Sibelius is often read in the context of his own age, and it is true he came to maturity as an artist at the height of Russification, becoming a symbol of Finnish resistance to imperial domination. Yet we should also look back to the earlier, more optimistic years in the Russo-Finnish relationship, years that did as much to form modern Finland as did the events of 1899 to 1917. When, during the years of oppression, Finns laid flowers at the statue of Alexander II in Helsinki’s Senate Square, they were implicitly criticizing the current policies of Nicholas II by comparing him to his illustrious forebear. The monument to Alexander II depicts him surrounded by the symbols of “Law,” “Light,” “Labor,” and “Peace,” just as the nearby House of the Estates (1891) represents Alexander I confirming the basic laws of Finland at the Diet of Porvoo in 1809. And in 1900, in the wake of the February Manifesto, the Finnish pavilion at the Paris Universal Exposition included Ville Vallgren’s stele for Alexander II as a positive symbol of Russia’s role in Finnish history and society.51 Finlandia, itself a product of the first wave of Russification, thus encapsulates a specific moment in a dynamic historical process and should be read against the evolving background of both Russian and Finnish societies. In its allusion to Alexander II as the spirit of history, Finlandia encodes the various competing ideas that Russia could signify to patriotic Finns in 1899, and embodies an interpretation of Finnish history in which Russia had played a constructive role quite distinct from the repressive policies of Nicholas II and his nationalist supporters.
Russian Culture and the Arts in Finland
Although some of Sibelius’s works were clearly written with a patriotic intent (and perceived as such), his personality was by and large apolitical.52 Ekman’s biography quotes him as saying: “Politics have never interested me in themselves. That is to say—all empty talk of political questions, all amateurish politicising I have always hated. I have always tried to make my contribution in another way.”53 There were important personal considerations that led Sibelius to remain aloof from many of the most heated debates in Finnish society, not the least of which was his decidedly complex attitude to Finnish nationalism. Like many members of the Fennoman movement, he was a native speaker of Swedish. Despite the decisive influence of his marriage to Aino Järnefelt, a member of one of the most prominent Fennoman families, he was nonetheless capable of expressing considerable skepticism about key elements of the nationalist project. In 1910, for instance, he noted in his diary: “Looked at the Kalevala and it struck me—how I have grown away from this naïve poetry.”54 On the eve of the Great War, he likewise despaired about the quality of the Finnish leadership: “I would set greater store by the Swedish-speaking element of the population than I do by our Finns!”55 Sibelius’s silence on many of the key questions of turn-of-the-century Finnish politics (not least his explicit rejection of Robert Kajanus’s interpretation of the Second Symphony as an anti-Russian narrative of Finnish self-realization) is persuasive evidence both of his acute sensitivity to being caught up in contentious topics and of the absolute primacy of artistic creativity in his emotional makeup.
The dominance of political factors in discussions of Russo-Finnish relations has tended to overshadow the profound cultural contacts that existed between the two countries. If Finnish politics were characterized by sharp debates about internal politics and external diplomacy, then the cultural sphere was more responsive to a broad range of cosmopolitan influences, of which Russia was but one.56 Sibelius’s exposure to Russia began early; his home town Hämeenlinna (Tavastehus in Swedish) hosted a Russian garrison. As Sibelius recalled:
The Russian officers and their families brought a breath of another and larger world, which it was interesting to become acquainted with, and provided the good citizens of Tavastehus with much material for wonder and observation. The Russian element played an important element in my childhood, for at that time the relationship between Finns and Russians was not what it became later: both sides tried to maintain a good understanding.57
Musically speaking, the many miniatures for violin and piano and for piano solo that Sibelius wrote from a young age clearly betray the influence of the Russian repertoire that would have been prevalent in the schools and salons of Hämeenlinna (and Helsinki, too). As Goss writes:
Clearly, it was the violinists associated with Russia and especially with Saint Petersburg who were of first importance to him. With some awe he writes of meeting the violin “virtuoso” Trostchefsky, probably a music-loving lieutenant in the local garrison; of the nearly unbelievable performance of Gerhard Brassin, a Belgian violinist based in Saint Petersburg; of the fabulous violin that had been owned by Ferdinand Laub, professor of violin at Moscow Conservatory; of playing the works of Henry Vieuxtemps, another Belgian violinist who taught at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory; and of Jacques-Pierre Rode, who had been violinist to the czar. Sibelius’s first violin teacher in Helsinki, Mitrofan Wasilieff, came to the Helsinki Music Institute from Saint Petersburg where he had played with the Imperial String Quartet; according to Sibelius, he bore the very best references from none other than Anton Rubinstein. Sibelius reports that he himself played Rubinstein’s C minor quartet at a glittering evening held in one of Helsinki’s elegant homes.58
A broader and more clearly articulated vision of Russian culture emerged in 1889, when Sibelius became acquainted with the group of young Fennoman artists associated with the Finnish-language newspaper Päivälehti. For all their nationalist credentials, figures such as Arvid and Eero Järnefelt nonetheless had strong connections with Russian artistic and social circles, as did their sister, Aino, who became Sibelius’s wife in 1892. The Järnefelts’ interest in the Russian arts stemmed largely from their family background; their mother, Elisabeth Järnefelt (née Clodt von Jürgensburg), was born into a prominent St. Petersburg aristocratic family in 1839. (By contrast, their father, Alexander Järnefelt, embodied the administrative and practical links between the two countries. After serving in the Russian army he returned to Finland as governor of Mikkeli, Kuopio, and Vaasa, as well as serving in the administration of the Finnish Senate.) Along with being a major author in his own right, Arvid Järnefelt was a prominent disciple of Lev Tolstoy, several of whose works he translated into Finnish and whose ideals he tried to embody in his daily life.59 Tolstoyan principles of social equality, proximity to the people, passive resistance to evil, and the cultivation of the simple life ran deep in the Järnefelt family, and many of the copies of Tolstoy’s works in Sibelius’s library belonged in fact to his wife.60 Sibelius himself was not immune from moments of Tolstoyan romanticism, here expressed in a letter to his wife: “In my new sheepskin coat I look like a veritable peasant. It feels so nice: it would be good if one did not have to pretend to be upper class in other circumstances as well.”61 Sibelius was generally more familiar with classical works of Russian literature, describing Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment as “head and shoulders above Turgenev,”62 and sending Aino a copy of Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin from Vienna in March 1891.63 But it was in the field of the visual arts that the Järnefelt family was most intimately connected with Russian culture. Elisabeth’s family contained a large number of artists, including the sculptor Pyotr Clodt von Jürgensburg and the realist painter Mikhail Clodt. Appropriately enough, Eero Järnefelt trained at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg from 1883 to 1886, and his paintings betray the profound influence of nineteenth-century Russian realism (see Figure 1).64
Figure 1. Eero Järnefelt, Summernight Moon, 1889.
Eero was rather typical of Russo-Finnish relations in the visual arts.65 Not only had previous generations of Finnish artists, such as Albert Edelfelt, also trained in St. Petersburg, but Russian patrons and critics generally looked to Finland for evidence of the vitality of the arts in the empire. Edelfelt himself was exhibited widely in Russia around the turn of the century and enjoyed the particular patronage of Nicholas II, painting a number of official and private portraits for the royal family.66 A
nd in the autumn of 1898, Sergei Diaghilev organized the inaugural exhibition of the Mir iskusstva (World of Art) group in St. Petersburg, in which paintings by both Russian and Finnish artists were displayed with equal prominence.67 As the case of Edelfelt suggests, rising tensions between Russia and Finland did not necessarily impede cultural contacts between the two countries. Indeed, such contacts were indicative of a shared disdain for Russian autocracy, which frequently provided a common cause for Finnish and Russian artists. An important, if excessively mythologized, feature of the Russian arts was a critical attitude to authority. This attitude was typical of the liberal politics of the Russian intelligentsia, described by Richard Taruskin as “a noble tradition of artistic and social thought—one that abhorred injustice and political repression, but also one that valued social commitment, participation in one’s community, and solidarity with people.”68 These were the politics of the Järnefelt family, as well as of many Finnish artists who adopted not just the artistic techniques but also the social commitment of their Russian colleagues. During periods of intense Russification, Russian artists lent their support to the Finnish cause, arguing that the autocracy did not represent Russia itself; similarly, Finnish artists could express anti-autocratic statements while maintaining their respect for what they saw as the positive aspects of Russian culture.
The convergence of such political and artistic agendas is perhaps clearest in the relationship between Akseli Gallen-Kallela and Maxim Gorky. In the wake of the first Russian Revolution of 1905, Gallen-Kallela organized a literary and musical evening that revealed the shared interests of Finnish nationalists and Russian radicals at the time:
On 1 February 1906 . . . an unusual literary and musical evening took place in the Finnish National Theatre. Maxim Gorky and Eino Leino read excerpts from their works, and Kajanus conducted Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings and Sibelius’s Spring Song and The Ferryman’s Bride while the proceedings went to those who had suffered during the recent unrest in Russia, i.e., the revolutionaries. The thought of Tchaikovsky and Sibelius as symbols of the bond between Finnish in• 20 • tellectuals and Russian radicals is not a little bizarre. After the general strike, many Russian revolutionaries took refuge in Finland where police vigilance was less strict, and where they could count on the support of both the bourgeois and the socialist elements in society. Gorky’s journey had been organized on the Finnish side by Gallen-Kallela who was an active supporter of the resistance movement, even to the extent of hiding smuggled arms in his drawing-room sofa, and receiving Russian revolutionaries in his home. However, his ardour was somewhat cooled by the plans for a bank robbery that were mooted by some of the group, and he quietly withdrew to his country retreat!69
Gallen-Kallela eventually helped to smuggle Gorky out of Finland and away from the attentions of the Russian authorities (Gorky would spend the next seven years in exile on Capri). Eero Järnefelt shared something of Gallen-Kallela’s sympathy for the Russian radicals, although Sibelius—who attended a dinner hosted by his brother-in-law a few days later in honor of Gorky and Gallen-Kallela—does not appear to have recorded his reactions (more evidence, if any were needed, of his cautiously apolitical nature). Whatever the private feelings of Finns toward Russian revolutionaries, what is most striking about Gorky’s stay in Finland in 1906 is the way in which Finnish artistic nationalism and Russian radical activism intersected and overlapped, at least for a time. Gallen-Kallela’s 1906 portrait of Gorky is but one artistic trace of this particular moment, just as Ilya Repin’s portrait of Gallen-Kallela in turn captures a later, more troubled episode in Finnish-Russian relations (Figures 2 and 3).
Yet the straightforward association between Finnish artistic nationalism and Russian liberal politics was not always so easily maintained, as the career of Robert Kajanus, Finland’s leading orchestral conductor at the end of the nineteenth century and Sibelius’s supporter (and sometime rival), suggests.70 Kajanus enjoyed strong connections with Russia, traveling there regularly to conduct and performing Russian works back in Helsinki. When, in 1905, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov was dismissed from his position at the St. Petersburg Conservatory for supporting the right of students to engage in political protest,71 Kajanus refused to conduct in Russia until Rimsky-Korsakov (as well as Alexander Glazunov and Anatoliy Lyadov) had been reinstated.72 Yet Kajanus’s behavior was not always so high-minded. In 1896, along with Sibelius and musicologist Ilmari Krohn, Kajanus applied for the position of director of music at the University of Helsinki. When Sibelius was nominated by the Finnish committee, Kajanus resorted to a number of strategies to have the decision overturned:
Figure 2. Axel Gallen-Kallela, Portrait of Maxim Gorky, 1906, Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki.
A series of labyrinthine bureaucratic twists playing out over many months gradually revealed where the real power lay. It began with Kajanus’s bitter objection to the decision and his demand for a new vote. He gained one supporter. Sibelius’s name then went forward to Saint Petersburg, to the man with the final authority: Carl Woldemar von Daehn (1838–1900), Finland’s minister-secretary of state. In a resourceful episode of shuttle diplomacy for which he later became notorious, Kajanus himself visited Saint Petersburg. . . . On July 29, 1897, von Daehn overruled the Finns’ recommendation and appointed Robert Kajanus to the position.73
Although what actually happened remains unknown, Kajanus’s direct appeal to the St. Petersburg establishment tainted his reputation for decades to come (Krohn was still repeating the story in the 1950s).74 Even fifteen years later, in 1912, when Kajanus successfully urged the Russian authorities to support Finnish musical institutions threatened with major cuts to the financial support provided by the Finnish senate, his astute intervention was greeted with hostility:
Figure 3. Ilya Repin, Portrait of Axel Gallen-Kallela, 1920, Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki.
Kajanus went to St. Petersburg to plead the orchestra’s case with Glazunov and he obtained a meeting with Kokovstov, the President of the Council of Ministers who promised to take up the matter with the Governor-General of Finland, Seyn. There is no doubt whatsoever that Kajanus acted in a spirit of complete altruism but his intervention was much resented by certain nationalist elements and aroused strong feelings, particularly among the Swedish-speaking community, who saw him using his personal influence in the Imperial capital to further his own ends. As a result he became the victim of a highly vocal campaign and his concerts were boycotted.75
Even Sibelius was disturbed, noting in his diary that “Kajanus has again appealed to St. Petersburg . . . and will bow and scrape to Kokovstov and Seyn.”76 The various stories about Kajanus’s involvement with Russian artists and institutions illustrate the complex interaction of politics and national identity that shaped not only how individuals acted but also how they were perceived.
Sibelius and Russian Music
The potential influence of Russian music on Sibelius has been an important theme in critical discussion of his works from the very beginning of his career as a composer.77 Ironically enough, given the political situation at the time, the impact of Russian works has been perceived most readily in his compositions of the 1890s and early 1900s, from Kullervo (1891–92) to the Violin Concerto (1903–4, revised version 1905). Although Sibelius’s letters and diaries contain few explicit or extended references to Russian music, he was happy enough to affirm his admiration for Tchaikovsky in particular, admitting to his wife that “there is much in that man that I recognize in myself.”78 The details of Sibelius’s involvement with Russian music are, however, largely tangential. As a young musician resident in what was then part of the Russian Empire, Sibelius could well have pursued his studies in the nearest city with an established and influential conservatory: St. Petersburg. Yet despite the encouragement of his brother-in-law Eero Järnefelt, Sibelius went instead to Berlin and Vienna.79 (It would be a later generation of Finnish composers who would orient themselves more explicitly toward Russia.)80 In 1895, supported by Ferruccio Buso
ni, Glazunov, and Rimsky-Korsakov, Sibelius approached Mitrofan Belyayev, whose influential publishing house dealt exclusively with Russian composers around the turn of the century; again, the venture came to nothing.81 Sibelius’s first trip to Russia—excluding passing through St. Petersburg on his way to Italy in 1900—took place as late as December 1906, when he conducted performances of Pohjola’s Daughter and “Lemminkäinen’s Return” in St. Petersburg.82 He returned the following November, conducting the Third Symphony in both St. Petersburg and Moscow, where he also performed Pohjola’s Daughter and a number of smaller pieces.83 Initial reactions were promising. He had a firm advocate in the conductor Alexander Siloti, and even before his arrival, his name was mentioned in specialist music periodicals.84 Years later, in an interview with Svenska Dagbladet, Sibelius recalled his reception in Russia with affection: “My most vivid recollection is of a concert in Moscow during the old times. There is an understanding of and an enthusiasm for music which has no counterpart elsewhere. For the Slavs, music lies in their blood.”85 The reviews of his first appearance in Russia were enthusiastic, with one explicitly linking him to the Russian tradition:
Of contemporary artists, Sibelius, as a composer, stands closest of all, by virtue of his taste, inclinations and direction, to Rimsky-Korsakov. There is the same national feeling in music, natural, spontaneous and free, the same tendency to paint in sound, the same feeling for the world of fairy tales and ancient myth, and above all, the same sense of fantasy and boldness when it comes to orchestral color. . . . Having heard this piece [“Lemminkäinen’s Return”], one can only regret that the late V. V. Stasov was unable to hear it performed. How this music would have enchanted him, with his hunger for talent and originality and his happy ability to relish things, which he retained in his old age.86
Jean Sibelius and His World Page 4