As a writer, Jaakko Juteini had two identities. Under his Swedish name he wrote in Swedish for the Swedish-speaking officials, explicating the intricacies of the Finnish tongue. In Finnish he signed off as Jak. Juteini with the aim of raising the Finnish-speaking populace in terms of its command of Finnish and its status more generally. He could also snipe at Swedish-language bureaucracy when writing in Finnish, since those overseeing and enforcing censorship did not fully comprehend Finnish.

Another issue of great concern for Juteini was over dialects and their influence on written expression. Although Juteini himself was from the region of Häme in southern Finland, he didn’t allow himself to be seduced by any particular dialect, striving instead for a standard written form. The issue of written expression, and what was to be its basis, was finally resolved in 1835 with the publication of the national epic Kalevala, whose popularity meant it served as an exemplar of standard Finnish.

Kaarina Sala describes Juteini’s writing style as rough and ready. The texts were usually written in a readily memorable form, in verse or even as lyric. Juteini’s writings however were met with unfavourable reactions. The first diatribe against Juteini was levelled in 1818 by an obscure representative of the clerisy in the Diet. The virulence of the attack meant that a whole year would pass before Juteini resumed his public writing.

Some ten years later Juteini’s writing had again attracted attention, but this time the matter was taken to court. The background to the affair was a work entitled Anteckningar af tankar uti varianta ämnen,(‘Notes on reflections on diverse matters’) which, on the basis of an anonymous tip-off, the court interpreted as contravening both the teaching of the Bible and the Creed. The work was consequently burned as heretical. Later the verdict was overturned.

For all that, Juteini’s reputation remained intact. He had got married a year prior to the court case and a child was born in 1827. On reaching pensionable age he was granted an honorary doctorate at the Imperial Alexander University, which in itself gives some indication of just how important he was in shaping the language. Later Julius Krohn was to refer to him as “ensimmäiseksi varsinaiseksi kirjailijaksi suomen kielellä” – “the first proper writer in Finnish”.

Retirement was not the end of it however. He continued to write: he was a founder member of the Viipuri Finnish Literature Society and would have been chosen as president, had he not declined the invitation. He was also offered a local censor’s position of trust in 1847, which he committed himself to before resigning due to the strain of the tasks. Jaakko Juteini died in Viipuri in 1885, where he is buried. The gravestone read “Here lies the earthly wise Doctor Jaakko Juteini”. Unfortunately the gravestone itself went missing some time in the 1960s.

Juteini’s son published a posthumous selection of his father’s works under the name Jak. Juteinin kirjoja I - XII (1856 - 1858).

References:

• ”Jaakko Juteini” Häme-Wiki website. Accessed March 19, 2015
• Kaarina Sala, ”Juteini, Jaakko”.National Biography of Finland online. Accessed March 19, 2015.
• Wikipedia, ”Jaakko Juteini”. Accessed March 19, 2015.

Citation: Julius Krohn, Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden vaiheet, cited in Sala

Poem cited in the title can be read in full here.