Aleksanteri Ahola-Valo

Aleksanteri Ahola-Valo
240px Self-portrait of Ahola-Valo, a torchbearer 1924
Born	(1900-01-27)27 January 1900 Impilahti, Karelia
Died	Simrishamn, Skåne County
Known for	Painting, architecture, writer
Movement	Avant-garde modern art

Aleksanteri Ahola-Valo (27 January 1900 – 15 September 1997) was a Finnish artist, architect and thinker. Inventor of "AE-evohomology" life philosophy.

Circumstances forced Ahola-Valo to change his place of residence and his cultural sphere frequently. He spent his childhood in Tsarist Russia and his early manhood in the Soviet Union, from where he fled to Finland in the early 1930s. He lived in Sweden for almost 40 years before returning to his native country at the age of 80.

During his lifetime, he was best known in Finland as an artist and especially as a graphic artist. In his speeches, he often used the phrase "wise love" to describe his way of thinking, calling himself the architect of a healthy life and a servant of goodness. He was a witness to the Russian Revolution.

Biography

Family

Aleksanteri Ahola-Valo was born in Impilahti, Karelia, the son of Pekka Ahola (1875–1919), a chimney sweep and newspaper man, and his mother Ida Ahola, née Kultalahti (1869–1902), a corset shop owner. They met in Saint Petersburg, where Pekka Ahola had come by barge across the Lake Ladoga at the age of 16 in search of work. Ida was adopted into a German family of doctors, where she learned several languages. Ida fell in love with a sensitive poet who had adopted Tolstoyan ideas. They married in 1899.

Their firstborn son Aleksanteri was born in 1900. In addition to Alexander, they had another son, Felixin, in 1902. After Felixin was born, Ida fell ill and died. This was a disaster for the small family. Pekka Ahola was left alone to care for the two young boys, who had to be constantly moved to different places while Pekka Ahola tried to earn a living as a chimney sweep. While in the care of his relatives, Aleksanteri was hospitalised for two weeks after he was found guilty of playing with food and being abused by his aunt at the age of two. Since then, Ahola-Valo claimed to remember all the events of his life. The shocks of early childhood matured him prematurely.

Pekka Ahola socialised with Finnish teachers and, according to Aleksanteri Ahola-Valo in 1983, went with them to meet Leo Tolstoy, among others, with his little older son.

Bloody Sunday in Saint Petersburg

Ahola-Valo says she witnessed the bloody event in St Petersburg when she was five years old. A religious procession was coming to the Winter Palace, led by old religious men carrying a velvet cushion with a petition to the Tsar and singing religious songs. When the procession reached the front of the Winter Palace, it was met by the crossfire of the Tsar's troops. Ali says that he saw members of the procession fall to the ground dead and was hospitalised for shock.

According to Ahola-Valo's own description, Bloody Sunday changed his personality. He became a serious "old man" who decided to do everything he could to stop the violent madness of adults. He became a contemplative, haunted by such phenomena as superstition and its equivalent, irrational religiosity, carnivorousness, the abuse of power over children and the depravity of alcoholism.

Childhood in Ingria

The Tsarist regime sent Pekka Ahola and his family into exile in the spring of 1907 to the all-Russian villa settlement of Viiritsa (Russian: Vyiritsa) in Ingria.

According to Ahola-Valo, Pekka Ahola, an educated and cultured man in Viiritsa, directed his son, who he considered gifted, to private lessons with Lydmila Kušmina. Lydmila Kušmina, whom Aleksanteri used the abbreviated name LyM in his diaries, became a mother substitute for him. Kušmina, a revolutionary intellectual and doctor who had lost her husband, took charge of Aleksanteri's development.

In late spring, Kušmina gave Aleksanteri a black-bound notebook and told him to keep a daily diary. This diary is a detailed record of Aleksanteri's development and that of the entire Viiritsa community of children. Aleksanteri was the children's leader when the they set out to make the world a better place. The diaries of Viiritsa have been published as the Schoolboy's Diaries series and Kaija Juurikkala has made the film Light based on them.

Witness to the Russian Revolution in 1917

Ahola-Valo moved away from his home in Viiritsa in 1916 and began a life of independence in St Petersburg. He has later claimed that he witnessed many historical events but that he did not actually participate in them, as the Russian Revolution was a time of passionate study in the libraries of St Petersburg. At the same time, he supported himself and his brother in various jobs, from chimney sweep to tram driver and pastry chef.

Ahola-Valo tells that he saw Rasputin's body being harvested from the Moyka canal. However, the story does not correspond to the most common version of events: the palace of Prince Yusupov, where Rasputin was killed, was located along the Moyka, but the body was thrown into the Nevka, where it was later recovered. Ahola-Valo has also claimed to have been there when Lenin addressed the crowds from the steps of the Chesinskaya House in the summer of 1917, and to have heard from a nearby apartment how the tank cruiser Aurora fired a signal shot for the October Revolution.

In an interesting episode for the history of his native country, he says that on the last day of 1917 he was visiting a friend in Smolny and happened to see some "hunchbacked" men visiting Lenin, who very unadorned and quickly signed a document in the corridor of Smolny. Only later in Finland would Ahola-Valo have discovered that Lenin was signing the recognition of Finland's independence at the time. According to Svinhufvud, however, the Finnish delegation waited to receive the document signifying recognition of independence, with fur coats on and caps in hand, and it was delivered to them signed by the head of the bureau, Bontsh-Brujevitsh. Lenin was not allowed to shake hands with the Finns until later.

As an artist in the Soviet Union

Throughout the 1920s, Ahola-Valo lived in the Soviet Union without any contact with Finland or Finns. He was very close to the broad modernist movement known as the Russian-Soviet avant-garde. In the early 1920s he was a student of Juri Penin at the Vitebsk School of Art. The school was also taught by Marc Chagall and Kazimir Malevich. In Vitebsk he also met his wife Helena, whose uncle was a member of the highest decision-making body of the Orthodox Church, the Holy Synod. However, the marriage between the Finnish son of a plumber and a Polish noblewoman who had attended the court balls of Tsar Nicholas II in her youth did not work out.

Ahola-Valo gained recognition as an artist after moving to Minsk, Belarus, where her studio became a centre of the local art scene.

Pavilion of the History of Human Suffering

Since his childhood, Ahola-Valo has been making various building plans. Only one of them came to fruition: the "Pavilion of the History of Human Suffering", which was the most ambitious work of Ahola-Valo's life. The pavilion was built in Minsk in 1930 and was commissioned by the Western Red Cross. Ahola-Valo says he used a then unknown prefabricated technology to build the pavilion, and it was completed quickly in a matter of months.

The walls of the Pavilion were lined with four large frescoes, painted with Ahola-Valo by students from the Vitebsk Art School. The frescoes depicted stories of human suffering over the centuries. The pavilion also featured information on the current human rights situation. In its centre, visitors were greeted by a large "Armed Tyrant of the World", whose eye-shaped spotlight shone far beyond the pavilion. On the roof of the pavilion was a stage where ballet could also be performed. The pavilion was, in Ahola-Valo's words, "a temple for the enlightenment and betterment of mankind".

Immediately after the pavilion's completion, Ahola-Valo fell out with the local Communist Party commissioner and left Minsk in a rage. He threw his belongings into the street and left the city. This was fortunate for Ahola-Valo, however, because almost immediately afterwards the Great Purge began in Minsk, which, according to Ahola-Valo, almost completely destroyed the Belarusian civilisation of the time.

There is nothing left of the pavilion. Ahola-Valo assumed that it was destroyed in World War II, but apparently it was destroyed earlier.

Escape from the Soviet Union

From Minsk, Ahola-Valo moved to Moscow and stopped working as an artist. As socialist realism became the official and only accepted trend, art had become formulaic, controlled and narrow-minded. The artist was supposed to work according to the method of socialist realism, but Ahola-Valo refused. Instead, he was involved in an architectural project to build a green urban ring around Moscow. Ahola-Valo says that this project, too, was interrupted when the funds were transferred to the war effort.

He then joined the Institute for Maternity and Child Protection as head of its standardisation department. Together with Prof. Feder, the director of the Institute, Ahola-Valo did what she considered to be extremely valuable work in raising a new generation. He studied child development and made various types of furniture specifically for children. According to Ahola-Valo, this furniture was then to be mass-produced on an industrial scale.

As a Finn, Ahola-Valo felt unsafe in the Soviet Union, where all foreigners working in state institutions were in mortal danger. He went to the Chairman of the State Planning Committee, Karl Radek, to discuss his position. Radek advised Ahola-Valo to leave the country to save his life. As a Finnish citizen, Ahola-Valo managed to escape with the help of the Finnish Embassy. The Embassy also ensured that Ahola-Valo was able to bring with him his writings and works of art, among other things.

Wartime in Finland

At the end of the decade, Ahola-Valo sensed the war was coming and hid his most important possessions, including his diary, in a milk carton underground in Ruskeasuo, Helsinki. She put a note in the box:

This work is done for the benefit of human progress. If I happen to die, I hope the rationalised tools and theoretical writings will be used for the good of the Finnish people. These are hidden because a misguided government controls our lives and the creative spirit cannot be freely realized.

After the outbreak of the Winter War, Ahola-Valo was arrested in a security detention centre and transferred to the Tammisaari forced labour facility. He was interrogated, but escaped a treason charge. He said that he was released from Tammisaari after the end of the Winter War, starving and in poor health.

During the Continuation War, he was allowed to be at liberty and was able to carve a portrait of President Risto Ryti. President Ryti read front-line reports while posing as Ahola-Valo in the Presidential Palace. The portrait was never revealed because Mrs Gerda Ryti thought her husband's expression was too serious. However, Ahola-Valo says he was paid for the work. The work is still in Ahola-Valo's estate.

Before and after the war, art was the only way Ahola-Valo could connect with Finnish society. He tried to establish contacts with Finnish cultural circles. He is mentioned in connection with Kiila, Tulenkantajat and Kirjallisuuslehti magazines, among others. Ahola-Valo is also mentioned in the founding stages of the literary Mäkelä district.

The Swedish period

After the war, Ahola-Valo received a grant from the Finnish state to create a work depicting the Viking Age. He went to Sweden to study the history of the Viking Age and remained in Sweden as a professional artist for almost 40 years. He first lived and worked in Stockholm, where he founded, among other things, a cooperation organisation for Finnish artists. From 1970 onwards he lived in Scania, where he bought an old school building in Tågarp, near Simrishamn, as his home and studio, where he gathered his life's work.

The failed Ahola-Valo marriage had already ended in a "farewell wedding" in Finland, organised by Ahola-Valo. The wedding was celebrated among friends, gifts were distributed and it was agreed that the spouses were not right for each other. In Sweden, he remarried Taru Salmion, who had come to Sweden as his exhibition assistant.

The Swedish period was the most serene time of Ahola-Valo's life. With his new wife, he could work in peace and build Tågarp into his own home, from which he planned to grow an educational college of his ideas.

They made their living through art; they painted a lot of flowers, landscapes and portraits. Although they enjoyed their stay in Scania, they were in a foreign culture.

In Finland, Ahola-Valo was almost completely forgotten during this period. It was not until 1977 that an article entitled "An artist's long march" was published in Taide magazine.

Concern about the preservation of life's work

By the time he acquired Tågarp as his life's work in 1970, Ahola-Valo was already 70 years old. When he renovated Tågarp into a college, he hoped to find people in Scania who would carry forward his educational thinking and preserve his life's work as a whole. When this did not work in Sweden, he set about looking elsewhere for people who would be interested. In Hämeenlinna he found supporters.

In 1983, Ahola-Valo founded the Elpo Association to further his ideas and work, and transferred most of his assets to the Valola Foundation, which he established in 1990. The City of Hämeenlinna then donated a permanent space to the foundation, which was also used as a museum and exhibition space for an "educational exhibition" of Ahola-Valo's art. This decision enabled the physical preservation of Ahola-Valo's life's work as a whole. His life's work is still in storage, waiting to be studied, stored and displayed. Ahola-Valo's legacy has been described as an unpredictable treasure chest waiting to be discovered and activated.

In the summer of 1997, Ahola-Valo was appointed honorary doctor of the Faculty of Education at the University of Oulu. Ahola-Valo accepted and wrote a letter to his supporters in Oulu in which he stated:

It is with bated breath that I am pleased to announce that my long-term life's work has, in these last few years, reached the stage where we can start.

His last years were marked by a deep concern for the development of humanity and the preservation of his own life's work.

Ahola-Valo numbered his works chronologically; the first numbered work was a portrait of his father from 1910. His total artistic output amounts to almost 10 000 works. In 1923 he adopted the pen name "Valo" (Light), which he used to sign all his works during the Soviet era; after coming to Finland he started using the name Ahola-Valo.

In 1946, Aleksanteri Ahola-Valo had an art exhibition at the then Tampere City Library, under the direction of Mikko Mäkelä. The art exhibition was seen by A. Walmari, a cartographer and visual arts enthusiast from Svein, who is known to have exclaimed, "Always trampling!" when looking at the exhibition's works, which conveyed very strong emotions. Ahola-Valo was then involved for some time in the early stages of the library director's literary group — the Mäkelä Circle — "until he disappeared from the scene".

AE-evohomology

Lydmila Kušmina, a private childhood teacher, defined the word humanism for 8-year-old Aleksanteri like this: "Humanism is the science of charitable relations between people." And Kushmina continued: "It means — to do good and not to cause insanity, not to torture and not to beat. It is a concept — to protect man from injustice and all kinds of ill effects." Referring to Aleksanteri, she added: "You, Alik, with your whole being and way of thinking, are exactly the kind of person who meets the requirements of humanism... Humanism... means yourself and your purpose in life."

Under Kušmina's encouraging and supportive guidance, Ahola-Valo developed from an early age into a confident researcher who believed in himself and his abilities. Throughout his life, he also considered himself a scientist.

His research subject was himself. As a result of his research, he developed what he called AE-evohomology as his major life's work. By this term he referred to the science of the development (evolution) of man (Homo). He translated AE-evohomology as the science of human progress. The letters A and E in front of the word 'evohomology' refer to the different degrees of reach of the activity. Ahola-Valo divided human activity into different strands, which he called the 'others'. The first and most important of the AE-evohomology is EDUKO, self-education. There are two basic concepts in AE-evohomology that are related to all activity: preparation (Valme) and active activity (Akto).

AE evo-homology is an individual-oriented system that allows people to control their own behaviour. It includes a graphical conceptual language created by Ahola-Valo, consisting of about 2 800 different characters, which he called mnemonics. The graphical conceptual language enables people to quickly and accurately monitor and plan how they spend their time and how they are progressing towards the goals they have set for themselves. AE evo-homology is a set of multiple cards, systems and booklets. They constitute the tools of human self-education that, according to Ahola-Valo, educators currently lack. Ahola-Valo's self-education doctrine is based on constant monitoring of one's own time and taking notes on everything. In Ahola-Valo's view, such control and mechanical self-discipline create the possibility of moral growth.

The development of AE evo-homology actually began in Ahola-Valo's childhood at the Children's Play School in Viiritsa, which she initiated and which was run by children working together. The children raised money for its activities, designed its curriculum and taught each other and adults. In the schoolboy's diaries, the young Ahola-Valo describes the stages of school development and how self-control and self-discipline change the way people think and act from childhood onwards.

Ahola-Valo's entire life, art, architecture, everyday life and relationships, was based on the AE-evohomological system.

Ahola-Valo records his time to the nearest 15 minutes. He said: "Time is the most important human asset." Another motto he often used was: "We must create health and through health, beauty. We must create life, which is an art in itself."

References

• Haltia, Hanna (2003). Elämän mittainen lapsuus : lapsuus elämänmittaisena projektina Aleksanteri Ahola-Valon ajattelussa. Turku: Université de Turku.
• Lehtinen, Maini (1999). Ahola-Valon kaksikielisyys ja kääntäminen. Tampere: Université de Tampere.