Awakenings: Women Writers, Religious Faith, and Women’s Agency in Nineteenth-Century Finland

Abstract

<p>In our article, we tackle nineteenth-century Finnish women writers' stance towards religious faith, considering both organized religion, and their personal search for spirituality. This century marks the birth of Finnish literature, first in Swedish, then in Finnish. It is the period of "national awakening" that culminated around the turn of the twentieth century, when various social movements entered into dialogue with the national project. Like in all national, social and women's movements around Europe, religion played an important role. We address this issue with cases from different decades, mapping the historical and political contexts, as well as various literary genres and poetics. The selected writers represent certain milestones in the history of women's writing in Finland: they begin with Finland's first women novelists, Charlotta Falkman (1795-1882) and Wendla Randelin (1823-1906), who both wrote in Swedish. Our next case study is Minna Canth (1844-1897), representing the first generation of authors writing in Finnish. Finally, we briefly discuss the socialist politician and writer Hilja P & auml;rssinen (1876-1935). We focus on women writers' discourses of faith in the process of creating female subjectivity, and opportunities for women's agency, amidst the rising national movement and women's emancipation.<br></p>