Slave of a Harsh God: Nietzscheanism and the Nation in Joel Lehtonen’s Perm: Syysyön unelma

Abstract

The less well-known debut work of classic Finnish author Joel Lehtonen (1881–1934) is the narrative poem Perm: Syysyön unelma [Perm: An Autumn Night’s Dream] (1904). It begins in a melancholic tone. The narrator tells the tale of a long-gone mythical past, a medieval Fenno-Ugric land known in Old Norse as Bjarmaland or Bjarmia, or Finnicized as Perma, which was believed to have existed on the coast of the White Sea or the Arctic Ocean.[i]

[i] The folklorist and poet Martti Haavio has authored a study on the knowledge and beliefs associated with the land of Perma: Bjarmien vallan kukoistus ja tuho: historiaa ja runoutta, poems trans. by Aale Tynni (WSOY, 1965).