Anger over war in Bosnia inspires play on fates of Estonian women
Sofi Oksanen's first play immediately taken into repertoire of Finnish National Theatre
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By Maija Alftan
Happy birthday, Sofi Oksanen!
Writer Oksanen turned 30 on Saturday, and a month from now, the Finnish National Theatre will premiere her first play Puhdistus ("Purge"). Not bad.
After her two novels - Stalinin lehmät ("Stalin's Cows") and Baby Jane, Sofi Oksanen wrote a play. The topic is a weighty one: sexual violence as a tool of political pressure.
A few years ago Oksanen found the books of Slavenka Drakulic on the war in Bosnia and the women that had been raped there. She found the books shocking, because during the war in Bosnia, in 1992 - 1995, Oksanen was still quite young and did not follow the events of the war.
"There was a tremendous frustration that in the middle of Europe there were concentration camps where rape was practiced in the 1990s. How can these things be repeated? How in the world is it possible that those kinds of things cannot be brought under control? It sparked rage and anger. That is why I had to write something about it. It became a play, because the topic is so closely linked with shame - the shame of the look in a person's face - and as the theatre involves a collective facial expression, it seemed necessary for it to be in the theatre."
The play is set in Estonia in 1992, when the country had just become independent. There was fear of war - Oksanen points out that Finns do not perhaps remember this.
"War is always an exceptional condition, which is why it seemed interesting to place it in this age. The protagonist is a woman aged between 70 and 80 (Tea Ista) who experienced these things in the 1940s, and a younger woman (Leena Pöysti), a victim of trafficking in women. The early 1990s felt appropriate, in that conditions were becoming unsafe, and trafficking in women exploded. However, as an experience, sexual violence is the same, no matter what the circumstances."
Estonia is a country that is close to Oksanen, because her mother is Estonian. Her roots are in Estonia; her family is from Leenemaa, next to Haapsalu.
"Our family has lived in the same area since the 17th century", Oksanen says.
Now her Estonian grandparents are dead, and she has contact with Estonia fairly infrequently. Sofi says that she knows Estonian history fairly well, and has now had time to read the books about Estonian history that she had not had time to read before writing Stalin's Cows.
Sofi Oksanen has also seen the film Memories Denied by Imbi Paju about the suffering of Estonian women during the Stalin years.
"Imbi deals with the same issues that I do - the significance of memory and remaining silent. Silence is a form of terror. When people are forced into silence, they are not even given a possibility to survive, and this is what has happened in Estonia, for instance."
Sofi Oksanen has studied dramaturgy at the Finnish Theatre Academy. She has not managed to graduate, as she has been carried away by her work.
Her teacher and tutor was Pirkko Saisio, who also read the first version of the script of the play. Oksanen said that Maria-Liisa Nevala, Director of the Finnish National Theatre, immediately became interested in the topic. Director Mika Myllyaho read the script already in the early stages. "He was a good reader", Oksanen says.
The writing profession has been Oksanen's calling ever since she was a little girl. She says that she is privileged in that the position of both a writer, and a female writer is considerably better than in other countries.
"Finland has a good system of grants, as few can live on the books that they sell. The profession is precarious, if you start thinking about things like that. It is even more difficult for those involved in the theatre."
Oksanen made a dramatic entrance into the writing profession. In 2003, at the time of her first novel, she got a maximum amount of media publicity - and a few threats from some of her colleagues.
"Embittered older male writers in particular can be aggressive toward me, as women's magazines are not interested in them. Women manage to hide it better. Few women writers will come out and make drunken threats - fortunately."
It was a great surprise for Oksanen that nothing seems to be enough for Finnish authors. They are not satisfied with good reviews, they are very upset with bad reviews, and extremely upset if they get no reviews at all.
"Even a good review will not necessarily get your face on television. If you do get on TV, you won't necessarily get a good review. Or you may be misunderstood and not get any grants. If a book sells well, it does not sell well enough. A kind of package that writers would be satisfied with, does not seem to exist", Oksanen concludes.
"A good review should be good enough. Or many readers. Not everyone can get everything."
"Nevertheless, it is the task of an author to tell the world about things, and to show new worlds. That is something that is not connected with these things in any way."
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 6.1.2007
MAIJA ALFTAN / Helsingin Sanomat
maija.alftan@hs.fi
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| 9.1.2007 - THIS WEEK |
 Anger over war in Bosnia inspires play on fates of Estonian women |
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