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Tammi, also known as Kustannusyhtiö Tammi and Tammi Publishers, is 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 ...
publishing company Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
established in 1943 by an initiative of
Väinö Tanner Väinö Alfred Tanner (; 12 March 1881 – 19 April 1966; surname until 1895 ''Thomasson'') was a leading figure in the Social Democratic Party of Finland, and a pioneer and leader of the cooperative movement in Finland. He was Prime Minister ...
, leader of the
Social Democratic Party of Finland The Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP, fi, Suomen sosialidemokraattinen puolue ; sv, Finlands socialdemokratiska parti), shortened to the Social Democrats ( fi, link=no, Sosiaalidemokraatit; sv, link=no, Socialdemokrater) and commonly kno ...
. In 1996, the company was bought by the
Bonnier Group Bonnier AB (), also the Bonnier Group, is a privately held Swedish media group of 175 companies operating in 15 countries. It is controlled by the Bonnier family. Background The company was founded in 1804 by Gerhard Bonnier in Copenhagen, Denm ...
, and, as of the early 2000s, it was the third largest book publisher in Finland. In 2018, the company was merged into the Finnish book publishing company
Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö Bonnier AB (), also the Bonnier Group, is a privately held Swedish media group of 175 companies operating in 15 countries. It is controlled by the Bonnier family. Background The company was founded in 1804 by Gerhard Bonnier in Copenhagen, Denm ...
(WSOY). Tammi was formerly known as Kustannusosakeyhtiö Tammi. Its series ''Keltainen kirjasto'' (Yellow library), published since 1954, specialises in "quality literature", including books by many recipients of the
Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...
.


Controversy over Yrjö Leino memoirs

Yrjö Leino Yrjö Kaarlo Leino (28 January 1897 – 28 June 1961) was a Finnish communist politician. Imprisoned twice for his communist activities, and spending much of the Second World War as an underground communist activist, he served as a minister in th ...
, a
Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
activist, was
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
's Minister of the Interior in the crucial 1945–48 period. In 1948 he suddenly resigned for reasons which remain unclear and went into retirement. Leino returned to the public eye in 1958 with his memoirs of his time as Minister of the Interior, which were due to be published by Tammi. The manuscript was prepared in secret – even most of the Tammi staff were kept in ignorance – but the project was revealed by Leino because of an indiscretion just before the planned publication. It turned out the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
was very strongly opposed to publication of the memoirs. The Soviet Union's Chargé d'Affaires in Finland Ivan Filippov (Ambassador Viktor Lebedev had suddenly departed from Finland a few weeks earlier on 21 October 1958) demanded that Prime Minister
Karl-August Fagerholm Karl-August Fagerholm (31 December 1901, in Siuntio – 22 May 1984, in Helsinki) was Speaker of Parliament and three times Prime Minister of Finland (1948–50, 1956–57, and 1958–59). Fagerholm became one of the leading politicia ...
's government prevent the release of Leino's memoirs. Fagerholm said that the government could legally do nothing because the work had not yet been released nor was there censorship in Finland. Filippov advised that if Leino's book was published, the Soviet Union would draw "serious conclusions". Later the same day Fagerholm called the Tammi publisher, Untamo Utrio, and it was decided that the January launch of the book was to be cancelled. Eventually, the entire print run of the book was destroyed at the Soviet Union's request. Almost all of the books – some 12,500 copies – were burned in August 1962 with the exception of a few volumes which were furtively sent to political activists. Deputy director of Tammi Jarl Hellemann later argued that the fuss about the book was completely disproportionate to its substance, describing the incident as the first instance of Finnish self-censorship motivated by concerns about relations to the Soviet Union (see
Finlandization Finlandization ( fi, suomettuminen; sv, finlandisering; german: Finnlandisierung; et, soomestumine; russian: финляндизация, finlyandizatsiya) is the process by which one powerful country makes a smaller neighboring country refrai ...
).Hellemann, Jarl: ''Kustantajan näkökulma - kirjoituksia kirjallisuuden reunalta'', p. 56–60. Otava 1999, Helsinki. The book was finally published in 1991, when interest in it had largely dissipated.


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* 1943 establishments in Finland Book publishing companies of Finland Publishing companies established in 1943 {{publish-corp-stub