16 Facts About Eino Leino

Eino Leino is beloved and widely read in Finland today.

Leino's birthday on 6 July was named Eino Leino Day as well as day of Finnish poetry and summer in 1992, and it is an established Finnish flag day.

Eino Leino was baptized as Armas Einar Leopold Lonnbohm in Paltamo as the seventh and youngest son in a family of ten children.

Eino's older brother Kasimir Leino was an important cultural figure in Finland.

Eino and Kasimir Leino founded a literature journal together in 1898.

Eino Leino started school in Kajaani and continued in Oulu and Hameenlinna, where he boarded with relatives.

Early in his career Eino Leino was much loved and praised by the critics.

Eino Leino joined literary and newspaper circles and became a member of the Young Finnish circle.

Eino Leino greeted the German Baltic Sea Division, which had invaded southern Finland and conquered Helsinki, as a liberator.

Eino Leino was granted a State writer's pension in 1918 at the age of forty.

Eino Leino was the first person in Finland to translate Dante's Divine Comedy into Finnish.

Eino Leino wrote letters to President K J Stahlberg and Estonian Head of State Konstantin Pats asking to become an Estonian citizen.

Eino Leino died in 1926 at the age of 47 and later he was buried at the Hietaniemi Cemetery in Helsinki.

The most detailed biography of Leino was written in 1930s by his lover and colleague L Onerva.

Actually, Leino coined the term national neoromantism by himself to characterize the works by talents of young Finland such as composer Jean Sibelius, painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela and architect Eliel Saarinen.

Eino Leino's work encompasses a wide emotional range, anything from profound love to misanthropy and biting criticism.