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ENDURANCE RUNNING AS INITIATION INTO THE MYSTERIES
MAJOR WORKS BY EHRNROOTH RELATED TO ENDURANCE RUNNING,
CREATIVE WRITING, AND MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE
Jari Ehrnrooth was born in 1959 in a small lakeside village near the eastern
border of Finland. He was raised with a physically active outdoor lifestyle,
and if the weather made it impossible to go outside, he stayed indoors reading
adventure books like Tarzan. At a young age, he started to read Kafka and
Dostoyevsky, as well as philosophical works and the texts of world religions.
At the University of Joensuu, Ehrnrooth studied history, sociology,
philosophy, and literature. His 1992 doctoral thesis Sanan vallassa, vihan
voimalla (The Power of the Word and the Force of Hatred) offers an analysis
of the dynamics of hatred and revolutionary doctrines in the Finnish working
class movement before the revolution and civil war of 1918. The book gave
rise to a public and academic debate, and it was awarded a prize for best
academic book of the year. Ehrnrooth began his career as a creative writer
in 1995 with the collection of essays Asentoja (Positions), which received
the prestigious Kalevi Jantti Literary prize in Finland.“ By now, he has
published more than a dozen books, including novels, free prose, essays, and
drama. He has also been active as an intellectual commentator, writing in
catalogues and debate books for newspapers and monthly magazines, as well
as in radio and television productions.
Before considering Ehrnrooth’s relevant works, the following paragraphs
will outline the dense social and literary contexts of endurance running in
Finland. Athletes—the so-called “flying Finns,” an expression which grew to
be used as a parallel to “flying Buddhist monks”'*—played a crucial role in
the growing international reputation of Finland over the course of the past
century. The term “flying Finn” was first used to Hannes Kohlemainen for
his repeated success in the beginning of the twentieth century, and later
expanded to include other successful distance runners from Finland—as
the 1989 book “Flying Finns” also reveals.’ It was written by Matti Hannus,
the present editor of the journal Juoksija (The Runner), published since 1971.
Thanks to the recent “sporting turn” that began in the 1970s, presently 14%
of the Finnish population trains regularly in endurance running. As Jouni
Tossavainen, the author of the recent successful novel about the first
“flying Finn,” Hannes Kohlemaninen,” reports in a 2014 study, in Finnish
academic scholarship we find several outstanding works reflecting on
Jari Ehrrooth, Sanan vallassa, vihan voimalla: sosialistiset vallankumousopit ja niiden
vaikutus Suomen työväenliikkeessä 1905-1914, Historiallisia tutkimuksia 167. 1992.
* Jari, Ehrnnrooth, Asentoja. Muistelmia nykyajasta. Helsinki: WSOY, 1995
5 David-Neel, Magic and Mystery in Tibet, 161.
Matti Hannus, Flying Finns. Story of the Great Tradition of Finnish Distance Running and
Cross Country Skiing, Helsinki, Tietosanoma, 1989.
Jouni Tossavainen, New Yorkin Lentävä suomalainen, Helsinki: Like, 2014.
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