ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the use of spoken Russian and Cyrillic script, a form of biscriptalism, in the memoirs of the Finland-Swedish polyglot writer Tito Colliander. It shows how Colliander embodied the three roles of author, translator and stranger in the Orthodox Christian diaspora, in both Finland and Estonia, since his decision to become a Russian Orthodox Christian. Helena Bodin discusses what Russian and Cyrillic script meant for Colliander’s poetics and identity, also taking into account religion as an important parameter of diversity in the study of literary multilingualism and translingual life writing. Bodin demonstrates that the experience of translating, mediating and going in-between is crucial to Colliander’s life and work: multilingualism and biscriptalism play decisive roles in his diasporic Orthodox Christian identity, but the reader is also invited to continue this task of the translator and to experience the in-betweenness of Colliander’s stranger.
