By bringing together my previous individual-focused studies, the result will provide a deeper understanding of the societal mechanisms that enabled, controlled, and limited the visibility of literary women as political actors as well as.
The project includes a stay in Vienna and a combined stay in Helsinki/Tallinn/Tartu to discuss results and carry out necessary archival studies.
Theoretically, the project contributes to a research field that connects cultural studies with more political science-oriented disciplines where the concepts of cultural diplomacy, soft power and intercultural mediation are key concepts. By bringing together my previous individual-focused studies, the result will provide a deeper understanding of the societal mechanisms that enabled, controlled, and limited the visibility of literary women as political actors as well as.
The project includes a stay in Vienna and a combined stay in Helsinki/Tallinn/Tartu to discuss results and carry out necessary archival studies.
Final report
Final report
The soft power of cultural diplomacy: Literature and politics in the lives and works of Aino Kallas, Hella Wuolijoki and Elin Wägner c. 1900–1950 is a project about women intellectuals in Europe and their transnational movements, as agents of transnational cultural and political dissemination. It contributes with a Nordic-Baltic perspective to the theoretical and empirical work that focuses on women’s participation in international endeavours, in European history and globally. Analysis of women’s participation in the public sphere has often started in question of how women have entered spheres that have been male dominated – or failed to do so. This study, rather, commence from the starting point that women’s political contribution can be found in unexpected places and is often related to areas and fields in which their presence was less controversial, such as literary authorship and culture generally. This requires new readings of the politics in literature, drama, and journalism, and calls for a re-evaluation of such activities as distinctly political. As women were largely excluded from formal political arenas, while their informal political writings were belittled, this led to a double invisibility. In the book I argue, and show, that a re-evaluation of women’s political actions, be they nationalist, political, or feminist, is very fruitful for both women’s history and for understanding politics.
The book focuses on three women literary authors with political ambitions in the first half of the twentieth century, Aino Kallas, Hella Wuolijoki, and Elin Wägner, and how their activities constitute a form of cultural diplomacy or mediation. They all became culturally and politically active around the turn of the 20th century and remained active into the late 1940 and early 1950s. Their lives as public figures bridge a decisive moment in European history – the First World War – and the following major developments in international politics, ideas about patriotism and nation, and pressure for expanding democratic rights including women’s suffrage, and human rights.
The war brought about the fall of European empires and the birth of new nation states, among them Finland and Estonia, which called for swift re-negotiation regarding citizenship and national community. Kalla, Wuolijoki and Wägner participated actively in the politico-cultural discussion surrounding the ills and gains of a national outlook versus an international orientation within their national contexts. All three were successful in the field of literary writing and promoted internationalist attitudes, while being active and highly visible in national politics and culture as well. Each one participated in one or several social movements of their time: aesthetic movements, nationalist movements, socialist and leftist international movements, and women’s movements.
The informality of their participation in the public sphere has had consequences for how we understand both the field of politics and diplomacy (defined much too narrowly) and how we understand women’s participation in politics and diplomacy (as much too limited). They participated in contemporary social and political movements but networks or contexts in themselves do not satisfactorily capture the individual efforts of these women’s transnational lives. Wägner, Kallas, and Wuolijoki, all moved on an international arena both intellectually – by keeping updated on current literary, scientific, and politico-philosophical issues – and by personal contacts through extended family, travel, and for example letters.
The research relies on the idea of blurring boundaries between text posing as fact and as fiction, between political statements and fictitious storytelling. I have worked with a combination of materials ranging from personal letters, diaries, autobiographies, or memoirs, to published texts such as newspaper articles, novels, radio plays, theatre manuscripts, and short stories. This has enabled me to analyse the flow of ideas from one genre to the other and makes evident that seemingly completely fictional narratives can encompass powerful political undercurrents.
Results
The book starts with chapter that contextualized Kallas’s, Wuolijoki’s and Wägner’s achievements in the early 20th century international world, called “Introduction: International minds”. The chapter offers biographical sketches of the women as well as a short cultural history of the region. Thereafter, three thematic chapters follow, preliminarily named ”Culture and ideology: Nationalism, internationalism, and socialism”, ”Public life and sexual politics: Between reason and desire”, and ”Autobiographies, diaries, autofiction: Controlling the narrative”. The intellectual and political setting of the themes are introduced and thereafter the protagonist’s contributions are analysed.
In the thematic chapters the variety of materials becomes most visible, highlighting the need to work with texts beyond the field of politics proper and it is in working on the themes that new findings have come to the fore. Reading these three authorships side-by-side has accentuated their timeliness, even more than I initially expected, to the extent that longer introductions to each theme has been added. This should enable readers who are not so familiar with contemporary international debates, nor maybe the region, to access their importance.
The book ends with a concluding chapter where I draw methodological conclusions about both working with different material and the difficulty of making comparisons across genres and national contexts when the everyday social and political conditions are so different.
The soft power of cultural diplomacy: Literature and politics in the lives and works of Aino Kallas, Hella Wuolijoki and Elin Wägner c. 1900–1950 is a project about women intellectuals in Europe and their transnational movements, as agents of transnational cultural and political dissemination. It contributes with a Nordic-Baltic perspective to the theoretical and empirical work that focuses on women’s participation in international endeavours, in European history and globally. Analysis of women’s participation in the public sphere has often started in question of how women have entered spheres that have been male dominated – or failed to do so. This study, rather, commence from the starting point that women’s political contribution can be found in unexpected places and is often related to areas and fields in which their presence was less controversial, such as literary authorship and culture generally. This requires new readings of the politics in literature, drama, and journalism, and calls for a re-evaluation of such activities as distinctly political. As women were largely excluded from formal political arenas, while their informal political writings were belittled, this led to a double invisibility. In the book I argue, and show, that a re-evaluation of women’s political actions, be they nationalist, political, or feminist, is very fruitful for both women’s history and for understanding politics.
The book focuses on three women literary authors with political ambitions in the first half of the twentieth century, Aino Kallas, Hella Wuolijoki, and Elin Wägner, and how their activities constitute a form of cultural diplomacy or mediation. They all became culturally and politically active around the turn of the 20th century and remained active into the late 1940 and early 1950s. Their lives as public figures bridge a decisive moment in European history – the First World War – and the following major developments in international politics, ideas about patriotism and nation, and pressure for expanding democratic rights including women’s suffrage, and human rights.
The war brought about the fall of European empires and the birth of new nation states, among them Finland and Estonia, which called for swift re-negotiation regarding citizenship and national community. Kalla, Wuolijoki and Wägner participated actively in the politico-cultural discussion surrounding the ills and gains of a national outlook versus an international orientation within their national contexts. All three were successful in the field of literary writing and promoted internationalist attitudes, while being active and highly visible in national politics and culture as well. Each one participated in one or several social movements of their time: aesthetic movements, nationalist movements, socialist and leftist international movements, and women’s movements.
The informality of their participation in the public sphere has had consequences for how we understand both the field of politics and diplomacy (defined much too narrowly) and how we understand women’s participation in politics and diplomacy (as much too limited). They participated in contemporary social and political movements but networks or contexts in themselves do not satisfactorily capture the individual efforts of these women’s transnational lives. Wägner, Kallas, and Wuolijoki, all moved on an international arena both intellectually – by keeping updated on current literary, scientific, and politico-philosophical issues – and by personal contacts through extended family, travel, and for example letters.
The research relies on the idea of blurring boundaries between text posing as fact and as fiction, between political statements and fictitious storytelling. I have worked with a combination of materials ranging from personal letters, diaries, autobiographies, or memoirs, to published texts such as newspaper articles, novels, radio plays, theatre manuscripts, and short stories. This has enabled me to analyse the flow of ideas from one genre to the other and makes evident that seemingly completely fictional narratives can encompass powerful political undercurrents.
Results
The book starts with chapter that contextualized Kallas’s, Wuolijoki’s and Wägner’s achievements in the early 20th century international world, called “Introduction: International minds”. The chapter offers biographical sketches of the women as well as a short cultural history of the region. Thereafter, three thematic chapters follow, preliminarily named ”Culture and ideology: Nationalism, internationalism, and socialism”, ”Public life and sexual politics: Between reason and desire”, and ”Autobiographies, diaries, autofiction: Controlling the narrative”. The intellectual and political setting of the themes are introduced and thereafter the protagonist’s contributions are analysed.
In the thematic chapters the variety of materials becomes most visible, highlighting the need to work with texts beyond the field of politics proper and it is in working on the themes that new findings have come to the fore. Reading these three authorships side-by-side has accentuated their timeliness, even more than I initially expected, to the extent that longer introductions to each theme has been added. This should enable readers who are not so familiar with contemporary international debates, nor maybe the region, to access their importance.
The book ends with a concluding chapter where I draw methodological conclusions about both working with different material and the difficulty of making comparisons across genres and national contexts when the everyday social and political conditions are so different.