Karlo Robert Kramsu

Born Dec. 22, 1855, in Oulu; died Aug. 28, 1895, in Kuopio. Finnish poet.

Kramsu studied without completing his degree at the University of Helsinki. His first collection of verses, Poems, was published in 1878. His poetry was filled with the spirit of class struggle. Kramsu’s ballads Ilkka and the Battle at Santavuori — about the peasant rebellion of 1596–97 against the feudal lords —reflected his hatred of social inequality. His ballad Jaakima Berends portrays the struggle between the peasantry and the feudal lords, and his narrative poem Spartacus is a call for freedom and equality. Some of Kramsu’s poems are filled with bitterness and dissatisfaction with reality—for example, “The Unhappy Man” and “The Ineradicable Memory.”