Editing Seitsemän veljestä (section)

==Reception history==
Published in [[1870 in literature|1870]], ''Seitsemän veljestä'' ended an era dominated by Swedish-speaking authors, most notable of whom was [[J. L. Runeberg]], and created a solid basis for new Finnish authors like [[Minna Canth]] and [[Juhani Aho]], who were, following Aleksis Kivi, the first authors to depict ordinary Finns in a realistic way.

[[File:Seven-Brothers-1970.jpg|thumb|250px|The young and unruly seven brothers depicted in a 1970 postage stamp]]

The novel was particularly reviled by the literary circles of Kivi's time, who disliked the unflattering image of Finns it presented. The title characters were seen as crude [[caricature]]s of the [[Nationalism|nationalistic ideals]] of the time. Foremost in this hostile backlash was the influential critic [[August Ahlqvist]], who called the book a "ridiculous work and a blot on the name of Finnish literature"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/akivi.htm |title=Aleksis Kivi |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |first=Petri |last=Liukkonen |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20050828235140/http://kirjasto.sci.fi/akivi.htm |archivedate=28 August 2005 |url-status=dead }}</ref> and wrote in a review published in ''Finlands Allmänna Tidning'' that "the brothers' characters were nothing like calm, serious and laborious folk who toiled the Finnish lands."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://yle.fi/vintti/yle.fi/sininenlaulu/yle.fi/teema/sininenlaulu/artikkeli.php-id=386.htm|title=Seitsemän veljestä|last=Korhonen|first= Anna|work=[[YLE]]|access-date=July 16, 2021 | language=fi}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine | title = Finsk litteratur VII | magazine = Finlands Allmänna Tidning | date = May 21, 1870 | number = 116 | language=sv | pages = 2–3}}</ref> Another critic worth mentioning was the [[Fennoman]] politician [[Agathon Meurman]], who, among other things, said the book was "a hellish lie about Finnish [[peasant]]s" and stated that "Mr. Kivi regards the printing press as his poetic [[rectum]]."<ref name="kivi-is">{{cite web|url=https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000005854642.html|title=Aleksis Kiven valtava klassikko sai ilmestyessään poikkeuksellisen teilauksen: "Poeettinen peräsuoli"|work=[[Ilta-Sanomat]]|date=6 October 2018|access-date=22 September 2022|language=fi}}</ref>

Literary scholar Markku Eskelinen considers ''Seitsemän veljestä'' to be very exceptional compared to his time of birth and the state of Finnish [[Prose|prose literature]] at that time. According to Eskelinen, the work is more tense and aesthetically complex than the realistic novels of the significant generation of writers who followed Kivi. Eskelinen also highlights Kivi's linguistic play with genres: although the work uses a lot of [[biblical]] and otherwise religious language for understandable reasons due to the dominance of [[religious literature]] at the time, its attitude to religious authority is not submissive, unlike other prose literature of the time. In Eskelinen's opinion, Finnish-language prose works comparable to the richness and multilevelness of Kivi's work began to appear only in the next century.<ref>{{cite book|author=Markku Eskelinen|title=Raukoilla rajoilla. Suomenkielisen proosakirjallisuuden historiaa|year=2016|pages=70–72|publisher=Siltala|language=fi}}</ref>

[[File:Nurmijarvi.vaakuna.svg|thumb|upright|The heads of seven brothers in the coat of arms of [[Nurmijärvi]]]]

The novel is referred to in the [[coat of arms]] of the [[Nurmijärvi|Nurmijärvi municipality]], the birthplace of Kivi. The explanation of the coat of arms is “in the blue field, the heads of seven young golden-haired young men set 2+3+2.” The coat of arms was designed by Olof Eriksson in accordance with the idea proposed by B. Harald Hellström, and was approved by the Nurmijärvi Municipal Council at its meeting on December 18, 1953. The coat of arms was approved for use by the [[Ministry of the Interior (Finland)|Ministry of the Interior]] on April 14, 1954.<ref>{{cite book | title = Suomen kunnallisvaakunat | publisher = Suomen Kunnallisliitto | year = 1982 | page = 151 | isbn = 951-773-085-3 | language = fi}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title = Sisäasiainministeriön vahvistamat kaupunkien, kauppaloiden ja kuntien vaakunat 1949-1995 I:11 Nurmijärvi | url = http://digi.narc.fi/digi/fullpic.ka?kuid=1538998 | work = Kansallisarkiston digitaaliarkisto | access-date = March 16, 2021 | language = fi}}</ref>