Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥

Martti Korpilahti (until 1906 Forsgren, 1886-1938) was a teacher and a respected poet. He enrolled at the Jyväskylä Lyceum in 1909 and graduated as an assistant elementary school teacher from Jyväskylä Seminary the following year. Korpilahti worked as a teacher in Viitasaari, Orimattila and Korpilahti, and from 1913 in Jyväskylä. After the completion of the Cygnaeus School in 1925, Korpilahti became its director. He also taught singing in several other Jyväskylä schools and was a prominent figure in the city's cultural life in the 1920s and 30s. Korpilahti was the director of many choirs, such as the male choir Sirkat and the mixed choir of the Jyväskylä Civil Guard, and also held various organisational positions. He made numerous trips abroad and brought influences from the new cultural currents in Europe to Central Finland.

Martti Korpilahti is known as a poet of local history who expressively describes the nature and landscapes of Central Finland. His lyrics include Central Finland's traditional song and Song to the region of his birth (O, days in the Päijänne region). Korpilahti played a major role in the development of the identity of Central Finland. Korpilahti is also the author of many familiar Christmas carols. His best-known Finnish translations are Sylvia's Christmas Carol and Heinillä härkien härkien kaukalon.

Jyväskylä City Library received the Martti Korpilahti collection in 2006 as a donation from the Cygnaeus School. The collection contains about 500 volumes of printed fiction and non-fiction, sheet music and some manuscripts. In 2020, the collection was transferred to the Open Data Centre of the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥.

Research use of the collection must be agreed separately with the library's customer service.

Martti Korpilahti's collection catalogue (in Finnish) as a pdf file.