Jooseppi Mikkola
Humanist of the day

Jooseppi Mikkola

Professor Jooseppi Julius Mikkola was a multi-talented linguist and a cultural Fennoman. He specialized in Slavic Philology and he got to know many different language groups through wide-ranging research trips. During his time, Mikkola was among the international elite in his field. He was an inspiring lecturer and his home was a meeting place for writers, researchers and students.

Jooseppi Mikkola

Jooseppi Julius Mikkola
Born July 6, 1866, Ylöjärvi. Died September 28, 1946, Helsinki

BA 1889 (Slavic Philology), MA 1890, Licentiate and PhD 1893, Imperial Alexander University
Research trips to Uppsala, Kharkiv, Moscow, Warsaw, Vienna, Serbia, St Petersburg, Lithuania, Pomerania, West Prussia and Leipzig, 1887–1897

Docent in Slavic Philology 1895, Extraordinary professor 1900–21, professor 1921–1934, Acting professor 1934–35, Imperial Alexander University (University of Helsinki 1919–)
Lecturer in Russian 1898–1901, Helsinki Finnish Real Lyceum
Russian teacher 1895–97, Finnish girls’ school
Finnish and Swedish teacher 1892–1908, Polytechnical School
Finnish teacher 1892–93, Helsinki industrial school
Acting lector in Russian 1891–92, Swedish Real Lyceum
Chair of the Military Language Committee 1918–27
Inspector of the Satakunta student ‘nation’, 1904–31
Chair of the Association of Finnish Culture and Identity 1906–09
Founding member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters 1908, Chair 1921–22
Member of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters 1915

Honours
Honorary member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters 1946
Honorary inspector of the Satakunta student ‘nation’ 1931
Honorary doctorates: Uppsala 1927, Vilnius 1929, Sofia

Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Written by Tomas Sjöblom
Translated by Joe McVeigh

A Fennoman and an Inspiring Slavist

Jooseppi Julius Mikkola graduated from the Hämeenlinna lyceum upper secondary school, where he had gained an interest in languages from being a student of Arvid Genetz. He entered the Imperial Alexander University to study Sanskrit and comparative linguistics in 1886. The hallmarks of J. J. Mikkola’s career were wide-ranging language research and the Fennoman cause which came out of Hämeenlinna city.

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