Christina Regina von Birchenbaum

Christina Regina von Birchenbaum, also spelled Börkenbohm, was a seventeenth-century Finnish poet. Her only surviving work is the autobiographical acrostic poem "En annan ny visa" ("Another New Song," 1651).[1]

"En annan ny visa"

The poem "En annan ny visa" is constructed of twenty-nine stanzas of eight lines each. Birchenbaum's full name is spelled out in acrostic form by the first letters of the stanzas.[1] The poem's style is reminiscent of Finnish folk poetry.[2] The only surviving copy of "En annan ny visa", dated 24 July 1651, is preserved in the Diocese Library in Linköping.[3]

According to the poem, Birchenbaum was born in Karelia; her father died when she was three. She met her future husband early in life.[4] Marrying him for love, she followed him to Germany for the Thirty Years' War.[1] Learning from a message that he had disappeared in the war, she traveled across the country looking for him, and eventually gave him up for dead.[4] After seventeen years alone, in which she kept "all worldly joy and pleasure" out of her mind, she married again, this time to a young nobleman. However, the marriage was an unhappy one, due to "false friends" and local gossip that drove the couple apart.[1] Birchenbaum concludes the poem by saying that she is alone in the world once again, and is saying goodbye to it.[4]

Personal life

Very little is known of Birchenbaum's life other than the account given in "En annan ny visa".[2] Two other documents survive relating to Birchenbaum; they are petitions dating from the late 1660s, featuring her testimony that she was the widow of Major Axel Paulj Liljenfeldt,[3] who died in the Thirty Years' War while serving in the Swedish army.[4] Birchenbaum was a contemporary (though a younger one) of the Finnish poet Sigfridus Aronus Forsius.[1]

Legacy

Birchenbaum and "En annan ny visa" were forgotten until the mid-nineteenth century, when the poem was rediscovered by the antiquarian Per Hanselli.[1] It was first published in 1896.[3] Before the authorship was established, the poem was attributed to a seventeenth-century Swedish poet, Lars Wivallius.[1]

Birchenbaum is the first known female writer from Finland.[1] (Maria Simointytär, whose poems were published anonymously in broadside form, was likely the first published Finnish female writer.)[5] Birchenbaum was also the first known Finnish poet to write in the Swedish language.[3] She is additionally notable in that "En annan ny visa" is the only firsthand literary account of Finland's participation fighting under Sweden in the Thirty Years' War.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Schoolfield, George C. (1998), "A Part of Sweden", in Schoolfield, George C., A History of Finland's Literature, A History of Scandinavian Literatures, 4, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, p. 278
  2. 1 2 Mäkelä-Alitalo, Anneli (11 October 2010), "Birchenbaum, Christina Regina von (K 1651 jälkeen)", Kansallisbiografia, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, retrieved 6 August 2015
  3. 1 2 3 4 Lindgärde, Valborg (2012), "Birchenbaum, Christina Regina von", The History of Nordic Women's Literature, KVINFO, retrieved 6 August 2015
  4. 1 2 3 4 Ahokas, Jaakko (1973), A History of Finnish Literature, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, p. 21
  5. ↑ Mäkelä-Alitalo, Anneli (11 October 2005), "Maria Simointytär (1600-luku)", Kansallisbiografia, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, retrieved 6 August 2015
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