The Literary History of a Welfare State: Kuusi’s Literary History

In Finland, the 1950s and 1960s were a time when a modern welfare state was constructed, with advanced social welfare, education, and infrastructure. As Pauli Kettunen has argued, Finland was a latecomer among the Nordic welfare states. The country adopted new social policies and practices especially from Sweden (Kettunen, 2001, 228). In political life, President Urho Kekkonen and his party, the Center Party (The Center Party (Keskustapuolue, currently Suomen Keskusta) was founded as the Agrarian League (1906–1965) and still today promotes rural and agricultural interests in politics), established a leading position at the beginning of the decade; together with them, the position of the leftwing parties was strengthened as well (Tuominen, 1991; Alasuutari, 1998). In foreign policy, Finland held to a balancing role between the Soviet Union and the West. The relationship between Finland and the Soviet Union was outlined in the 1948 Agreement of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance. the fear that the Soviet Union would interfere in the country’s foreign and/or domestic policy was not entirely ungrounded. At the same time, Finland was striving for a place among the nations of the West, more particularly of Scandinavia (see Alasuutari, 1998, 161; Pernaa, 2003, 177–178). This precarious balancing between the eastern and western blocs affected cultural and educational policy (Soikkanen, 2003, 43–58): ideas for the reform of the school system, for example, were adopted from both Sweden and the DDR.