Minna Canth (1844 - 1897)
Finnish playwright and short-story writer who described women's position in the society and advocated contemporary radical social ideas in magazine articles. During the early years of the young Finnish Theatre - the National Theatre was founded in 1872 - Canth's plays were performed on its stage more often than Shakespeare's. She was the first notable Finnish social realist, whose work showed the influence of Henrik Ibsen and Georg Brandes.

"Pahoja ne vain ihmiset olivat köyhää ja heikkoa kohtaan, silloinkin kun olivat apua antavinaan. Parempi, että veisivät hengen kerrassaan eivätkä kiusaisi puutteessa ja onnettomuudessa. Mutta köyhän puolta ei kukaan pitänyt, jokainen vain oli valmis sortumaan ja kuormaa kuorman päälle panemaan. Sen hän niin elävästi tunsi, aina kun lastensa tulevaisuutta ajatteli." (from Köyhää kansaa, 1886)

Minna Canth was born in Tampere as the daughter of Gustaf Wilhelm Johnson and Ulrika Andersintytär (Archelin?) Johnson. Her father was a worker at the Finlayson cotton factory. He rose in the position of a foreman and in 1853 the family moved to Kuopio, a small but culturally active town 500 kilometers from Helsinki. Johnson worked in Kuopio as a shop manager, and was able to provide his daughter a good education. Canth studied at Jyväskylä Teachers' Seminary, but left her studies and married in 1865 her teacher Johan Ferdinand Canth, nine years her senior. From 1874 to 1876 she wrote for the regional publications Keski-Suomi and later for Päijänne (1878-79).

After the death of her husband in 1879, Canth moved with her seven children to Kuopio. She took charge of her father's shop - he had died a few year earlier, and the business was doing poorly. The draper's shop, the 'Tampereen Lankakauppa', selling Finlayson's fabrics, started to flourish, and Canth found more time to literary aspirations. Her first book, a collection of short stories, appeared in 1879. Canth's first drama, MURTOVARKAUS, was produced next year. It gained a huge success, and was produced in 1897 also in Sweden. With Murtovarkaus Canth started her ten year cooperation with Kaarlo Bergbom (1843-1906), who had founded the Finnish Theatre. He encouraged Canth to write ethnological, rustic comedies for the broad audience, but this was not what the author herself wanted to do. However, her next play, ROINILAN TALOSSA (1885), delighted Bergbom with its lively characters and folkdances.

In the beginning of the 1880's, Canth adopted ideas from such authors as Taine, Ibsen, Strindberg and Zola. She read widely social sciences, ethics, psychology, natural sciences, religious thinkers. Canth become interested in the position of women and workers, and the conflict between religion and Darwin's ideas of evolution. Her new, more socially concerned plays, were attacked by conservative and religious authorities. Among them was the influential Fennoman party director Agathon Meurman, who also persecuted Juhani Aho and other liberal writers. Social criticism was a relatively new phenomenon in Finnish literature, and Canth was more outspoken than contemporary male writers.

Canth's KOVAN ONNEN LAPSIA (1888, 'Hard luck's children') was banned immediately. Her most famous play, PAPIN PERHE (1891, The pastor's family) depicted crisis in a bourgeois family. TYÖMIEHEN VAIMO (1885, The worker's wife), revealed the misery of a poor and submissive wife, Johanna, her husband's alcoholism, and the evils of prostitution. Johanna is exploited by her husband Risto, who controls her savings, spends the family's money on drink, and eventually steals the cloth his wife has woven. When Johanna is threatened by imprisonment, she breaks down and dies. Kerttu or "Homsantuu", the gipsy girl, repserents another type of woman.She is ready to kill Risto, who has betrayed her.

"Homsantuu. Did you have mercy on me, scoundrel? You deceived me treacherously a second time, seduced me worse than before. You thought: she is the scum of the world, you won't be punished for it if you ruin her. But you are mistaken. This scum of the world for whom nobody cares, takes her vengeance upon you herself.
Risto. Take it in some other way. Spare my life.
Homsantuu. No, you must die. And so must I."
(from The Worker's Wife)

However, Kerttu's bullet misses, and she is arrested. Risto goes back to tavern without feeling pity. In Canth's dark vision there is clear contrast between the prevailing social order and women's rights. In Papin perhe (The Parson's family) Canth studied ideological battle inside a middle-class family. The old-fashioned father, Henrik Valtari, do not accept her daughter's theatrical career. His son Jussi refuses to join the reactionary newspaper which his father supports and choses instead a progressive newspaper. When his children have began their own life, Valtari starts a reconciliation process.

Although Canth championed for many ideas, she left the debate about language and nationality to other writers, such as Juhani Aho, who shared her anticlerical and reformist views. Juhani Aho had been her protégé as a student, but Canth's guidance was more important for Heikki Kauppinen, later known as Kauppis-Heikki. He worked at her store as a sales assistant, and started his own career as a writers.

Canth portrayed her characters with understanding and realism. Women were more or less victims of circumstances or the patriarchal order. However, her suffrering wives were not Madonna figures. They did not fit well in the ideological struggle for national unity. Among Canth's most famous literary figures are the independent and rebellious Homsantuu from The Workers Wife, Hanna, a young girl depressed by narrow-minded life in a small city from a short story (1886), and Kauppa-Lopo, a warm-hearted proletarian woman living outside the norms of bourgeois society. The family was in Canth's writings the basis, which mirrored larger social problems. With her brave approach to topical, polemic issues Canth was a constant target of conservative critics, especially clergymen, but at the same time her home in Kuopio attracted such writers and artists as Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Jean Sibelius, K.A. Tavastsjerna, and the Halonen family.

In 1889-90 Canth edited in collaboration with A.B. Mäkelä her own journal, Vapaita aatteita (Free ideas). It published - without asking - writings from Maupassant, Brandes, Tolstoy, and Hamsun, and introduced to Finnish readers new findings in astronomy, psychiatry, biology, meteorology and other sciences. Canth showed also understanding toward lighter literature. Although Canth was full of energy as a business woman and writer, her heath started to deteriorate in the 1890s, and she died on May 12, 1897 in Kuopio.

Canth's collected works appeared between the years 1917 and 1920. Her plays are still popular among amateur and professional theatre groups and she is considered by many critics the most outstanding Finnish playwright after Aleksis Kivi. Since 1911, Canth's stories have inspired many film directors. The third version of the triangle drama ANNA-LIISA (1895) was planned to celebrate the 100th birthday of Canth. However, its production was delayed when thieves stole many of the costumes.

For further reading: Minna Canthin elämänkerta by Lucina Hagman (1906-11); Minna Canth by Greta von Frencell-Thesleff (1944/1994); Minna Canth. Kirjailija ja kauppias by Reetta Nieminen (1990); Vapautumisen teema Minna Canthin kaunokirjallisuudessa: naisnäkökulma kirjallisuudentutkimukseen ja sosiaalihistoriaan by Maarit Hermansson (1995); Taistelevat lukumallit: Minna Canthin teosten vastaanotto by Leeni Tiirakari (1997); Monisärmäinen Minna Canth, ed. by Liisi Huhtala (1998); 'Birth of a Nation' by Pirjo Lyytikäinen, in Europe's Northern Frontier (1999); 100 Faces from Finland, ed. by Ulpu Marjomaa (2000); Lähikuvassa nainen: näköaloja 1800-luvun kirjalliseen kulttuuriin, ed. by Päivi Lappalainen, Heidi Grönstrand & Kati Launis (2001); Minna Canth - Taiteilija ja taistelija by Kirsti Mäkinen & Tuula Uusi-Halila (2003) - See also: Minna Canth näytelmäkirjailijana by Kasimir Leino (1897) - Kauppis-Heikki - See: Minna Canth - Kanttilan Kulttuurikeskuksen Kannatusyhdistys - Minna Canth statues: in Kuopio (sculptor Emil Halonen), in Tampere (sculptor Lauri Leppänen), in Jyväskylä (sculptor Pauli Koskinen)

Selected works:

• NOVELLEJA JA KERTOMUKSIA, 1879 (short stories)
• MURTOVARKAUS, 1880 (play) - film: 1926, dir. by Erkki Karu, starring Kaisa Leppänen, Waldemar Wolhström, Emil Lindh, Joel Rinne, Kaarlo Saarnio, Agnes Lindh
• ROINILAN TALOSSA, 1885 (play) - film: 1935, dir. by Erkki Karu, starring Iivari Tuomisto, Rauni Luoma, Eero Eloranta, Toivo Palomurto, Laila Rihte, Kaartlo Kartio
• TYÖMIEHEN VAIMO, 1885 (her first socially engaged play) - musical version Suruttomat (2004), dir. by Sirkku Peltola, music by Matti Puurtinen, lyrics by Heikki Salo
• KÖYHÄÄ KANSAA, 1886 (short story)
• HANNA, 1886
• SALAKARI, 1887
• KOVAN ONNEN LAPSIA, 1888 (play)
• LAIN MUKAAN. KAUPPA-LOPO, 1889 - film: 1956, dir. by Roland af Hällström, starring Eila Peitsalo, Matti Oravisto
• PAPIN PERHE, 1891 - The Parson's Family
• NOVELLEJA, 1892
• HÄN ON SYSMÄSTÄ, 1893
• SYLVI, 1893 - film adaptation: 1944, dir. by Toivo Särkkä, starring Helena Kara, Leif Wager
• NOVELLER, 1894
• SPIRITISTINEN ISTUNTO, 1894
• ANNA-LIISA, 1895 - films: 1911, dir. by Teppo Raikas (unfinished) ; 1922, dir. by Teuvo Puro and Jussi Snellman ; 1945, dir. by Orvo Saarikivi, Toivo Särkkä, starring Mervi Järventaus, Edvin Laine; 1988 (TV drama), dir. by Tuija-Maija Niskanen, starring Anna-Leena Härkönen, Pekka Valkeejärvi, Heikki Paavilainen
• KOTOA POIS, 1895
• ARVOSTELU NEITI ELLEN KEYN VIIME LAUSUNNOISTA NAISASIASSA, 1896
• KOOTUT TEOKSET, 1917-20 (5 vols.),
• KIRJEITÄ VUOSILTA 1860-1897, 1944
• VALITUT TEOKSET, 1953
• SUOLAVAKKA, 1954
• VALITUT TEOKSET, 1957
• VALITUT TEOKSET, 1971
• MINNA CANTHIN KIRJEET, 1973
• VALITUT TEOKSET, 1973
• MINNA CANTH, 1987
• TAISTELEVA MINNA: MINNA CANTHIN LEHTIKIRJOITUKSIA JA PUHEITA 1874-1896, 1994