Finnish journalist reveals role in Mullova defection 25 years ago

Recently retired Jyrki Koulumies recalls days as Moscow correspondent

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By Veli-Pekka Lappalainen
     
      As a journalist, Jyrki Koulumies is a very tactful man. He was willing to wait for a quarter fo a century, until he retired from the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE), before disclosing his key role in the defection of top Russian violinist Viktoria Mullova in 1983.
      The deference was out of loyalty to YLE: no sensations outside work.
      The book of memoirs, Moskova, Mullova ja minä (“Moscow, Mullova, and Myself”) is clearly divided in two. The entire hapless Soviet period ebbs and flows in the background of Mullova’s defection.
     
Koulumies served as the Moscow correspondent of the newspaper Uusi Suomi from 1977 to 1980, when he got to know Viktoria “Vika” Mullova. After that the two also met during the violinist’s tours of the West. Their cooperation in organising her escape was agreed upon in early 1983.
      The escape, linked with Mullova’s visit to Kuusamo, took place on a July weekend in 1983 in a rented car, which was driven from Finland to Sweden. Driving the car were Koulumies and photographer Caj Sundman. The passengers were Mullova and her Georgian accompanist, conductor Vahtang Jordania.
      Koulumies details the careful planning of the project, the intense feelings, and finally the crossing of the border, which ended up being exceedingly undramatic: “‘Where was the border?’ Vika asked in amazement. ‘I didn’t see anything’.”
      “I assured her that we are in Sweden, and that Caj was still taking pictures of the two in the back seat as they were laughing.”
      The two defectors could breathe freely in Sweden. At that time, Finland quickly returned would-be defectors back to the east.
      Mullova’s and Jordania’s stunt was published, as planned in the late edition tabloid Ilta-Sanomat, but only when asylum ahd been applied for in the US Embassy in Stockholm. The helpers were not identified.
     
With his anti-Soviet act, Koulumies put himself at risk. If he had been caught, he would have had to leave his job at YLE, nor would Uusi Suomi have taken him back - even the politically right-of-centre newspaper was eager to court the favour of the Kremlin.
      According to Koulumies, even his predecessor Pentti Sadeniemi had been asked in the 1970s to try to make the conservative National Coalition Party more acceptable to Moscow. Sadeniemi had responded that such a move would not be part of a journalist’s job.
      As for his motives, Koulumies mentions both a desire to help a friend, and an instinct for adventure, as well as “a desire to kick the grim dictatorial Soviet bureaucracy in the ankle.”
      The Viktoria episode is an example of unselfish friendship, cooperation, and assistance. The KGB would have struck back mercilessly if it had received even the smallest of hints of what was to come.
     
Koulumies examines his Moscow years critically, and with self-criticism, without trying to wash his hands of the practices of the times. He recalls:
      “The activities of us correspondents involved Finlandisation on a practical level. The reason was clear. One article would have shut off all sources of information, and we may have been sent packing from the country. A journalistic career in Finland might also have come to an end for all practical purposes.”
      Relations between the countries silenced journalists specialised in foreign news, who were expected to work in tandem with politicians and those engaged in trade with the Soviet Union. Selective silence superseded freedom of expression, honour, and conscience.
      For Koulumies, Moscow was sharply split in two. “At one end was deceit, false props and informers, and at the other end there were long evenings at kitchen tables with artists.”
      Koulumies concentrates more on his own experiences than official contacts, which makes the book all the more interesting.
     
Private pictures are true, and certainly more colourful than the analysis of propaganda. He brings up matters that were wiser not to print in the paper at the time. An accredited journalist was, by virtue of his position, and his points of view, several degrees more flexible than a diplomat.
      In his short chapter on journalism, Koulumies examines the limitations on work as a correspondent with so much expertise that one hopes that he might get the chance to examine modern journalistic practices in the same manner.
      The book is written in the kind of flowing prose that one would expect from a professional journalist.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 14.9.2008


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Max Jakobson recalls heroes and villains of Finlandisation (25.9.2008)
  Aamulehti: Historians call for thorough examination of Finlandisation era (8.10.2007)

Links:
  Wikipedia: Finlandization

Helsingin Sanomat