Garm (magazine) explained

Garm
Frequency:Monthly
Founder:Henry Rein
Founded:1923
Finaldate:1953
Country:Finland
Based:Helsinki

Garm was a monthly political and satirical magazine published in Helsinki, Finland. The magazine existed for thirty years from 1923 to 1953. The title of the magazine is a reference to a character in the Norse mythology, a monstrous hound which defended the entrance to Helheim, the Norse realm of the dead.[1]

History and profile

Garm was established in 1923 as a successor of Kerberos which was also a satirical magazine published in Finland.[2] [3] The founder was Henry Rein.[3] The magazine was published in Helsinki on a monthly basis.[4] [5] It had a conservative political stance like its predecessor.[2] However, unlike Kerberos Garm opposed both the nationalism in the form of true Finnishness and the extreme leftist politics.[2] In addition, although Garm supported the Swedish language and culture in Finland, it did not call for the cooperation with Sweden.[2] The magazine mocked both Communism and Nazism during World War II.[1]

Garms readers were mostly politicians, celebrities, and other leading figures.[1] Tito Colliander and Jarl Hemmer were among the Garm contributors.[1] One of the most significant contributors of Garm was Tove Jansson who started her career in the magazine as a cartoonist in 1929 when she was just fifteen.[3] [6] Tove Jansson's mother, Signe Hammarsten-Jansson, also worked at the magazine from its start in 1923.[3] Over time the former became the magazine's chief illustrator.[7] Some characters in her Moomin cartoon strips first appeared in the magazine.[1] Jansson's political cartoons ridiculing Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin published in Garm were censored by the Finnish authorities.[7] Garm folded in 1953 when its founder Henry Rein died.[1] [3]

Notes and References

  1. Ant O’Neill. Moominvalley Fossils: Translating the Early Comics of Tove Jansson. Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature. 2017. 55. 10.1353/bkb.2017.0023. 52. 2. 151535137. 0006-7377.
  2. Anni Kangas. The Knight, the Beast and the Treasure: a semeiotic inquiry into the Finnish political imaginary on Russia, 1918-1930s. 10024/67797. University of Tampere. 62,64. PhD. 2007. 978-951-44-7157-5.
  3. Web site: Tove Jansson's work at satire magazine Garm. Moomin. 12 September 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210504105241/https://www.moomin.com/en/blog/tove-janssons-work-at-satire-magazine-garm/. 4 May 2021. 10 March 2014.
  4. News: Kikka Rytkönen. Black Moomins. 12 September 2021. Antimilitaristi. fi.
  5. Tapio Markkanen. Echoes of Cosmic Events and Global Politics in Moominvalley: Cosmic and Astronomical Sources of Incitement in Tove Jansson's Comet in Moominland. Acta Baltica Historiae et Philosophiae Scientiarum. Spring 2016. 4. 1. 41–69. 10.11590/abhps.2016.1.02. 10138/233362. free.
  6. Book: Elina Druker. Leif Dahlberg. Visualizing Law and Authority. Essays on Legal Aesthetics. 2012. De Gruyter. Berlin; Boston. 978-3-1102-8537-6. 118. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110285444.114. 10.1515/9783110285444.114. Mapping absence. Maps as meta-artistic discourse in literature.
  7. Hallie Wells. Between discretion and disclosure: Queer (e)labor(ations) in the work of Tove Jansson and Audre Lorde. Journal of Lesbian Studies. 2019. 23. 2. 233. 10.1080/10894160.2019.1520550. 30632943. 58627968.