Author: Chia Koskinen

Time for another LIWRE Lahti International Writers’ Reunion (LIWRE) is back again! We have overcome all the obstacles posed by the pandemic and will finally be able to convene and discuss as before.

Or not quite as before, because the 30^th Reunion in June 2022 is something more. As the world changes around us, places for free discussion is greatly appreaciated.

Both the venue and accommodation for visiting writers are worth the festive event. Discussions will be held at Malski, the great new conference center in Lahti, and simultaneously interpreted for the audience.

Expect sharp analysis, passionate arguments, and meeting others at the core of literature – not forgetting our traditional Poetry Evening, Prose Matinee, and an Open Mic club.

Please follow updates on these pages!

In 1917 Finnish poet Eino Leino wrote a poem for Ukraine.

Leino wrote this on 29 June 1917, less than three weeks after the declaration of the Ukrainian People’s Republic on 10 June.

Hail to Ukraine!

Hail to Ukraine! To the glorious sounding,
Cry of white haze of the early morn’s light!
March of your strength and your ardour surrounding,
urging and making your land’s freedom bright!
Bold be Ukraine! For you now must not waver!
Dawn of your people, it surely has come.
Calmly and firmly in danger be braver
blaze if you must to your liberty’s drum!

Beauteous Ukraine, O the salt of the nations!
Banner is yours, so to us falls the road.
Finland and Poland are tempest-bound stations,
lands of the Baltic must bear heavy load.
Forward Ukraine! For your slavery’s ended,
Freedom is yours if you want it enough.
Chorus so sonorous yet slender has trended –
waning of nations meets ocean’s rebuff?

New now Ukraine, so voluptuous and buxom!
Delta lips glisten with her natal gush –
purple, the blooms of her freedom now blossom –
Mordva and Georgia and Perm in a rush!
Russia now faces her tribes’ resurrection;
shatter the shackles of tsars in the night!
Shine now Ukraine – with archer’s bow’s flection,
on the republican road shed your light!