Abstract
The authors H. Tikkanen (1924 - 1984) and Ch.
Kihlman (born 1930) are so called Finland-Swedish writers: they belong to the Swedish minority in Finland and they both write in Swedish. In general they are viewed as authors who describe - and often go into rather intimate details - the "Finland-Swedish decadent upper class".
In the autumn 1975 Tikkanen published his autobiographical text Brändövägen 8 Brändö Tel. 35 and Kihlman brought out his novel called Dyre prins. Both of the books are reviewed in the main Finland-Swedish newspapers and subsequently they provoke some discussions, whilst the largest polemics is risen in the beginning of 1976 by the television appearence of both writers.
This thesis seeks to explain the events of the autumn 1975 and of the first half of the year 1976, conceming the reception of the both works and the interconnected literary debates. On the methodological level the thesis handles the material thematically by the standard method "ad fontes" (supporting tool 1 - question WHAT), while the interpretation in the first place as a generation revolt is performed by means of the theory of literary field, based on so called Pierre Bourdieu's French Sociological School (supporting too1 2 - question WHY).
A starting point is in this connection also a study of the Finland-Swedish literary field made on the basis of the research of an other literary polemics risen in 1965, made by Trygve Söderling. The argumentation is also basen on the "pre-history", ie on the literary status of both authors in 1975, resulting from their previous creative activities (compare "Prelude").
The main focus is on the Finland-Swedish literary field, but as a comparison background the reception of the works in Sweden and in periodicals published in Finnish is being used as well.