The most important topic for my research and teaching is intimately connected to the variety of subjects that I studied in the 1960s. The chairs bore rather solemn titles: professor of Art History, professor of Aesthetics and Modern Literature, professor of Economic and Social History, professor of Fenno-Ugric Ethnology, professor of Finnish and Nordic Archaeology, and others in similar vein.

I spent almost ten years doing art history in practice, researching the history of construction under the auspices of the Finnish National Board of Antiquities and doing fieldwork in the major restoration projects of the castles of Olavinlinna, Häme and Turku. I returned to the University in the mid-1970s, first as a teacher and later as the long-serving assistant (assistant professor in American terms) in the Swedish-language wing of the bilingual Department of History. History taught through Swedish at the University was undergoing reform at the time, as Matti Klinge was nominated professor in 1977.

The temporal focus of my research has been the period 1750-1850. In the history of architecture, my particular interests have been military architecture and classicism. In terms of cultural geography, my research has focused on Finland, without ever forgetting the neighbouring states of Sweden and Russia.

For many years Matti Klinge ran a project in the 1980s on the history of Helsinki University in the years 1640-1990, and this meant that the University and its library became both the topic and locus of my work. I wrote about university buildings myself and edited the entire three-volume work in Finnish and Swedish. In 2007, it made sense to continue this work by writing the history of the library, which gave me a unique window on the history of science and ideas in Finland as manifest in this one institution.

At the same time, I went on teaching and supervising theses at the university – as well as coming up with book projects. After I completed Finlands svenska litteraturhistoria I-II (‘The history of Swedish literature in Finland’, 1999-2000), I was employed by Svenska litteratursällskapet, the Swedish literature society, from 2001 to 2007, a period during which it greatly strengthened its role as an academic publisher.

During all these years, the same topics have been closest to my heart: Viborg, eastern Finland and Russia in the 18th century, the history of horticulture, the history of books and libraries, attempts to understand European classicism and romanticism.

In an interview by the Svenska Litteratursällskapet i Finland, Rainer Knapas gives his views on the role of the National Library in the Finnish history of ideas. The interview also offers an insight into the diversity of the library’s book collections.