Like the Moomins, the world conquered

0
561

The Finnish Troll family is back In the UK, a new animated series launches with “Moominvalley”. Moomin Creator Tove Jansson processed experiences in the stories of the mythical creatures of war.

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    Troll family from the Moominvalley

    They look like white hippos with a pompom tail, and hot Moomins, and one of the Finland’s cultural export hits. Your adventure, the trolls experience together with Sniff, Snorkfräulein and Small MT, fill numerous children’s and picture books as well as Comics and animated series, as in the British-Finnish reissue of “Moominvalley”.

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    The Creator

    Tove Jansson (1914-2001) is the real mother of the Troll family – here in a self portrait with your little creatures. The first of the believers to draw Jansson in the 1930s. After losing a dispute on philosophy with your brother, you should have the “ugliest possible creature” on a wall and “Kant” written underneath it painted.

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    Moominvalley as a place of longing

    The Finnish coastline and archipelago inspired Jansson. Islands had a special significance for the author and Illustrator, and so she moved the imaginary Moominvalley on an island. In an Essay for adults, you later wrote: “An island of privacy, seclusion, intimacy, a self-contained Whole, without bridges, and fences.”

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    Give me a hug!

    The Moomins never miss an opportunity to cuddle with each other. In the first book “the Moomins long journey” are Muminmama and believers in search of a home, Muminpapa is initially missing. The book was published in 1945, and the family fate of the Moomins Jonsson’s war was experiences.

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    “Small Mu”

    The snappy girl appears only in the fourth book, “Muminvaters wild youth”, but is now stuck to the Troll family. The adventure-seeker “Small Mu”, which remains in the care of the family, is a good observer. You To looks at her and just says what others only think.

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    Moomins on the movie screen

    The adventures of the Troll family have been adapted for TV series and movies, among other things, for the Augsburger puppenkiste. In the French-Finnish cartoon “Moomins on the Riveria” (2014) travel to the Troll family, together with Snorkfräulein and Small Mu in a foreign world.

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    Safe Harbor

    The Moomins are experienced boat people who are often exposed to the dangers of the sea. Their Creator, Tove Jansson (left) is himself an experienced sailor. Metaphors such as disorientation, Drift or the search for a safe haven often reflect their own discomfort with the political Situation. Thus, their works are not read only exciting for children.

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    Studio in the tower

    Thanks to your imaginary escape place “Moominvalley” could Tove Jansson escape again and again the experiences of the Second world war. “It was the hellish years of the war, which led me to write stories,” she said after the release of “comet in Moominvalley” (1946) – a book that she had worked in her tower-Studio in Helsinki, where she experienced air attacks.

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    National Icon

    In Finland, Tove Jansson, who created more than 2000 Moomin-illustrations and drawings is an icon. In Tampere, a private Museum, called her partner Tuulikki Pietilä to life. Together, they created in Jonsson’s last years of life, a detail-rich model of the Muminhauses, together with Original drawings exhibited in the “Muumimuseo”.

    Author: Courtney Tenz (woy)


  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    Troll family from the Moominvalley

    They look like white hippos with a pompom tail, and hot Moomins, and one of the Finland’s cultural export hits. Your adventure, the trolls experience together with Sniff, Snorkfräulein and Small MT, fill numerous children’s and picture books as well as Comics and animated series, as in the British-Finnish reissue of “Moominvalley”.

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    The Creator

    Tove Jansson (1914-2001) is the real mother of the Troll family – here in a self portrait with your little creatures. The first of the believers to draw Jansson in the 1930s. After losing a dispute on philosophy with your brother, you should have the “ugliest possible creature” on a wall and “Kant” written underneath it painted.

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    Moominvalley as a place of longing

    The Finnish coastline and archipelago inspired Jansson. Islands had a special significance for the author and Illustrator, and so she moved the imaginary Moominvalley on an island. In an Essay for adults, you later wrote: “An island of privacy, seclusion, intimacy, a self-contained Whole, without bridges, and fences.”

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    Give me a hug!

    The Moomins never miss an opportunity to cuddle with each other. In the first book “the Moomins long journey” are Muminmama and believers in search of a home, Muminpapa is initially missing. The book was published in 1945, and the family fate of the Moomins Jonsson’s war was experiences.

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    “Small Mu”

    The snappy girl appears only in the fourth book, “Muminvaters wild youth”, but is now stuck to the Troll family. The adventure-seeker “Small Mu”, which remains in the care of the family, is a good observer. You To looks at her and just says what others only think.

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    Moomins on the movie screen

    The adventures of the Troll family have been adapted for TV series and movies, among other things, for the Augsburger puppenkiste. In the French-Finnish cartoon “Moomins on the Riveria” (2014) travel to the Troll family, together with Snorkfräulein and Small Mu in a foreign world.

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    Safe Harbor

    The Moomins are experienced boat people who are often exposed to the dangers of the sea. Their Creator, Tove Jansson (left) is himself an experienced sailor. Metaphors such as disorientation, Drift or the search for a safe haven often reflect their own discomfort with the political Situation. Thus, their works are not read only exciting for children.

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    Studio in the tower

    Thanks to your imaginary escape place “Moominvalley” could Tove Jansson escape again and again the experiences of the Second world war. “It was the hellish years of the war, which led me to write stories,” she said after the release of “comet in Moominvalley” (1946) – a book that she had worked in her tower-Studio in Helsinki, where she experienced air attacks.

  • Moomins: Timeless children’s book classic from Finland

    National Icon

    In Finland, Tove Jansson, who created more than 2000 Moomin-illustrations and drawings is an icon. In Tampere, a private Museum, called her partner Tuulikki Pietilä to life. Together, they created in Jonsson’s last years of life, a detail-rich model of the Muminhauses, together with Original drawings exhibited in the “Muumimuseo”.

    Author: Courtney Tenz (woy)


The first volume of Tove Jansson, one of the most successful writers and Illustrators of Finland, at the end of the second world war – 1945 published. He was called “Moomin long journey”, and it is Muminmama and Mumin, who are in search of a home. Along the way, you have to pass many dangers and natural disasters, in the meantime you will meet many strange beings.

The trip is not good, it’s just the lost Muminpapa, but also a comfortable new home. What story reads like a children, is, in reality, however, is more. Tove’s metaphorical stories also deal with issues such as loss and displacement, but at the same time feelings such as safety and security are associated in the family, because of the very cute creatures are overwhelmed by their real or imaginary challenges never and work together to overcome obstacles.

The adventures of the Troll family are more emotional than funny. The way that the challenges of life together, leaves a pleasant feeling in contrast to the hardness of the real world. Even if the stories raise important issues, Tove Jansson stories, always subtle and never preachy – it makes the trolls today so likeable.

Tove Jansson a Moomin made of fabric (1956)

The mirror of history

“Each artist represents themselves, it represents the time in which it lives,” writes literature Professor Boel Westin, in the biography of “Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words”. The experiences of the world wars, the young Tove Jansson shook hard, is clearly reflected in her stories and illustrations.

Tove Jansson was born on 9. August 1914, at the beginning of the First world war, born. Her parents, artists themselves, belonged to the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, and Tove and her mother in Stockholm remained, while the father fought in the Finnish civil war. This early experience of loss is also reflected in the lack of Muminpapa of the first children’s book.

After the war, the family lived together again in Helsinki. Because the home also served as a Studio, grew up on Tove Jansson literally with a brush in Hand and put this time of your life only rarely. As a Teenager, she wrote her first stories and made illustrations. At 19 she had her first exhibition.

War as agony and Inspiration

Starting in the 1930s, Jansson earned their money with cartoons and illustrations, including book covers and post cards. Your political cartoons in the Swedish newspaper “Garm” directed against the Nazism and the Stalinism and clashed again and again with criticism. “It is as if the whole world has become a ball full of anguish,” she wrote in 1941, in her diary. The emergence of the Moomins was a way, with these torments.

Author and writer Tove Jansson (1914 – 2001)

“It was the hellish years of the war, which led me to write stories,” she said after the publication of her second book “comet in Moominvalley”. “Escape, disaster, and homelessness combined the first two stories with the reality. The war has left no direct traces in her paintings; no bombs, no ruins, no escape,” writes biographer Westin. “The history of the family in the valley was a realization of the idea of a happy society and a peaceful world, a fiction on the basis of the dreams of the years of war and the yearning for something else.”

Commercial Success

The first Moomin book was published, with Astrid Lindgren’s “Pippi Longstocking”, had a small edition, of which only a few copies were sold. But Tove Jansson has worked unwaveringly to the stories of your Troll family, lived in the adventures of their own experiences of the post-war period. In 1948, The Moomins appeared in the third volume”. To be a funny company”, which was, contrary to expectations, translated into English.

Today, Tove’s works – nine children’s books, three images are translated books and a number of Comics in 45 languages and a variety of television series and short films adapted. 23. February launches in the UK “Moominvalley”, a series-new edition, in which Actresses like Rosamund Pike and Jennifer Saunders, who lent her voice, trying to bring a new Generation of children to the fantasy world of the Moomins closer.