Kaarlo Uskela (4 March 1878 – 19 April 1922) was a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

satiric author, poet and anarchist. Uskela is best known of his 1921 anthology ''Pillastunut runohepo'' which was banned in 1933, eleven years after Uskela's death. Uskela was born into a working-class family in

Tampere Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...

and worked as a typesetter for several newspapers. From 1900 to 1907 Uskela lived in Sweden where he became interested in anarchism. After returning to Finland, Uskela earned his living as a writer. He wrote columns, short stories and

causerie Causerie (from French, "talk, chat") is a literary style of short informal essays mostly unknown in the English-speaking world. A causerie is generally short, light and humorous and is often published as a newspaper column (although it is not defin ...

s for left-wing newspapers and magazines. Uskela was known as a satirical writer, he was making fun of almost everything, the government, church and bourgeoisie and even the labor movement itself.″Kaarlo Uskela: Vainovuosilta″
(in Finnish). Jurin tekstit. 24 September 2009. Retrieved 21 February 2015. After the 1918

Finnish Civil War The Finnish Civil War; . Other designations: Brethren War, Citizen War, Class War, Freedom War, Red Rebellion and Revolution, . According to 1,005 interviews done by the newspaper ''Aamulehti'', the most popular names were as follows: Civil W ...

Uskela was sent to the notorious

Tammisaari prison camp The Tammisaari camp was a concentration camp and prison in Dragsvik, Ekenäs in Finland. It was set for the Reds captured by the Whites in the 1918 Finnish Civil War. The concentration camp operated from May 1918 to 15 September 1918 when the majo ...

for several months, although he was not a member of the

Red Guards Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard lead ...

and did not take part on the war. During his imprisonment, Uskela wrote a collection of poems which were released in his 1921 anthology ''Pillastunut runohepo''. Uskela's last literal work was the posthumous ''Vainovuosilta'' (1923), a non-satirical anthology of short stories about Finnish Civil War. Uskela died of

sepsis Sepsis, formerly known as septicemia (septicaemia in British English) or blood poisoning, is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. This initial stage is follo ...

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...

, at the age of 44. He had a dental caries, but Uskela refused to see the dentist and treated it by himself. The result was a fatal sepsis. In 1933, during the right-wing period in Finnish politics, the unsold copies of Uskela's anthology ''Pillastunut runohepo'' were confiscated and burned by a court order. It is the only book Finnish authorities have ever destroyed. Uskela's poetry was accused of atheist views and anti-church elements, but they were also described as ″revolutionary and violent″. This was not the first time his works were banned, before the Independence of Finland in 1918 almost all of Uskela's books were confiscated by the Russian authorities.Kielletyt kirjat - 3. Kotimainen kirjasensuuri
(in Finnish). Freedom of Speech and Censorship in Finland. Retrieved 21 February 2015.

Selected works

*''Yhteiskunnan varkaat'' (″Thieves of Society″, 1908) *''Villiomenoita'' (″Wild Apples″, 1912) *''Humoreskeja ja runoja'' (″Humoresque and Poetry″, 1913) *''Pillastunut runohepo'' (″Poem Horse Gone Wild″, 1921) *''Vainovuosilta'' (″From the Years of Persecution″, 1923)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Uskela, Kaarlo 1878 births 1922 deaths People from Tampere 20th-century Finnish writers 20th-century Finnish poets Finnish satirists Finnish anarchists Finnish atheists Prisoners and detainees of Finland Deaths from sepsis Finnish male poets 20th-century male writers Finnish male comedians