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What is Finland? #ToveTrove

Paula Bardell-Hedley

A flip through the English-language edition of This is FINLAND 2025-26

“It doesn’t matter how you interpret the Moomins, who your favourite character is or which type of cake you prefer – a celebration of Moomins should always be a celebration of peace, nature, equality and freedom.”

As I scrolled abstractedly through conversations on LinkedIn recently, I came across a post plugging This is FINLAND 2025-26, a full-colour magazine inviting potential readers to “catch the spirit of Tove Jansson and the Moomins”. On its cover, the smiling face of Finnish actress Alma Pöysti, and underneath, the words: “As long as we have compassion, we have hope”.

Naturally, I was all eyes and was lured still further once I realised the entire thing was freely available as an ISSUU interactive flipbook. Further inspection revealed this eye-catching, 44-page, English language periodical exists to open up “inspiring perspectives on Finnish society, culture and nature”, and is published annually by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Business Finland and Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund.

By way of introduction and as an accompaniment to the masthead on page three is How to Celebrate Moomin Style, a short preamble by Mika Hammarén in which he sets the tone for what is to come with a few words about this year being the 80th anniversary of the “first ever Moomin book, The Moomins and the Great Flood,” which, he says, “was published when Europe was recovering from the Second World War.” As those who have read it will know, the plot follows the Moomin family as they search for “missing Moominpappa and a peaceful place” to call home.

It is worth mentioning here that around the time Tove composed this story, there were some 11 million displaced people in Europe, including about six million volunteer and forced labourers, two million prisoners of war and 700,000 surviving concentration camp prisoners, so her work was presumably intended to act as a sort of comfort in dark times. Equally, as Hammarén points out, the characters’ “quest resonates” with the times in which we live. As he says, “there are days when most of us would probably like to escape to Moomin Valley and join an extended, loving family of fantastic creatures.”

To digress slightly, I should like to mention for the benefit of those wishing to dig a little deeper that book bloggers Karen Langley (Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings) and Liz Dexter (Adventures in reading, running and working from home) are spending 2025 reading the original Moomin series as part of an unofficial readalong (others are welcome to join them). They commenced with The Moomins and the Great Flood on 15th February and are posting their reflections on each title for the duration of their #Moomin80 project.

“…she lived a long life shaped by love, freedom, sea and adventure – all of which can be read and felt in her works.”

Following some interesting observations about Finland being “the first country in the world to grant full political rights to women” and Tove being part of the “first generation of women free to do what they wanted” (though, I imagine there may be some readers tempted to question such a sweeping statement), we turn the page to find a double-spread photograph of Alma Pöysti, the actress who played the leading role in Zaida Bergroth’s enthusiastically received 2020 biopic, TOVE, and was the voice of Snorkmaiden in (for example) the 2014 animated family comedy, Moomins on the Riviera (also available in paperback). There follows an illuminating feature in which she talks about her varied career, personal philosophies, hopes for the future and life in general.

We learn that in the movie she captures the moment Tove Jansson “meets theatre director Vivica Bandler, one of her great loves”. As we now know, Vivica stayed with her husband, but the two women nevertheless remained great friends throughout Jansson’s life. Alma tells Kristiina Ella Markkanen that when she “landed the role”, she knew “portraying a beloved figure with a well-documented life and career” would be “a challenge”, however, by giving herself permission to “fail in an interesting way,” she performed with a “clean slate” and was able to “explore the idea of Tove Jansson and present her in a new light.” This method worked wonderfully, and the film was positively received by critics and audiences alike.

A little further on, there is a two page spread on Finnish libraries: Loud as a Library, about the way they are “reinventing what it means to be the home for learning and information.” From “reading dogs to 3D printers,” Taina Ahtela highlights “some [of the] activities [available to the public] in many Finnish libraries.”

Also, nestling among features on saunas, aurora borealis and “reasons to love potatoes like a Finn” is The Whimsical Humanity of Tove Jansson (on pages 40 to 42), a piece touching on Jansson’s vast “body of work”, which, we are told, “could fill several lifetimes.”

A sidebar on page 43, Return to the dark roots of the Moomins, looks again at “the first Moomin book, The Moomins and the Great Flood from 1945,” which is described as “an allegory for the war that had just ended in Finland and Europe.” This is followed by two photographs, the first is of Moominland, Naantali and the second, The Moomin Museum, Tampere – the only such museum in the world.

Finally, on the back cover is the famous black and white drawing of Tove Jansson and her Moomins with a final mention of 80 Years of Moomins.

The focus of this issue is clearly Finnish culture, and it is pleasing to discover in its pages just how important Tove Jansson is to the modern Finn’s sense of identity. It is a beautifully produced magazine, filled with professionally taken photographs and fascinating facts about the country. I look forward to reading future issues.

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Ninni Lehtniemi, Executive Producer of the Helsinki-based company Sanoma Content Studio kindly snail-mailed me a hard copy of This is Finland 2025-26. A PDF version can be downloaded here and a digital reproduction obtained by following this link. To acquire the print edition, please contact vie-50@gov.fi. This issue is also available in German, French, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese – with a Russian edition published in PDF and digital formats.

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EXPLORE SOME MORE

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ABOUT TOVE JANSSON

Tove Jansson was born in Helsinki on 9th August 1914, the daughter of a Swedish-Finnish father who worked as a sculptor and a mother who was a graphic designer. She first trained as an artist and made a name for herself in her homeland as a painter and cartoonist. She became internationally famous after creating the Moomins. She later went on to write novels and short fiction for adults. She worked in her Helsinki studio, moving to a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland during the summer months with her partner, Tuulikki Pietilä. She died on 27th June 2001 at the age of 86.

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“She never wrote a single sentence that she hadn’t lived or felt herself. Nothing was superficial, whether it was descriptions of nature or articulating her inner life.”
– Sculptor’s Daughter: A Childhood Memoir (1968)

The above magazine image, © This is FINLAND, 2025

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