Impressive Houses and Quiet Villages - Eastern Karelian Architecture in the Photo Collections of Aalto University Archives

Lindberg and Hautala state in their book that only a small part of the area was able to be checked during the expedition, but they found a lot of interesting material, and a new trip was planned for the following year. In total, they accumulated a couple thousand photographs, but some of the negatives were destroyed during the bombing of Helsinki in the Continuation War. The collection at the Aalto University Archives contains approximately 700 photographs taken by Jouko Hautala.

Jouko Hautala (27.6.1910 – 5.10.1983) is primarily known as a researcher of folk poetry and as an influencer in cultural studies. Hautala started working as a curator at the Folk Poetry Archive of the Finnish Literature Society in 1937, and from 1948 onwards, he served as the director of the archive. He was also a docent and professor of folk poetry research at the University of Helsinki. As a researcher at the Folk Poetry Archive, Hautala prepared inquiries for the network of folk poetry collectors, analyzed collections, and edited publications. The archive's program included summer research trips throughout Finland. During a research trip to East Karelia, where he worked temporarily as an assistant in the architectural department at the Helsinki University of Technology, Hautala ended up working as a photographer.

The "singing lands" of Karelia have been traveled in the spirit of Karelianism since the 19th century. The goal of Karelianism was to strive for the original source of Finnish culture, which was often imagined to be in Karelia, and the architecture of the area has fascinated Finnish architects. For example, architects Yrjö Blomstedt and Viktor Sucksdorff made a trip to Karelia in the summer of 1894. The results were published in the illustrated work "Karelian Buildings and Ornamental Forms" (1901), which became a precursor of the national arts and crafts style. When Finnish forces occupied parts of East Karelia during the Second World War, the villages in the area were once again studied. During the Continuation War, in addition to Lindberg and Hautala, architect Lars Pettersson was sent to East Karelia to study local church architecture. As a result of the trip, the work "Church Wooden Architecture of Lake Onega: Presentation of Material" (1950) was published, and in 2020 a Russian-language version was released, which was well-received.

Hautala's photo collection later inspired his daughter, documentary filmmaker Maria Pensala, who set out on her own research trip in the early 1990s, aiming to trace the places and people her father had photographed 50 years earlier. Pensala's documentary film "In Olonetsian Villages" (1993) is currently unavailable for online viewing.

The Villages of Aunus and Karelian Houses 

In addition to detailed photography and verbal description of buildings and villages, Lindberg and Hautala compared the architecture and culture of the area to corresponding Finnish customs. Whereas Finnish villages at the time consisted of separate groups of houses and yards, Aunus villages formed dense, ribbon-like structures along roads, rivers, and lakeshores. The houses were built close to each other. The surrounding forest was often heavily cleared, but the proximity of the villages could be sensed when encountering dense and tall spruce groves hosting cemeteries.

Sometimes modest wooden village churches, also called "tšasouna", were located in burial woods, although later they were also built in the centers of villages. The exteriors of some churches were designed to be more grandiose, often as part of a Russianization effort in the area. Lindberg and Hautala were critical of the Russian influences, describing these churches as "ostentatious" in style, and they did not seem to mourn their degradation during the Soviet era.

Kindred People and the Decline of the Villages

In addition to documenting local architectural details, Lindberg and Hautala wrote about the encounters with Finnish-related peoples in Aunus, such as the Vepsians, whose intelligence and enlightenment they praised, and the Ludes, who were described as hospitable and friendly. Hautala's photographs included several images of the villages' residents. In the absence of conscripted men, there were only children, women, and the elderly living in the villages. Being photographed was described as a rare experience for the locals, and it was met with enthusiasm.