What Tove Jansson wrote for children. Finnish writer Tove Jansson: biography, personal life and creativity. The legacy of Tove Jansson
tove janson troll fairy tale
Childhood
Tove Marika Jansson was born in Helsinki on August 9, 1914 Ahola S. Tove Jansson. Writer, illustrator, artist. // One hundred famous Finns. Helsinki, 2004. P.777.
On her mother's side, she belonged to the ancient Swedish family of Hammarsten, from which many prominent statesmen and just famous people. Tove's mother, Signe Hammarsten (1882-1970), was the granddaughter of a pastor and the daughter of a court preacher. Braude L. Small prose of the great writer. // Jansson T. The sculptor’s daughter. St. Petersburg, 2001. P.8 As Tove Jansson said, her parents did not allow Signe to become an artist. Despite this, she first got a job as an art teacher in a Stockholm girls' school, and then, as an adult, went to study in Paris. There, in 1910, Signe Hammarsten met Viktor Jansson, a Finnish sculptor who was four years younger than her. Ahola S. Tove Jansson. Writer, illustrator, artist. // One hundred famous Finns. Helsinki, 2004. P.779
Victor Jansson (1886-1958) was the son of a haberdashery merchant from Helsinki. Braude L. Small prose of the great writer. // Jansson T. The sculptor’s daughter. St. Petersburg, 2001. P.7 His father died early. His mother continued to run the store, but business was not going well, and until his marriage, Victor had to help his mother run the store. But it was precisely thanks to his forced stay in Finland that he managed to take a place in the ranks of the first generation of Finnish sculptors who were educated in their homeland.
He took part in Civil War in parts of the White Army, and rose from private to sergeant. After the war he became a renowned architect and sculptor of war-related monuments. In particular, he designed the freedom monuments in Lahti and Tampere, as well as the monument at the war cemetery in Sysmä.
In the summer of 1913, Victor and Signe got married.? Ahola S. Tove Jansson. Writer, illustrator, artist. // One hundred famous Finns. Helsinki, 2004. P.779 First year life together the newlyweds spent in Paris. Then, in 1914, they moved to Helsinki and settled in an apartment-studio on Luotsinkatu Street on Katajanokka, known from Tove Jansson’s autobiographical book “The Sculptor’s Daughter.” Right there. A few months later, the family's first child, Tove Marika, was born. Later, Tove had two brothers - Per Olov (1920) and Lars (1926).
Signe Hammarsten-Jansson had to take full care of the family. If, when she married a sculptor, she thought about a career as an artist, her hopes were not fully realized. Of course, you can make art, if only the mother of three children has time for this, and if there is a place for this on the table in the corner of her husband’s studio. Signe only got his own work room in 1933, when the Janssons moved to new apartment at the Lallukka Artists' House. Ibid., S.780
She did some book illustrations even before her marriage. In Finland, her first works were book covers, and for the first time the signature “Brude” appeared on them. Gradually she became one of the most famous book illustrators in Finland.
Another important field of her activity was cartoons and caricatures; she was still doing this in Stockholm. In Finland, she began drawing for the Christmas magazine Lucifer, published by the Union of Swedish-Language Journalists, and later became a regular artist for the liberal humor magazine Garm.
In the 1920s Signe Hammarsten-Jansson was hired part-time as an artist at the Bank of Finland's banknote printing house. Over 28 years of work, she managed to draw 170 used postage stamps. Right there.
Authors who wrote about Tova Jansson noted the huge role of home and family both in her life and in her work. Motive hearth and home, we can find attachments to loved ones in almost all of her books, but in children’s books he is almost the main one. Judging by her memories, the Moomin family closely resembles Tove Jansson's own family. Moominpappa is the same as Victor Jansson - from time to time he becomes depressed from the green tranquility of Moomin Valley, puts his family in a boat, and moves to a rocky island with a lighthouse far out to sea. Moominmama and Signe Hammarsten-Jansson are very close to each other, rushing between creativity and housework. The Moomins live in their cozy Moomin House, to which all the restless are drawn, including even such a self-sufficient but lonely character as Snusmumrik. Tove herself left her parents' home when she was already 28 years old. Ibid., S.778
Tove Jansson titled her childhood memoirs "The Sculptor's Daughter." This is more a gesture of love than an indication of her father's fundamental influence, since in her life and work Tove was more the daughter of an artist than a sculptor. Tove loved her mother very much, and as a child she constantly watched her work. In 1928, she writes in her diary: “At my mother’s important work. (...) I'm looking forward to the time when I can help my mother work on illustrations. She does so much work alone." Ibid., p. 781 The attitude towards her mother did not change over time. Even at the age of 78, Tove Jansson still said, "that she always tried to be like her mother, she always tried to draw like her." There same.
But it would not be entirely true to say that a tender attitude towards her mother and constant observation of how she worked had a decisive influence on Tove Jansson’s choice of profession. The atmosphere in which she grew up was important for the development of her creative personality.
Tove Jansson's house was not just the home of a friendly family; first of all, it was a home for artists. Their apartment consisted of practically one room - a workshop, where there were many sculptures made by Victor Jansson. There was also a table at which the mother worked, and the children slept in the same room on the mezzanine. Little Tove always saw her mother bending over a drawing and her father with a chisel in his hand.
Theater director Vivica Bandler writes in her memoirs: “Tove was raised to treat everyone who was not an artist with compassion.” Ibid., P.778 She made no effort to become an artist - she was one from birth, and never imagined herself in another role.
Marika Tove Jansson is an artist and writer originally from Finland, all of her stories were written in Swedish. Her works about the Moomins brought her popularity. Their amazing world is still used in the design of various products, and the books have been translated into more than 40 languages.
But Tove did not stop at just one thing, she was fond of graphics, often drawing caricatures and comics. The woman was born on August 9, 1914 in the city of Helsinki.
Creative family
The mother of the future writer was an artist, her name was Signe Hammarsten. Father, Victor Jansson, was a sculpture. Tove was the first child; her brothers Per and Lars chose the professions of photographer and artist, respectively. In interviews, the artist often spoke about her mother, who came from an ancient revered family, but her father did not receive such attention. Marika spent her entire childhood with her grandmother in Sweden, near the sea.
At the age of 15, Jansson began studying art in Sweden. Since childhood, the girl was surrounded by creative people; she trained in Italy, France and Sweden. Tove's drawings were often presented at exhibitions; in addition, the girl participated in theatrical productions and created illustrations for printed publications.
The girl’s mother worked at Garm magazine, so her daughter had no obstacles to publishing her own comics and book illustrations. The works of L. Carroll and J. Tolkien enjoyed particular respect in her eyes.
First books
Even during her first trip to Germany, the girl drew the first Moomintroll. This small black behemoth bore a certain resemblance to characters who appeared much later. But Tove began full-fledged work on the drawings and book during the war, in 1939. This is not surprising, because colorful, positive characters created a unique atmosphere that helped to distract from the horrors that were happening. The writer wanted to create a fairy tale.
Initially, the Moomintroll character became Jansson's calling card; she constantly drew him next to her signature in the magazine. The creature had different emotions on its face, a long tail and small ears that resembled horns. It was slightly angular, but after a while it acquired a certain roundness.
The plot of the works itself was in some way borrowed from folklore, but most of it was composed by the writer herself. She drew some of her ideas from her own childhood, growing up with her characters. The image of home and family is very important in stories. This place is shown as the safest possible, where people will always support and understand. In the following works, the author gradually shows that not everything is so smooth and good in the world, but at the same time she teaches children not to be disappointed.
No less important in Jansson’s writings is the motif of freedom. It helps people understand that everyone has the right to their own opinion and self-realization; they cannot impose their ideas about the world on others. It is noteworthy that more adult works also came from her pen. The girl described her childhood in the story “The Sculptor’s Daughter”; several collections were also published in the 1970s - “Toy House”, “The Listener” and the novel “City of the Sun”. Critics attributed these works to the style of realism.
Artwork
Until the age of 28, Tove lived with her parents, so she remained a child at heart for a long time. In 1942, she moved into a separate apartment, where “Still Life with Daffodils” was painted, personifying her attitude to life. The picture is full of light and pleasant colors; it can be called sunny.
The girl’s apartment was equipped with a large workshop in light colors. Her beloved artist Tuulikki Pietilä worked in the same building. It was there that they celebrated the end of the war period. The girls often held parties for other representatives of contemporary art. Writers and artists walked until the morning.
A large number of Jansson’s self-portraits have been preserved, thanks to them it is not difficult to trace her attitude towards herself and changes. In 1940, the painting “Smoking Girl” was created, which personified the independence and willful character of a woman. Two years after this, Tove depicted herself in a lynx boa. She liked this job because of the difference in the softness of the suit and the severity of her facial features. The man's jacket made it clear that a woman was not going to give in to anyone in the field of art, she deserved exactly the same rights as her male colleagues.
Some critics did not like the artist’s paintings, since many of them were not completely finished. She was also distinguished by her love for a huge number of details that overloaded the canvases. But after a trip to France and Italy in 1948, Tove was able to correct her mistakes; progress was obvious even to the most picky visitors to the exhibition.
During her life, the woman managed to receive many awards. In 1952, she was awarded on behalf of the municipality of Stockholm; some time later, Tove was awarded the Hans Andersen and Selma Lagerlöf medals. She was also awarded the Polish Order of the Smile. Sometimes she was stressed by the commercialization of her works, so over time the writer decided to direct her creative energies in a different direction, taking up painting and writing novels.
The girl was not afraid to express her attitude to what was happening; she drew political cartoons, boldly signing them with her own name. Jansson has always been a pacifist. Tove was remembered by everyone as a person who perfectly understands the psychology of children. Each of her stories evoked many emotions in people, starting from an early age. The girl was able to especially subtly convey all the feelings that the children encountered; she helped them believe in themselves and develop as individuals.
Personal life and family
In the 1930s, the artist Sam Vanni was a family friend and lover of the woman. She painted his portrait, from which it is no longer difficult to determine his influence on Tove’s work. After the breakup, they remained friends, as is always the case with Jansson's relationships. She saw no point in wasting time on petty quarrels. The girl became friends with the wife of her ex-partner, they traveled together.
Even during the war, the artist had an affair with colleague Tapio Tapiovaara, and a little later she started a relationship with journalist Atos Virtanen. The man was the editor of a Social Democratic publication, as well as a member of parliament. They were even engaged for some time. But Jansson was adamant about marriage and children, so the couple separated. This mistaken relationship was the last straw, after which Tove realized that she was attracted to women.
After the war, the woman met director Vivica Badler, they began dating. Both girls were incredibly happy in their relationship, but Tove’s chosen one was married, and in addition, homosexuality was not approved in Finland of that period. But their love remained forever in the work about the Moomins, which was called “The Wizard’s Hat.” Even after the completion of the novel, they continued communication and creative collaboration. In 1951, former lovers traveled together.
The next girl, who became Jansson’s destiny, met her at a party. The artist Tuulikki Pietilä invited Tove to listen to jazz recordings, after which they were inseparable. The writer fell madly in love, she repeatedly dedicated lines to her new girl. This feeling inspired her to create new stories about the Moomins. It is noteworthy that every important person from Tove’s life was sooner or later depicted in books.
Autumn 1959 loving women went on a long journey across Europe. They celebrated Christmas in Paris, nine years after that the couple returned to the beautiful city. On June 27, 2001, at the age of 86, the writer died of a cerebral hemorrhage. She was buried in Finland.
Love to various types art was literally passed on to her by inheritance, because both of her parents also belonged to the creative world - Tove’s mother was a fairly famous illustrator, and her father was a skilled sculptor. Even both of Tove's younger brothers, having matured, chose professions related to creativity: Per-Olof chose the interesting profession of a photographer, and Lars chose to follow in the footsteps of his mother and older sister, becoming an artist.
Childhood and creativity of Tove Jansson
At the age of ten, Tove's mother, Signe, involved her in drawing illustrations for a popular children's magazine, where her good friend worked.
Despite such a young age, Tove successfully coped with her work, almost better than her older and more experienced illustrator colleagues. When Tova was fifteen years old, she went to a specialized college in Sweden to further study art. After graduating from the College of Art, she decides to undergo an internship at several art schools in Germany, Italy and France in order to become more familiar with the specifics of artistic skill different countries. After completing her studies, Tove returned to her homeland and continued to illustrate various books, as well as producing custom cartoons.
The Moomins of Tove Jansson
She could hardly imagine what a surge in popularity awaited her at the turn of the 50s-60s with the publication of a book series about the mysterious creatures Moomintrolls, inhabitants of Moominvalley. The fame that the stories about the Moomins brought to Tuva aroused rather contradictory feelings in the writer: on the one hand, Tove did not feel that she had any special talent for writing, because creating paintings gave her much more inspiration than writing stories; on the other hand, it was the tales of The Moomins gave Tuva the opportunity to become famous throughout the world.The increased attention to her person weighed heavily on Tuve, but her great popularity gave Tuve a chance to earn huge fees, thanks to which she was able to purchase her own personal island, on which Tuve often found privacy from annoying correspondents. Jansson never took her career as a writer and illustrator of Moomin stories seriously, but this topic was incredibly interesting to society and brought in huge income, so over time, Tove gladly turned stories about the Moomins into a family business, shifting all the responsibilities for illustrating comics to her younger brother Lars, who devoted twenty years of his life to these interesting and mysterious creatures. Thanks to such famous works, in Finland Tuva acquired the status of almost a national hero who made a huge contribution to world culture. Tove Jansson died in June 2001 from a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 86. 
Despite the fact that a lot of time has passed since her death, the echoes of the glory of her works are still alive. The Moomins are interesting not only to children, but also to a huge number of adults these days. In 2002, the Tove Jansson Literary Prize was officially approved in Finland.
Personal life of Tove Jansson
Few people know that the popular children's writer Tove Jansson, having crossed the threshold of her thirties, realized her attachment not only to men, but also to female. Tove Jansson openly declared her bisexuality, and although in general society had a negative attitude towards this phenomenon, hardly anyone had any complaints about Tova herself in this regard, because her personal life paled in comparison with her talent. In 1956, Tove began a relationship with the little-known artist Tuulikki Pietilä, which lasted 45 years until the writer’s death. According to the will, it was Pietilä who inherited all the real estate that belonged to Tuva, and the copyright for literary works passed to Tuva’s niece, Sofia Jansson (Lars’ daughter).Tove Jansson(Swede. Tove Jansson), Finnish-Swedish name pronunciation(inf.)) - famous Finnish writer, artist, illustrator. She gained worldwide fame thanks to her books about the Moomins. She wrote in Swedish.
Jansson was born into a bohemian family: her mother was the prominent artist Signe Hammarsten, a book illustrator who came to Finland from Sweden; father - recognized sculptor Viktor Jansson. Tove was the first child in the family. Her brother Per-Olof (b. 1920) later became a photographer, and her other brother Lars (1926-2000) became an artist.
On her mother's side, Tove belonged to the ancient Swedish family of Hammarsten, from which many prominent statesmen and simply famous people emerged. It is interesting that Jansson, who often mentioned her mother in books and interviews, spoke very little about her father. Much is known about her Swedish relatives and very little about her Finnish relatives on her father's side. As a child, Tove spent every summer in Sweden with her grandmother, in the town of Blido, not far from Stockholm.
“The most beautiful thing was that the sea was very close. And although he was not visible from the lawn near the house where my friends and I played, if suddenly during the games we suddenly became quiet, the sound of the surf reached us,” Tove recalled.
At the age of 15, Tove Jansson went to study in Sweden, receiving a diploma from the Faculty of Fine Arts. College of Arts (English), she is undergoing internships at art schools in France, Germany, and Italy. By this time, she had already achieved a certain recognition in her homeland, since almost from the age of 10 she had been doing illustrations for a popular children's magazine, the editor-in-chief of which was a good friend of her parents.
Having completed his studies abroad, Tove returned home and began illustrating books and drawing cartoons for various publications.
Jansson gained worldwide fame thanks to the book series about the Moomins: charming creatures living in the idyllic Moomin Valley. These books, for which Jansson did the illustrations herself, broke all records for popularity in the 1950s and 60s. They sold millions of copies and were published all over the world. For example, The Wizard's Hat alone has been translated into 34 languages, including Japanese, Thai and Farsi.
In total, Jansson wrote 8 stories about the Moomins (“Little Trolls and the Great Flood”, “Moomintroll and the Comet”, “The Wizard’s Hat”, “Dangerous Summer”, “Memoirs of Moominpappa”, “Magic Winter”, “Dad”) and the sea”, “At the end of November”), one collection of stories “The Invisible Child”, 4 picture books (“Dangerous Journey”, “What Then”, “Who Will Comfort the Little One”, “The Fraudster in the Moomin House” ). Jansson personally adapted her books for the theater. Based on “Dangerous Summer,” she first wrote the play “The Moomins Behind the Scenes” and then the libretto for the musical “Moomin Opera.”
Jansson had ambivalent feelings about the popularity that had befallen her. On the one hand, she was irritated by the excessive commercialization of her work, on the other, it was the huge income received from all kinds of Moomin-themed products (T-shirts, caps, posters, badges) that allowed her to rent and then buy ownership of the island of Klovharun in the Gulf of Finland, where she often hid from journalists and annoying admirers.
The worldwide success of The Wizard's Hat brought Jansson to the attention of the Associated Press, from where she received a letter with the following words: “The wonderful creatures you created could become the heroes of a comic book that we would like to print.” Tova was offered a contract for seven years. She happily agreed: the contract to publish the comic book guaranteed her a stable income. Jansson's circle condemned her: all her friends thought that she had sold her talent to Western mass culture. In addition, drawing children's comics was considered humiliating in bohemian circles. Tove herself believed that poverty was worse than any humiliation. The first comic strip appeared on the pages of the London newspaper The Evening News on September 20, 1954. At the peak of Moomin-themed popularity, Jansson's comic strip was sold in 17 countries and published in 58 editions.
Initially, Jansson personally drew each strip of the comic, but she soon became bored with this work, and she handed it over to her brother Lars, who created and drew Moomin comics non-stop for 20 years, turning them into a very profitable business.
Surprisingly, Jansson herself always emphasized that, first of all, she was an artist, and did not take her literary activity very seriously. However, her paintings have always attracted much less attention than books about Moomins.
Among Jansson's works as an artist, the most famous are:
- murals in the Helsinki City Hall (1947)
- wall painting in the Hamina City Hall (1952)
- wall painting in the building of the secondary school in Karya (1953)
- painting of the altar in the church of the city of Teuva (1954)
Over the years, the popularity of Moomin books did not decline, but on the contrary, only grew. Tove Jansson's books attract the attention of not only children, but also adult readers and even scientists. Many dissertations were defended on Jansson’s work, and her fairy tales were subjected to semiotic and psychoanalytic analysis. Her books contain echoes of Zen Buddhism and Christianity, and references to the philosophy of Kant.
The celebration of Jansson's 80th birthday in 1994 turned into a state event comparable in scale and pathos to Independence Day. The country celebrated the birthday of the beloved author with fireworks and festive processions. Jansson was celebrated as a national hero.
In June 2001, the writer died from a massive cerebral hemorrhage.
On the day of Jansson's funeral, national mourning was declared in Finland. The President of the country, addressing condolences to the writer’s relatives, said that “The work of Tove Jansson is Finland’s greatest contribution to the world treasury of culture after Kalevala and Sibelius.”
Awards that Tove Jansson received:
- "Nils Holgerson Award" for the best children's writer of the year (1953)
- G.H. Andersen Medal for contribution to the development of children's literature (1966)
- Award of the Swedish Academy of Arts (1972)
- Finnish Presidential Gold Medal (1976)
- Honorary title of Doctor of Art History from the University of Helsinki (1978)
- Selma Lagerlöf Prize for Literature (1993)
- Title of Honorary Professor of the Finnish Republic (1995)
- American-Scandinavian Cultural Foundation Literary Award for Contributions to the Arts (1996)
Since 2002, the Tove Jansson Literary Prize has been awarded in Finland.
In addition to Swedish and Finnish (which were native to her), Tove Jansson spoke fluent English, French, and read German with a dictionary.
Personal life
In her youth, Tove Jansson communicated a lot and actively with the opposite sex, and was even engaged at one time to journalist Atos Virtanen. For reasons that still remain a mystery, the engagement was called off (presumably by Virtanen himself).
Having crossed the threshold of 35 years, Jansson realized her bisexuality and since then has maintained close relationships exclusively with women. At that time, in Finland, in a bohemian environment, same-sex relationships were considered acceptable, although society as a whole had a negative attitude towards gay people.
Since 1956, Jansson's permanent partner has been the artist Tuulikki Pietilä (1917-2009). Jansson and Pietilä lived together for 45 years. Tuulikki became the prototype of the contemplative and philosophical Tuu Tikki from Jansson's story “The Magic Winter” - a fact of which Pietilä was very proud. More than once in an interview she said: “Do you know that Tuu Tikki is me? Tove based this character on me."
For a long time they managed to successfully hide their connection. When asked by interviewers about her personal life, Jansson invariably answered that she was a principled opponent of the institution of marriage and did not want to have children for philosophical reasons. Jansson and Pietilä spoke openly about their relationship at a press conference in 1993.
According to Jansson's will, it was Pietilä who inherited the property that the women owned (two apartments in Helsinki and the island of Klovharun). The copyright for the books passed into the possession of Sofia Jansson's niece (Lars' daughter).
Already in the 1960s, Tove Jansson became a millionaire. Huge income from the sale of related rights (theatrical productions, Moomin souvenirs) quickly made Jansson one of the richest women in Finland. However, she continued to lead a modest lifestyle until her death: she used public transport, went shopping herself to a store near her home, and personally answered most of the letters from her readers.
Klovharun Island
The island of Klovaharun, located in the Gulf of Finland, was the summer residence of Tove Jansson and her artist partner from 1964 to 1998 Tuulikki Pietilä where they spent every summer. The island is currently uninhabited and can only be visited with organized excursions during the summer months. On Klovharun you can visit Jansson’s house, which houses an exhibition of her paintings.
Moomins and other works
There are several legends about how the image of the Moomintroll arose, but they all agree that its graphic incarnation appeared, at the earliest, in 1930. The first image of the Moomintroll was published in a cartoon in the Finnish magazine Garm in 1940. The first book in the series of works about the Moomins was published in 1945 (“Little Trolls and the Great Flood,” written and illustrated in 1938), but her second story “Moomintroll and the Comet” (1946) gained popularity .), in which it was given detailed description Moominvalley (Moomindalen), which became the setting for most of the subsequent stories. The next book, “The Wizard's Hat” (1949), gave impetus to the “Moomin boom” in many countries around the world.
Tove Jansson also illustrated books by Tolkien and Lewis Carroll.
Jansson wrote a number of novels and short stories that are not related to the Moomins.
Features of creative manner
Despite the fact that the trolls were borrowed by the writer from Swedish fairy tales, their image was significantly reworked, and in general we can say that folklore had minimal influence on Tove Jansson’s work. The life of the inhabitants of Moominvalley imitates the life of Jansson's own family from the point of view of a child - it is unknown where food and household items come from, the Moomin neighbors, although grumpy, are most often friendly. In later works, Jansson’s characters seem to grow up and understand that the world is actually different - cruel and indifferent (see, for example, the story with the red ants or the story about the sea horses in the story “The Father and the Sea”). If earlier Morra was just a fairy-tale monster, then later her image is concretized and even becomes an expression of the injustice of the world order: “It was so easy to imagine someone who would never warm up, whom no one loves and who destroys everything around him” (“The Pope and the Sea”) . However, the author does not seek to push the reader to the conclusion that life in this world is filled with fear and torment. The last of the books about the Moomins ends with them returning to their home.
At the heart of Tove Jansson's artistic world is the image of a home - a home in which the light is always on, loved ones are waiting for you, ready tasty food and a warm bed. This is an unshakable citadel of security and love, one thought about which allows you to overcome any adversity and where you can always return. So, Moominmama calmly waits for the end of Moomintroll’s protracted wanderings at a set table (“The Comet is Arriving”).
Another important motive in Tove Jansson's work is freedom. Everyone has the right to creative self-expression, since nature itself is free in its manifestations, all the world. The character can only limit his freedom of action in accordance with his own ideas about duty, but does not have the right to impose these ideas on others: Snusmumrik hates the Keeper of the park, where it is forbidden to run, laugh, smoke, but at the same time he voluntarily abandons his plans when forced take care of several tiny orphaned cubs (“Dangerous Summer”).
And of course, one of the defining themes of the Moomin series is the theme of loneliness. Moomintroll is lonely (this is especially felt in “The Magic Winter”), Snusmumrik is lonely, and many other characters are lonely in the depths of their souls. The physical embodiment of this “solitude of the soul” was Morra: infinitely lonely, icy, incomprehensible and frightening in the first books and “thawed out” in the last. Moomintroll is afraid to seem funny, suffers from the ridicule of Mu, and experiences a lot of internal conflicts alone with himself. In “The Magic Winter” he felt loneliness so acutely for the first time, and in the book “Daddy and the Sea” he matured and learned to be alone.
Moomin Park
On an island near Naantali (20 minutes by bus route 7 or 6 from Turku) there is a Moominland theme park dedicated to the heroes of the Moomin book series. The park operates in summer time and closes at last week August, when the Moomins go into hibernation.
Cultural significance
In Finland, Jansson's characters (the Moomin family, Snufkin, Sniff, Little My, etc.) are very popular. A variety of souvenir products on this topic are in demand. Jansson's characters have become an integral part of modern popular culture. Revenues from the sale of products using Moomin images make up the same part of the Finnish state budget as the tax deductions from Nokia Corporation.
Tove Jansson. Collection of booksTove Jansson has gained worldwide fame thanks to her books about the Moomins, which have been translated into more than 30 languages. Moomintroll and his family and friends have spread to all corners of the world in the form of stories in pictures and in television animated series. Tove Jansson is traditionally revered as the author of fairy tales and, in particular, as the creator of the peculiar world of the Moomins. She is the most translated Finnish writer: books about the Moomins are read in more than 30 languages of the world, and they have won a place in world fairy-tale literature along with The Little Prince, Winnie the Pooh and the works of Astrid Lindgren.
Tove Marika Jansson was born in Helsinki at 11:55 on Saturday August 9, 1914 into an artistic family. Her father Viktor Jansson (1886-1958) was a sculptor, and her mother Signe Hammarsten (1882-1970) was an artist who moved to Finland from Sweden after marriage. Tove's parents met in 1910 in Paris. After 3 years they got married. Signe painted stamps and worked for the radical anti-fascist magazine GARM. The parents belonged to the Swedish linguistic minority in Finland and the family heritage - art, creativity and tolerance - was later celebrated in Tove's stories, in which she showed an understanding of the bohemian lifestyle and respect for individuality. As a child, Tove went to Blide (Sweden) for the summer to visit her maternal grandmother. Tove's younger brothers, Per Olov and Lars, made their debut as writers in the 1940s. Later, Lars began to create stories in pictures, and Per Olov became a photographer.
Tove Jansson's parents worked hard, they devoted their whole lives to art, but at the same time, Viktor Jansson knew a lot about parties and their home often became a place for fun meetings. Tove wrote about how the parties took place in her autobiographical book “The Sculptor’s Daughter”:
“I love daddy's parties. They can go on for many nights in a row, and I like to wake up and go back to sleep and feel the smoke and music lull me to sleep, and then suddenly there is a sudden scream that pierces the cold through the warmth, right down to the soles of my feet.
It’s not worth looking at all this, because then what you come up with yourself disappears. This always happens. You look down at them as they sit on the sofa and chairs or slowly walk around the living room.
Mom doesn't feast with them, she makes sure that kerosene lamp I didn’t smoke in the bedroom. The bedroom is our only real room other than the kitchen; I mean there's a door there. But there is no stove there. That's why the kerosene lamp burns all night. If you open the door, tobacco smoke enters the room, and Per Olof begins to have an asthma attack. Since I had a brother, the feasts have become much more difficult, but mom and dad are still trying to arrange everything in the best possible way.”
Where did Moomintroll come from?
According to Sofia Jansson, Tove's niece, the story of Moomintroll's birth is as follows. On the island where the Jansson family spent every summer, the toilet was not in the house, but on the street. The inside was upholstered with cardboard. All family members loved to draw and write on this cardboard; there was a very heated correspondence there, for example, they thought about philosophical problems with their brothers. One day my brother wrote some story about Kant there. Tove couldn’t think of anything to answer him and drew some kind of creature. Then she said that it was the ugliest creature she could think of. This was the first Moomintroll.
For the first time, the Moomin figurine, as Jansson’s personal emblem-signature, was published on her anti-Hitler poster in the late 30s.
The entire Jansson family spent four months a year in a house on an island in Pellinki, 50 kilometers from Porvoo. They rented a cottage from local fishermen at the end of May and returned to the city at the beginning of September. About 300 people live on this island. It is this island cozy home, where a friendly family lived, the forests around the house, the sea and tiny islands served as the prototype of the world later described by Tuve in books about troll mummies.
As a child, Tove's friend was Erick Tawaststjerna, who, as an adult, became a music critic and biographer of Jean Sibelius. Tove didn't like going to school. She said that school was boring and she “forgot everything about it, including why I was afraid of it.” In the evenings, Tove sat in front of the fire in the studio and listened to her mother's stories about Moses and Isaac, about people who long for their country, or get lost, and then find their way. The fact that most people often feel a little lonely.
At the age of fifteen, Tove moved to Stockholm (Sweden) where he studied fine art at Tekniska Skolan, a professional institute from 1930 to 1933, and then returned to Finland, where he studied at the drawing school of the Finnish Association of Fine Arts “Atheneum” in Helsinki from 1933 to 1936. In 1938, she continued her studies at the École d'Adrien in Paris.
Tove began her career as an illustrator at the age of 14, when her drawings were first published in the children's section of the Allas Kronika magazine. The politically liberal satirical magazine Garm, popular in Swedish-speaking intellectual circles, began publishing Jansson's drawings in 1929 and the collaboration continued until the magazine closed in 1953. The Moomintroll of that time looked like a white creature with a long narrow nose and was called Snork.
In 1930, Tove traveled to Germany, Italy and France. And since 1932 she has participated in exhibitions in Finland and abroad. Her first private exhibition took place in 1943 in Helsinki. Tove has designed approximately one hundred magazine covers and illustrated publications in Swedish such as Lucifer. In addition, Tove worked on advertising, advertising signs, and postcards. From 1934 to 1940, Tove wrote stories that were published in magazines and Christmas publications. Her essays about her travels and the world of art are published in daily newspapers. Jansson's second exhibition in 1946 at the Böcksbacka gallery was commercially successful and received good feedback critics. In the early 1940s, Jansson was considered one of Finland's most important young artists.
The first book, entitled Smatrollen och den stora oversvamningen (Little Trolls and the Great Flood) appeared in 1945 in Sweden, and was only translated into Finnish in 1991. Tove began writing this story in 1939 during the Soviet-Finnish Winter War in order to escape, even for a moment, the gloom of wartime. But this book had no great success and was the last of all the Moomin stories to be translated into English.
In 1946 the book Mumitrollet och kometen (Moomintroll and the Comet) was published, in 1948 the book Trollkarlens hatt (The Wizard's Hat). And after this, real great success comes to Tuva.
In 1947, Atos Wirtanen, a friend of Tove Jansson and editor-in-chief of the Swedish newspaper “Ny tid” (“New Time”), published in Finland, invites her to make a series of satirical political comics about the Moomins. It was Athos Virtanen who served as the prototype of Snusmumrik; he constantly wore a green hat and considered it his talisman. On October 1, 1947, in an article about the socialist youth of Czechoslovakia and the activities of the Finnish People's Democratic Party, an image of Moomintroll under an umbrella was printed. Two days later, the front page of the comic was published, announcing the upcoming series. That same week, an article about Jansson was published. And so, starting from October 3, 1947, Moomin comics would be published every Friday until April 2, 1948. Each strip consisted of six cells. In total, Tove painted 26 stripes. The reason for the cessation of publications was harsh criticism from the opposition, which accused Tuve of spreading liberal-bourgeois ideas.
In January 1952, Jansson entered into a comic book publishing deal with Associated Newspapers. Jansson was delighted with the offer, as it freed her from financial worries and gave her the opportunity to devote more time to creativity. On September 20, 1954, the first Moomin comic was published on the pages of “The evening news” (London). In September 1956, a Moomin Day celebration was held in Helsinki, sponsored by the Associated Press. In 1959, Tove, finally tired of the Moomin theme, terminated his contract with the agency.
She says that “At first the work was very fun and easy. I drew everything that came into my head. Over time, a critical attitude towards one’s work came, and then it became just hard work. When I found out that the publishing house agreed to terminate the contract with me, I was happy! I went for a walk in the forest, climbed a tree and there, on the tree, I suddenly felt so strong and free that I suddenly wanted to write another book.” This is how the idea for the book “Who Will Comfort Little Knutt?” was born. According to Tove, this book was easier for her than any of the works about the Moomins; she literally wrote and illustrated it in one go.
Tove wrote her last Moomin book, Sent i november (At the end of November) in 1970, after the death of her mother. The Moomin family is not present in it, they have disappeared and no one knows where. This book ended the series of stories about the Moomins, although Tove said that she would be glad to return to working with them.
In general, all the characters in the Moomin books bear a strong resemblance to Jansson's own family - they were bohemian, lived close to nature, were tolerant of the creatures around them and loved what their mother cooked for them. Sometimes Jansson's characters were quite sinister, such as the Hemuli, who personified officials, or strange Hattifnatts, who move from unknown where, where and for what purpose - a threatening crowd. Novelist Alison Lurie has described the Morra - a dark, hilly creature - as “a kind of walking manifestation of Scandinavian darkness; everything it touches dies, and the ground freezes where it sits.” (Guardian, June 30, 2001)
Although Jansson achieved worldwide fame through her Moomin characters, she saw herself primarily as an artist. Her first large mural was made for the Kaupunginkellari restaurant in 1947. This was followed by a number of other works, including paintings for a children's hospital in Helsinki. In 1992-93, the Amos Anderson Museum of Art presented Jansson's paintings in a major exhibition.
In 1956, Tuve met Tuulikki Pietila (Tuulikki Pietila 02/18/1917 - 02/23/2009), who became Tuve’s faithful life partner. She was a graphic artist and professor. Her personality was inspired by the character of Tuu-Tikki from the story Trollvinter (The Magic Winter). For many years, Tuve and Tuulikki spent the warm months of the year in a house on their own island of Kluvhar, 80 kilometers from Helsinki. That's where they lived black cat named Psipsy. In 1995, Tove and Tuulikki decide not to travel to the island anymore due to health problems. Jansson donates the island to the state. Nowadays, in the house of Tove and Tuulikki, their museum is equipped, which is open to tourists every summer. In 1996, the autobiographical book “Pictures from the Island,” written by Tove in collaboration with Tuulikki, was published.
