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Bitter Memories and Burst Soap Bubbles: Irony, Parody, and Satire in the Oral-Literary Tradition of Finnish Working-Class Youth at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2007

Kirsti Salmi-Niklander
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Abstract

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This article discusses irony, parody, and satire in the oral-literary tradition of Finnish working-class youth during the first decades of the twentieth century. The most important research material is Valistaja (The Enlightener, 1914–1925), a handwritten newspaper produced by young working-class people in the industrial town of Karkkila in southern Finland. This research material provides examples of different kinds of parody: ideological parody is directed against both political opponents and the texts representing their ideology; generic parody involves playing with linguistic norms and generic conventions. Parody and satire provided means for exposing the cruelty and cowardice of the anti-Bolshevik Whites, the hypocrisy of the Church, and the conservatism of the older generation of workers. The ironic expressions reflect the experiences and tensions among groups of young people in Karkkila.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 52 , Issue S15 , December 2007 , pp. 189 - 207
Copyright
2007 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis

Footnotes

Research funding from the Emil Aaltonen Foundation enabled me to produce the manuscript of this article. Tommi Kuutsa and Janne Viitala at the Karkkila Ironworks Museum and Petri Tanskanen at the Finnish Labour Archives assisted me with the illustrations. Teija Norvanto has kindly commented on both the language and the content. My warmest appreciation goes to Ilona Kemppainen, Tarja Kupiainen, Niina Lappalainen, and Ulla-Maija Peltonen of “The Invention of Heroes” research project for their valuable comments and support. Parts of this article are based on papers presented at the tenth conference of SHARP (Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing) in London (July 2002), at the conference “Literature and its Others” (Turku, May 2003), and at the symposium “The Travelling Concept of Narrative” (Helsinki, December 2004).