Decadence and the Making of the Nation in the Estonian and Finnish Context: An Introduction by the Guest Editors

Abstract

The recent resurgence of scholarly interest in decadence has expanded the field beyond its traditional metropolitan focus on fin-de-siècle Paris, London, or Vienna.[i] Research on European regions long perceived as ‘peripheral’ from British or French perspectives has, of course, existed for decades. More recently, however, studies of Finnish, Estonian and, more broadly, Nordic decadence have gained increasing visibility within English-language academia, thereby expanding and reshaping the broader field of decadence studies.[ii]

[i] See David Weir, Decadence: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2018).

[ii] For example, Pirjo Lyytikäinen, Narkissos ja sfinksi: Minä ja toinen vuosisadanvaihteen kirjallisuudessa (SKS, 1997); Pirjo Lyytikäinen, ed., Changing Scenes: Encounters between European and Finnish Fin de Siècle (SKS, 2003); Mirjam Hinrikus, Dekadentlik modernsuskogemus A. H. Tammsaare ja nooreestlaste loomingus (Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 2011); Viola Parente-Čapková, Decadent New Woman (Un)Bound: Mimetic Strategies in L. Onerva’s Mirdja (SKS, 2014); Mirjam Hinrikus, Lola Annabel Kass and Liis Pählapuu, eds, Kurja lillede lapsed. Eesti dekadentlik kunst. Children of the Flowers of Evil. Estonian Decadent Art (Eesti Kunstimuuseum, Underi ja Tuglase Kirjanduskeskus, 2017); and Pirjo Lyytikäinen, Riikka Rossi, Viola Parente-Čapková, and Mirjam Hinrikus, eds, Nordic Literature of Decadence. Among the Victorians and Modernists, (Routledge, 2020).