When in the autumn of 1970 I entered the University of Helsinki to study Comparative Literature and Aesthetics (the subject had recently changed its name from Aesthetics and Contemporary Literature), Sanskrit, and Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, it was a revolutionary time.

After the Second World War there was an increasing desire in Finnish cultural circles to cleanse the spirit of the reconstruction era from the attitudes and approaches of the 1930s.

The literary field is a garden of forking paths even in a small country like Finland. It offers a seedbed for the cultivation of the spirit, trade and simple pastimes alike. However, without professional authors and their networks with other actors in the field, both in Finland and abroad, the entire literary institution would wither, becoming infertile ground with pale sprigs of plants writhing in the dark like forgotten potato sprouts in a cellar.

Supporting culture with tax money sometimes arouses protests in people who mainly consume cultural products mainly at mass events or in the flow of fashions and trends. Why support something that ‘doesn’t interest anybody’?

It is not particularly joyful to make guesses about how long the nation-state project will remain intact, and thus how long the main language of Finland will be Finnish. The question may still be justifiable in the pressures of various signs of globalisation and climate change.

When translation is considered an art form, then it is easy to forget that that is ultimately only a part of the process in which the contents of consciousness get transmitted.