Lauri Kettunen - eesti keele eestkostja Soomes
Lauri Kettunen – advocate of Estonian language in Finland

Summary/Abstract: Lauri Kettunen (1885﷓1963) was the first professor of Finnic languages at the University of Tartu (1920﷓1925) and an active advocate of close cultural and political relations between Estonia and Finland between the two world wars. After returning to Finland he actively promoted this issue and the research of the Finnic language area. However, Kettunen’s life-work has gained only little attention posthumously. The discussion between Kettunen and his contemporaries often became passionate and in certain cases so ill-tempered that it affected Kettunen’s position as a scholar considerably. The goal of Kettunen’s criticism was often a linguistic detail or a note on works published by his colleagues. Furthermore, he did not hesitate to publicly argue against decisions that he could not accept. For instance, Kettunen was convinced that it was correct to use the name Eesti ‘Estonia’ instead of Viro ‘id.’ in Finnish, which made him repeatedly dispute any other possibility in linguistic and other journals.

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