In international matters my biggest contribution has been to lead research projects. I have been involved in organising at least twenty international symposia. The ones I remember most fondly were the so-called Tartu seminars, starting in 1987. The Nordic graduate school in Russian literature was extremely active for several years, organising effective seminars, with top names invited from all over the world. The last project I was in was the multidisciplinary ‘Understanding Russianness’. Sociologists, folklore specialists, linguists and literary scholars all took part.

My hobby of semiotics got me involved in the International Semiotics Institute’s activities and management. The huge international congresses held in Imatra on the Finnish border with Russia, and at their best the gathering of people from various academic fields during winter have been unforgettable.

Some of the most interesting of my international duties concern evaluation or assessment in other universities. By contrast the most frustrating have been in Brussels where attempts have been made to put in ranking order, in their entirety, the world’s publications in literary scholarship in an international committee whose actual aim has been to rank research in the humanities with a round zero.

In my alma mater, Russian and East European research has been supported and organised through various institutions. I have been working - both at a practical level  and in an executive capacity -with the Institute for Russian and East European studies as was (formerly the Soviet Institute), the Renvall Institute for Area Studies, and the Alexander Institute. I have been involved with the latter since its inception.

The Finnish Slavists’ own association is Slavistipiiri, which just turned fifty. I was chairman for a dozen or so yers in the 1980s and 1990s.

I have been writing for the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper about Russian and to some degree about other literatures since 1975. I made my first radio broadcast even earlier. Of special importance have been the programmes I put together with Eeva Luotonen in the 2000s, including the 20-part series Venäläiset viisaat (2003-05), where our guests were scholars and translators, but also theatre people, politicians and members of the press.

Outside of my research work, the most interesting, and probably most internationally recognized task came in 1999. I was one of the panelists – one non-Russian is always invited - for Russia’s most significant literary prize. I was of a completely different opinion from the rest of the panel. The marginalized appealed to me as their own man and in turn were labelled as writers that “only western Slavists can understand.” This latter is a label that has stayed with me, and I’m not sure whether it’s not a cause for pride.

In 2013 some colleagues and I set up the ‘Venäläinen kirjallisuuden seura’ (‘The Russian literary society’). The society has organised lecture series, literary pilgrimages, held reding circles and published an online magazine “Ajan kohina” (‘Noise of time’). There are currently about 300 active members from all walks of life. The society’s latest lecture series ‘Dostojevski’ runs from March 9 to April 5, 6-8pm in room 6 of the Metsätalo building, Unioninkatu 40. The lectures (in Finnish) are open to members of the public.