ABSTRACT
The Finnish sports movement became a mass phenomenon that engaged also the working class and rural population much earlier than similar movements in central Europe. Outstanding results in the Olympic Games brought Finland fame as a sporting nation, not least in athletics, in which Finnish long-distance runners harvested more than 40 Olympic medals between 1912 and 1936. This chapter focuses on the ideological function of sport in Finland through the study of three novels, there are novel Avoveteen, novel Elmo and novel Maaninkavaara. Avoveteen painted a vivid picture of the strongly rural understanding of the Finnish successes in the top athletics competitions of the 1930s. The most accurate characterisation of the novel Elmo is that is perhaps a burlesque satire of the outworn and politically problematic nationalist metaphors in circulation in Finnish public life in general. Elmo's incredible sports abilities are accidentally discovered during his adventurous life at sea.
