S.O.S. - A Pacifist Intervention in Helsinki 1929. The Intercrossing of Modernism and Socialism

Abstract

The article examines the co-operation between a (Swedish-speaking) modernist author with a (Finnish-speaking) workers' theatre in 1920s Finland. It shows how modernist aesthetics and the socialist movement met in the practices of the workers' theatres and what dangers lay in this combination. I am especially interested in the moments when the radical intelligentsia - artists, writers, and theatre directors - joined forces with the workers' theatres in order to create political theatre. Political turmoil was about to occur when Hagar Olsson's play S.O.S. premiered in Helsinki in March 1929. The venue was the Koitto Theatre (in Finnish "Koiton Näyttämö"), a semi-professional workers' theatre run by a socialist temperance association, already known for its performances of German expressionist plays. In my paper, I ask what goals lay behind the co-operation between Olsson and Koitto – and what came out of it?