Kaarlo Sarkia

Kaarlo Sarkia (11 May 1902 – 16 November 1945 ) was a Finnish poet and translator who was influenced by romantic poetry. His poems include motifs like childhood memories, love, landscapes and dreamworld, and in his last collection of poetry also his personal death and mankind's sufferings. As Kailas, his poetry also had homosexual themes.

Sarkia published four collections of poetry between 1929 and 1943. In addition to his own works, Sarkia was known as a translator of French and Italian poetry. Sarkia was also a contemporary member of the Finnish literary group Tulenkantajat. Sarkia never had a permanent home or regular job and he used to spend terms in sanatoriums. Sarkia died of tuberculosis at the age of 43.

Life Sarkia was born in the municipality of Kiikka, Satakunta in southwest Finland as an illegitimate child of the maid Aleksandra Sulin. Sarkia's father was most likely the local carpenter Malakias Korkki. His mother died of tuberculosis in 1916 and Sarkia moved to live with his godmother Hilda Runni. With a help of his grandparents Sarkia was able to finish the secondary school in Tyrvää. During his schoolyears, Sarkia got interested in poetry and also became aware of his homosexuality. Sarkia learned French and German in Tyrvää, where he lived by the local pharmacist whose wife was born in Switzerland. A year later he began studies at the University of Turku, joining the literary circle of V. A. Koskenniemi. His fourth book, Kohtalon vaaka (″The Scale of Fate″) came out the same year, in the middle of the World War II, when Finland was fighting as an ally of Nazi Germany. Sarkia did not join the writers who produced patriotic propaganda. Instead, the collection featured several pacifist and anti-war poems. As a result, Sarkia was criticized for being unpatriotic.

As the war ended, Sarkia travelled to Sweden for a period at a local sanatorium. Sarkia never made it to the hospital, but spent his time in a Stockholm hotel. When Sarkia returned Finland, he went to Sysmä to the care of two sisters with whom he had become acquainted. Sarkia died there of tuberculosis in November 1945 at the age of 43. He was buried to the Hietaniemi Cemetery in Helsinki. His poetry has even influenced on the lyrics of the Finnish death metal group Insomnium.

Among the poets he translated were Arthur Rimbaud, François Villon, Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire and Gabriele D’Annunzio.

Commemoration The literary society Sarkia-Seura was established in 1952. The Sarkia museum was opened in 1959 in the house where Sarkia lived with his godmother after his mother had died. Sarkia's statue was erected to his birthplace Kiikka in 1960. It is a work of the Finnish sculptor Kauko Räike.

In 2010, the artistic residence Villa Sarkia, run by the literary society Nuoren Voiman Liitto, was opened in Sysmä.

There is a street commemorating Kaarlo Sarkia in Vermonniitty (Espoo) named Kaarlo Sarkian katu. Streets commemorating other 1930s artists Uuno Kailas and Anna Sahlstén are also found nearby.