Reflection of Finnish culture in modern Swedish-language literature of Finland Finland is a country with a rich history and original culture, which is enriched by representatives of various nationalities living in the country. The position of the Swedish population of Finland is unique, because Swedish is the second official language. The originality of the Finnish-Swedish culture, connected both with the Scandinavian traditions, and with the Baltic-Finnish realities, is reflected in the literature. The question of the manifestation of elements of Finnish culture in the works of Finnish-Swedish authors was studied earlier, in particular, they were discovered in the works of Tito Kollyander, Olof Enkel, Edith Södergran and others.
Modern Finnish literature in Swedish also reflects the view of the national minority on their homeland and their destiny. Writers talk about the realities that are familiar to the inhabitants of the country, regardless of language. Another feature of the FinnishSwedish literature is the use of different languages. In the texts of poets and prose writers, researchers tease out special words that are not usual in Swedish that is used in Sweden. These lexical elements appear due to borrowing or translation from
Finnish. In some cases, researchers talk about “bilingualism”, in others – about foreign language impregnations.
The presence of Finnish culture in the modern Finnish-Swedish literature will be discussed on the base of the novels of Kjell Westö, who writes in Swedish, and uses several words in Finnish, which are distinguished as foreign elements and acquire special functions. Appearing in the speech of the novel character, they can become a marker of the social status of the character. Also the author reconstructs the real situations of mixing languages in oral conversation. The author reports the use of Finnish language in various ways: directly or indirectly, using italics, translation or
without it. Tracing the number of Finnish words in the texts of Kjell Westö, we can conclude that the writer reflects the evolution of the language situation in the country:
the transformation of Swedish from the language of the elite part of society into the language of the national minority. The manifestations of Finnish culture at the lexical level of the text links together Finnish and Swedish in modern Swedish literature of Finland, while emphasizing the features and complexities that arise in the interaction of two groups of the population.