Summary:

Matti Mäntylä, A letter to the President – Kekkonen and the citizens of the north meet

Urho Kekkonen served as a Member of Parliament from 1945-1956 for the provincial constituency of Oulu, and as President of the Republic from 1956 until 1981. Northern Finland had a special place in Kekkonen’s policies, particularly during his time as Prime Minister in the 1950’s. During his long political career Kekkonen met ordinary northern Finns countless times, and as a man of the people he attempted to bridge the gap between powerful elites and the citizency as well as that between the center and the periphery. Largely for this reason, in northern Finland Kekkonen was generally perceived as being “his own man,” who kept to the side of northern people against the southern lords.

An extensive civil correspondence and Kekkonen’s trips to the north were the most important forms of interaction between the President and the citizenry. In addition, delegations from northern Finland met with Kekkonen. However, more often than not it was correspondence that brought the President, a well-known writer, and ordinary northern Finns close to each other. The social and geographical gap was bridged as citizen and leader kept a dialogue among themselves. Indeed, Kekkonen stated in his correspondence: “For me, among other things, it was and is important that I can in this way maintain close contact with our citizens across the country.” 

This article examines the interactions between Urho Kekkonen and northern Finns, primarily on the basis of correspondence. What kind of image does Kekkonen’s correspondence relay of the relationship between the leader and the citizenry? How did citizens relate to the leader and the leader to the citizens? In particular, Kekkonen’s correspondence during his time as Prime Minister and during his first presidential term is examined in order to reveal possible changes occurring in these interactions during Kekkonen’s presidency. There is also reason to remember that as a politician, Kekkonen was dependent on voter support. In this sense, the citizenry both gave and took. How did this interdependence manifest itself in citizen correspondence?