More #SmallCheeringThings and KAJ-fest keeps on rolling! (Scroll upthread for more explanation and more bangers from Ostrobothnia)
First up today, the international anthem we need in these fractured times, Paavos Barkbrö - Paavo's Bread Made With Tree-bark.
Rousing, moving, and yet somehow at the same time still immensely silly, this is a hymn to solidarity and community, and is I think a work of genius.
It does need a lot of cultural background, and happily YouTube user @dzzimmy has left a great explanation under the video, which I'm copying wholesale, with thanks:
"This song is inspired by the poem “Högt bland Saarijärvis moar” ("High on Saarijärvi’s moors"), written by Finland's national poet, J.L. Runeberg. In Finnish, the poem is known as “Saarijärven Paavo.”
In the poem, the farmer Paavo’s harvests fail year after year. He and his family are forced to “mix bark into the bread” — a common famine practice in the Nordics. When the harvest finally succeeds, Paavo’s wife rejoices, thinking they can now enjoy better days without bark bread. But Paavo replies (paraphrased): “Mix more bark into the bread, for our neighbour’s crops have frozen and failed.”
It’s essentially a tale about perseverance through hardship and solidarity with your fellow man.
Much of the Finnish national identity was shaped by Runeberg’s early 19th-century poetry, which often tells stories of ordinary people enduring and prevailing: Farmer Paavo and his struggles, Landshövding Wibelius who protected civilians by upholding the rule of law, and Sven Dufva, a soldier simple in mind but brave and pure of heart."
Live version, with full chorus of schoolchildren, and also English subtitles, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLxHtt33_Sc