Kansanmusiikin keruu ja kansallinen katse: Erkki Ala-Könnin tallennustyö toisen tasavallan Suomessa vuosina 1941–1974

This doctoral dissertation explores the ideologies and guiding principles for the col- lection of traditional folk music in Finland from the beginning of the twentieth century until the 1970s. It focuses on the work of folk music scholar and collector Erkki Ala-Könni (1911–1996), who was a leading authority on Finnish folk music research. It takes its analytical stance from the concept of methodological nationalism, adopting a national gaze to scrutinise how the concept of Finnish folk music was con- structed. The analysis concentrates on how nation-building and a national gaze guided data collection practices and what characteristics of methodological nationalism were involved in the collection of archive materials in Finland.

The study is situated within a framework of intellectual history: it examines how the collecting of traditional Finnish folk music was emphasised as a part of musicology and folk music research. Ala-Könni’s work intertwined with the development of these disciplines and his conceptualizations about folk music have had a lasting im- pact. For example, they have affected archive collections, folk music research, the music policy of the Finnish Broadcasting Company and folk music events. This study addresses the period from 1941 to 1974, covering Ala-Könni’s early career, from his first fieldwork until he received the title of professor. During this period, folk music research was a part of the so-called national disciplines, which also encompassed research on domestic and Finno-Ugric languages, Finnish literature, ethnology and folkloristics. These disciplines were soon in a state of cross-pressure in terms of what the concepts of folk and nation included and excluded.

The sources used for this dissertation include interviews and lists of contents for audio recordings compiled by Ala-Könni, which are subjected to qualitative and statistical analyses, respectively. The analyses illuminate the changing ideological foundations of the national gaze and how the definitions of Finnish folk were set during the time that historian Pertti Alasuutari (1996) calls the second republic of Finland. Alasuutari further divides this period into the stage of moral economy (from the end of the Second World War until the mid-1960s) and the stage of planned economy (from the late 1960s until the early 1980s). During the period of the first republic (from 1917, when Finland gained independence, to 1944), the collection work was mainly carried out by Ala-Könni’s teachers and mentors, while the two stages comprising the second republic of Finland coincided with his active professional career.

From the 19th century until the end of the Second World War, ethnographic collection practices were characterised by ideals that portrayed the illiterate population as inferior compared to the intelligentsia. Ala-Könni followed this view by pointing out musical illiteracy of traditional folk music performers. During the first republic, ethnographers were mainly interested in East Finnish traditions. However, this emphasis shifted when Finnish Eastern Karelia was ceded to the Soviet Union after the Continuation War (1941–1944). Along with many other researchers, Ala- Könni redirected his fieldwork in the 1940s and 1950s to Western Finland, in particular the land-owning rural population of Southern and Central Ostrobothnia. These collection interests gave an image of an apparent coherent population. In reality, however, the population of Finland during the 1940s was not as homogenous as the collections might imply. For example, oral histories relaying the Finnish Civil War separate the population into two camps.

The analysis shows that Ala-Könni’s views changed over time and that the ideal of a rural idyll started to crumble in the early 1960s, when he began negotiations on transferring his collections to Tampere School of Social Sciences (Tampereen Yhteiskunnallinen Korkeakoulu, soon thereafter renamed the University of Tampere). This change was driven by sociological trends favoured within the school. In particular, the younger generation of sociologists stressed that acknowledging conflicts should be part of the solution to social problems. This was a clear impetus for Ala- Könni to expand his fieldwork to urban areas and to take both parties of the Finnish Civil War into account. The Department of Folk Tradition was established in 1965, and as head of the department, Ala-Könni organised several fieldwork courses to municipalities all around Finland. Regional policy support, as granted to the municipalities by the State, allowed for the financing of these trips and the establishment of local museums, to which Ala-Könni’s activities also contributed. As collecting folk tradition rose in popularity, new movements emerged in the late 1960s, including a folk music movement aimed at establishing the discipline of folk music re- search. A politically supportive structure for this was the Centre Party of Finland, whose objectives of promoting an ideology of regional decentralisation and rural advocacy were in line with the aims of the folk music movement. While the national gaze during the first republic of Finland was highly influenced by the political right, after the war, it was increasingly determined from the political centre.

As the folk music movement gained momentum, Ala-Könni supported the work of musical composition and arrangement in contemporary folk music, which tore down the earlier division between the ordinary Finnish people and the intelligentsia. Circumstances, however, were still not equal, and the archive collections show this, especially in examining the status of women, indigenous people and minorities. The amount of the archive material related to these groups is relatively small and, from a contemporary point of view, the attitudes represented cannot be understood as culturally sensitive.

Understanding the various stages of the Finnish national gaze is useful for com- prehending the nature of the materials Ala-Könni collected and the role of methodological nationalism in Finnish (folk) music research. The audio samples he recorded are still actively worked with to this day in both academic and artistic research. This dissertation also stresses the importance of studying not only what the archives contain but also how the materials in the collections were chosen and what was left out. Thus, these archival silences, as well as new ways to examine collections so that these silences can be better represented, are also highlighted in this study.