Santeri Ivalo
1866–1937
Biography
Santeri Ivalo was born Herman Alexander Ingman in Sodankylä, in northern Finland, on 9 June 1866, and used that name until 1907. He died in Helsinki on 25 January 1937. He was a writer, journalist and historian, and the son of a parish priest. He studied history and had a particular interest in the past of northern Finland.
He was one of the founders of the newspaper Päivälehti, where he worked as a journalist and then as editor-in-chief until the paper closed in 1904. From 1905 he was on the staff of Helsingin Sanomat, and he served as its editor-in-chief in 1918 to 1920 and again in 1932. He sat in the Finnish Diet and was a founder member of the Finnish Writers' Union.
His early fiction is realistic and deals with the period in which he lived. Aikansa lapsipuoli (1895) takes as its subject the rise of realism in the intellectual life of nineteenth-century Finland. Juho Vesainen, his first historical novel, is based on the life of a real man, Pekka Vesainen, and is often counted his finest work. From 1909 he published a sequence of historical novels that follows one family through Finland's history from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. Two of his books are on this site: Aikansa lapsipuoli, the realist novel of his own time, and Anna Fleming (1898), a historical novel. Together they show both sides of his fiction.
This biography was written by a language model. The sources below are where to check it; treat details with care.
Books
Aikansa lapsipuoli
by Santeri Ivalo
Juuso, a young graduate with large ideals and no head for business, leaves his country lodgings by tar boat for the town and the career everyone expects of him. Beside his practical friend Heikki, who knows how to get on, he finds that a dreamer can be a stepchild of his own…
Summary written by Claude Opus 5.5.Anna Fleming: Historiallinen romaani
by Santeri Ivalo
In the 1590s Finland is held for the Swedish crown by the harsh marshal Klaus Fleming, hated by the peasants he taxes and quarters soldiers on. His daughter Anna comes of age amid noble weddings, court quarrels and the rising anger of the countryside. Ivalo's historical novel…
Summary written by Claude Opus 5.5.