40 Facts About Hilja Riipinen

Hilja Elisabet Riipinen was a Finnish politician involved with the nationalist and anti-communist Lapua Movement and Patriotic People's Movement.

Hilja Riipinen was a member of parliament between 1930 and 1939, first elected from the electoral list of the National Coalition Party, but she defected to the Patriotic People's Movement after it was formed as a political party in 1933.

Hilja Riipinen started studies in languages, literature and aesthetics at the University of Helsinki, financed with a bank loan.

Hilja Riipinen was employed in a co-educational school in Lapua in 1906, and she graduated with a master's degree later in 1910.

Hilja Riipinen met her future husband, Ale Riipinen, at the school.

Hilja Riipinen was chosen to be the head of the local women's auxiliary Lotta Svard chapter in 1920.

Hilja Riipinen was elected to the Lotta Svard central board of directors in 1923 and quickly became a central figure and a well-liked speaker in the organisation.

Hilja Riipinen became the editor for the Lotta Svard newspaper.

Hilja Riipinen later became known as a person who often had dissenting opinions about decisions made in the board of directors.

Hilja Riipinen was not chosen to the board of directors again and was dismissed from her position as the editor of the Lotta Svard newspaper in 1936.

Hilja Riipinen was a strict proponent of equal rights for women.

Hilja Riipinen was influenced by the early Finnish female parliamentarian Hilda Kakikoski, from whom she adopted pacifist ideas.

Hilja Riipinen believed that women should be liberated for a public awakening and activation through education.

Hilja Riipinen supported the ordination of women for priesthood in the church.

Hilja Riipinen supported the law on prohibition and stricter penalties for violating it.

Hilja Riipinen was a board member on a women's national temperance organisation between 1921 and 1931.

Hilja Riipinen's anti-communism was sparked by the Finnish Civil War.

Hilja Riipinen's views have been described as one having to take part in a conflict between Marxist and non-Marxist world views, of which only one can win.

Hilja Riipinen felt that this was a flaw in the political system: democracy could only lead to bad compromises.

Hilja Riipinen thought that socialism poisoned people's relationship to work by claiming that work is slavery.

Socialist newspapers wrote about "Amazon Hilja Riipinen" and referred to the "white fists of Hilja Riipinen".

Hilja Riipinen was elected to the Parliament of Finland in the 1930 parliamentary election from the National Coalition Party electoral list.

Hilja Riipinen was one of the few in her parliamentary group who supported the shift towards radicalisation in the Lapua Movement.

Hilja Riipinen was among the most radical in the IKL parliamentary group, receiving a warning for impetuosity from the party.

Hilja Riipinen was supportive of the fascist regimes of Italy and Germany in her speeches, a line which was not mainstream in the IKL.

Hilja Riipinen conflicted with the IKL leadership when she led the women's section for the party, with male IKL leadership seizing a board meeting to prevent what they saw as harmful decisions.

In 1934, Hilja Riipinen was suspended from the parliament for a week for insulting the speaker of the parliament.

Hilja Riipinen became a well-known figure and was mockingly called the "enfant terrible of the parliament".

Hilja Riipinen was motivated in this belief by the fact that the Social Democrats had become junior partners in a coalition government, although the pronouncement alienated the far-right further and they came under attack in the liberal press for their nationalist posturing whilst refusing to celebrate Independence Day.

Hilja Riipinen managed to gain the support of party colleagues Bruno Salmiala and Eino Tuomivaara for this motion.

Personally, Hilja Riipinen was not satisfied with working as a member of parliament and found it to be heavy and fruitless.

Hilja Riipinen even became depressed about being in the parliament.

Hilja Riipinen was not re-elected in 1939 and according to her own words returned to do "real work".

Hilja Riipinen openly admired Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and never regretted it.

Hilja Riipinen supported eugenics and thought "the mentally or physically degenerate are unsuitable to found future families".

Hilja Riipinen saw the world as a battleground between "Soviet-Jewish-Muscovite globalism" and "patriotic-nationalism".

Hilja Riipinen considered the Jews greedy, rich usurers lacking a fatherland.

Hilja Riipinen retired when she was 70 years old in June 1953.

Hilja Riipinen was granted the honorary title for people with a distinguished career in education, kouluneuvos, by the President of Finland the same year.

When her second daughter died in 1964, Hilja Riipinen got ill and never recovered.