Zachris Topelius

Zachris Topelius was born 150 years ago: he died at the age of eighty in 1898. He was a man of many parts and few Finns have lived a fuller or more varied intellectual life.¹ As a university historian, Topelius was remarkable for his imaginative lectures; at the same time, he created in Tales of a Surgeon² an outstanding volume of Northern Europe's historical fiction. He was a topographer with an eye for the essentials of the landscape; a poet, quick to observe symbolic meanings in natural phenomena; a patriot, sensitive to the nature and significance of Finnish nationality. Zachris Topelius was also a self-appointed geographer.