History of Finnish Cultural Policy

 

CUPORE started in 2004 a project analysing historical development of cultural policy in Finland. The project has been implemented at the University of Jyväskylä, Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy.

 

The project covers a period of 120 years, from the mid 1850s to the end of the 1970s. It aims at explicating the changing role of public authorities (the state and municipalities) as financers of artistic and cultural life and as suppliers of public or publicly subsidised cultural services. The development of different policy measures and the ground given for their legitimisation are analysed separately for different stages of the development of the national culture and the Finnish nation-state.

 

The research focuses on the interaction between the formation of cultural policy and the nascence and institutionalisation of the Finnish arts and culture. More specifically, the central theme is how the conceptions imbedded in cultural presentation about the Finnish nation and the Finnish nation state and the perceptions of cultural policy decision-makers and administration of the role of the arts and culture in shaping Finnish society have shaped each other. This interaction is looked at against the backdrop of the birth and development of art associations and cultural organisations, especially what varying political and ideological stances they have taken and invoked and how they have influenced the balance of power in cultural policy decision-making and in contestations between artistic orientations and cultural trends.

 

The first publication (Sakarias Sokka, 2005) of the project has dealt with the theme how the organisation of the artistic activities and the intrusion of expert power in the allocation of public support "gave contents" to the formation of the Finnish nation-state. The second publication (Minna Helminen, 2007) analyses the birth of the Finnish theatre and orchestra institution at the local level. Both publications have been published in Finnish only (Julkaisut).

 

LINKS

Research orientation on theory and history of cultural policy, University of Jyväskylä

Theory and History of Cultural Policy

 

Le Comité d'histoire du ministère de la Culture

www.culture.fr/culture/comite-histoire.htm

 

 

Back to previous page