New pages in the life and work of the Finnish-Swedish modernist poet Edith Södergran (1892–1923): The St. Petersburg period, 1902–1909

This article examines the life and work of Finnish Modernist poet Edith Sodergran (1892-1923). Born in St. Petersburg, Sodergran attended the prestigious Petrishule high school from 1902 to 1909. The study is grounded in primary source research, introducing previously unexamined materials from the Central Historical Archive of Saint Petersburg concerning her Swedish grandfather, Gabriel Holmroos, who left Finland in the mid-19th century for St. Petersburg. These documents, which detail his foundry on Malaya Posadskaya Street and a land plot on Sampsonievsky Prospekt, shed light on the family's financial standing. This stability allowed both Sodergran and her mother to receive a first-class education. Further analysis draws on Sodergran's archive at the Swedish Literary Society in Finland, specifically her underexplored handwritten notebooks - the "French Notebook" and the "Guestbook." Russian-language texts found within reveal her early interest in poetry and demonstrate that images from these juvenilia, such as the dominant motif of the sun, persisted into her professional lyrics. A key focus of the article is the role of Ludwig Heinrichovich Cottier, Sodergran's French teacher at Petrishule. While foreign scholars often interpret her relationship with Cottier as a simple case of unrequited student infatuation, citing numerous poems addressed to him in her "Waxcloth Notebook," this study offers a different perspective. By cross-referencing the notebook with her personal letters, we argue that the feelings of the lyrical heroine do not necessarily reflect Sodergran's own. Many of these poems appear to be training exercises in which the polyglot poet practiced various versification techniques. This is evidenced by their repetitive nature across all her juvenile languages: German, Swedish, and French. Nevertheless, these early works show that Sodergran was already mastering diverse poetic techniques, particularly original epithets that generated uniquely individual imagery. This distinctive voice would become a hallmark of her mature work. The article proposes that Cottier, in reality, may have been the sole figure in her milieu with the intellectual capacity to discuss poetic creation, whether in person or in her imagination. Tracing the evolution of her attitude toward him through her Juvenilia and supporting this hypothesis with quotations from her letters, the study constructs a more nuanced and detailed portrait of Sodergran. This approach, firmly rooted in archival primary sources, validates the efficacy of the research methodology. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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