Translocalis is a digital database for reader letters written in different locations and published in Finnish papers up to the year 1885. The Translocalis database contains 72 000 reader letters from Finland and abroad. In the name of the collection, trans refers to an object going over or through something and localis refers to a space or location. Combined, Translocalis expresses something more than local, which these local letters represented. The Finnish-speaking press started out on a nation-wide level and became more regional and local only during the latter half of the 19th century.
In the Finnish-speaking press, the local letter phenomenon grew into an entire local letter culture in the middle of the 19th century. It was part of the formation of an early civic society. Aleksis Kivi described this culture in a famous part of The Seven Brothers where Eero, while reading newspapers and sending letters to them, experienced the “whole image of our homeland with its loving mother’s face” entering his heart.
Translocalis 1775–1885 is a major cultural project in 2021–2023, funded by Alfred Kordelin Foundation and led by postdoctoral research fellow Heikki Kokko. Translocalis was implemented in collaboration with Academy of Finland’s Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences (HEX), based in the University of Tampere, and the National Library of Finland. The database has been published as a part of the digital cultural heritage collection of the National Library of Finland.
Link to the database: https://digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi/collections?id=742&set_language=en