Kaarlo Sarkia

Kaarlo Sarkia
Kaarlo Sarkia in the 1940s
Born	Kaarlo Teodor Sulin (1902-05-11)May 11, 1902 Kiikka, Grand Duchy of Finland
Died	November 16, 1945(1945-11-16) (aged 43) Sysmä, Finland
Occupation	poet, translator
Years active	1929–1944

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 anthology also his personal death and mankind's sufferings. Together with Uuno Kailas, Sarkia was the most prominent Finnish poet of the 1930s. As Kailas, his poetry also had homosexual themes.

Sarkia published four anthologies between 1929 and 1943. In addition to his own works, Sarkia was known as a praised 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.

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.

Sarkia graduated from the secondary school in 1923 and accomplished his military service in the Hennala Garrison in the spring of 1924. He worked for a year as a tutor in Rantasalmi and entered the University of Helsinki in 1925. In Helsinki Sarkia lived in cheap accommodation, suffered from poverty and was hospitalized several times for the tuberculosis he caught during the military service. In 1926 he received a scholarship and made a short trip to Germany. A year later he began studies at the University of Turku, joining the literary circle of V. A. Koskenniemi.