Urho Kekkonen

Urho Kaleva Kekkonen (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈurho ˈkɑleʋɑ ˈkekːonen] ^ⓘ; 3 September 1900 – 31 August 1986), often referred to by his initials UKK, was a Finnish politician who served as the eighth and longest-serving president of Finland from 1956 to 1982. He also served as prime minister (1950–1953, 1954–1956), and held various other cabinet positions. He was the third and most recent president from the Agrarian League/Centre Party. Head of state for nearly 26 years, he dominated Finnish politics for 31 years overall. Holding a large amount of power, he won his later elections with little opposition and has often been classified as an autocrat.

As president, Kekkonen continued the "active neutrality" policy of his predecessor President Juho Kusti Paasikivi that came to be known as the Paasikivi–Kekkonen doctrine, under which Finland was to retain its independence while maintaining good relations and extensive trade with members of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Critical commentators referred to this policy of appeasement pejoratively as Finlandization. He is credited by Finnish historians for his foreign and trade policies, which allowed Finland's market economy to keep pace with Western Europe even with the Soviet Union as a neighbor, and for Finland to gradually take part in the European integration process. On the other hand, his perceived hunger for power, his divide-and-rule attitude in domestic politics and the lack of genuine political opposition, especially during the latter part of his presidency, significantly weakened Finnish democracy during his presidency. Kekkonen was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 for his "tireless efforts and success at keeping peace and security in the Nordic countries, and therefore contributing to civic peace and reconciliation in the World". He was also considered a potential candidate for the prize on later occasions.

Narrowly elected in the 1956 presidential election, Kekkonen consolidated power by successfully presenting himself as an indispensable "guarantor" of Soviet relations in a tense and politically unstable period. He was reelected in 1962 in the aftermath of the Note Crisis and the withdrawal of the main opposition candidate. Kekkonen typically favoured appointing "popular front" cabinets composed of centrist and left-wing parties trusted by the Soviet Union while leaving out the major right-wing National Coalition Party. He was elected to a third six-year term in 1968 and achieved the height of his power in the 1970s; in 1973, an emergency law extending his term by four years passed the Parliament with 170 votes for and only 28 against. In 1975, considered the peak year of his career, Kekkonen hosted the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in Helsinki and resolved a domestic political crisis by pressuring party leaders into joining a new "popular front" cabinet in front of television cameras. He was elected to his fourth and final term by an overwhelming margin in 1978, but his health and mental faculties visibly deteriorated, forcing him to submit his resignation in late 1981 and retire. After Kekkonen's presidency, the reform of the Constitution of Finland was initiated by his successors to increase the power of the Parliament and the prime minister at the expense of the president and to introduce a term limit.

Kekkonen was a member of the Parliament of Finland from 1936 until his rise to the presidency. Either prior, during or between his premierships, he served as minister of justice (1936–37, 1944–46, 1951), minister of the interior (1937–39, 1950–51), speaker of the Finnish Parliament (1948–50) and minister of foreign affairs (1952–53, 1954). In addition to his extensive political career, he was a lawyer by education, a policeman and athlete in his youth, a veteran of the Finnish Civil War, and an enthusiastic writer. During World War II, his anonymous reports on the war and foreign politics received a large audience in the Suomen Kuvalehti magazine. Even during his presidency, he wrote humorous, informal columns (causerie) for the same magazine, edited by his long-time friend Ilmari Turja, under several pseudonyms.

The Kekkonens are an old Savonian family. The ancestors of Urho Kekkonen most likely settled in the Savonia region before the 16th century. Although it is not known where the Kekkonens came to Savonia from, there has been speculation that they are from Karelia as people with the name were known to have lived in certain settlements of the Karelian Isthmus for centuries. Kekkonen himself thought it possible that the family might instead originate from Western Finland, for example from Tavastia, where there have been place names connected to their surname from as early as the 15th century. His seventh-great-grandfather Tuomas Kekkonen (born ca. 1630) is first mentioned in documents in Pieksämäki in 1673. He was probably from either Kangasniemi or Joroinen.

Twelve generations of Urho Kekkonen's ancestors were peasants from eastern Finland. The paternal side of Kekkonen's family practised slash-and-burn agriculture and the maternal side stayed on their own site. Kekkonen's paternal grandfather Eenokki was part of a landless group grown in the 19th century and lived on temporary work and working as a farmworker. Although Urho Kekkonen never met his grandfather (Urho was 9 years old when Eenokki died), he often drew on his teachings, as their shared one belief about working: a man must be greedy for work.

After serving in several houses Eenokki Kekkonen married Anna-Liisa Koskinen. They had four sons, named Taavetti, Johannes, Alpertti and Juho. Juho Kekkonen, the youngest son of the family, who had gone travelling from the family's home in Korvenmökki in the village of Koivujärvi, was the father of Urho Kekkonen. Aatu Pylvänäinen, Urho Kekkonen's maternal grandfather, who worked as a farmer at the Tarkkala farm in Kangasniemi, married Amanda Manninen in the summer of 1878 when she was only 16 years old. Their children, three daughters and three sons, were Emilia, Elsa, Siilas, Tyyne, Eetu, and Samuel.

As the son of a poor family, Juho Kekkonen had to go to work in the forest and ended up at a log working ground in Kangasniemi in 1898. Emilia Pylvänäinen herded cattle there, on the shores of the Haahkala lands, where Juho Kekkonen worked with other loggers. The two youngsters got to know each other and they married in 1899. The couple moved to Otava, where Juho Kekkonen got a job at the Koivusaha sawmill of Halla Oy. He was later appointed the head of forestry work and caretaker of the logging business.