Edith Irene Södergran (1892 – 1923) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish poet

In order to demonstrate the global impact of the First World War, I have tried to find poets from as many countries as possible.  To this end, some of the poems included do not relate directly to the war.  However, all the poets included were alive and capable of writing poetry during the 1914 – 1919 period.  As a poet, I contend that it is highly likely they would have written about the war even if their poems were not published, or they have been published and we have not yet discovered them.

Edith Irene Södergran was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia on 4th April 1892.   Her parents, Mats Södergran and Helena, née Holmroos, were both born in Finland but had Swedish as their Mother tongue.

When Edith was a baby, the Södergrans moved to the village of Raivola on the Karelian Isthmus, where her grandfather, Gabriel Holmroos, had purchased a house for them.

Edith was educated at the girls school in Petrischule in St. Petersburg. The school was situated opposite The Winter Palace, which meant that Edith to experience the troubles in Tsarist Russia at first hand.  In 1904, her father was diagnosed with Tuberculosis, and in May 1906 he was admitted to Nummela sanatorium in Nyland. He was sent home and died in October 1907.

Edith was a keen photographer. German was the language she mainly used at school and with her friends.  Her first poem was written in German.

In November 1908, Edith began to feel ill and was diagnosed with ‘inflamation of the lungs’.  In 1911, she and he rmother travelled to Switzerland, where they hoped Edith would receive treatment for her illness.

Her time in Switzerland had a pivotal effect on Edith's life. From a remote part of Finland she went to an intellectually rich country where, not least in the Sanatorium, she mixed with gifted people who hailed from different parts of Europe. With them she felt a connection that she had rarely felt in St. Petersburg. Edith wrote two poems, Trädet i skogen ("The Tree in the Forest") and Fragment av en stämning ("Fragment of a Mood"), which express her sorrow and memories of her time in Switzerland.

Edith and her mother returned home In the spring of 1914.  At the beginning of the First World War, Finland was an autonomous Grabd Duchy within the Russian Empire.

Edith continued to write poetry but from 1920 onwards she abandoned her poetry and did not write again until August 1922;

Edith died on 23rd June 1923 at her home in Raivola, Russia and was buried at the village church.


“A Wish”

Of all our sunny world
I wish only for a garden sofa
where a cat is sunning itself.

There I should sit
with a letter at my breast,
a single small letter.
That is what my dream looks like.

Edith Sodergran