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Jaakko Julkunen, Finnish photojournalist

colour photograph, group of people at an air show looking up

Capturing life in Finland in the mid-20th century

by
Adrian Murphy (opens in new window) (Europeana Foundation)

Jaakko Julkunen was a Finnish photographer and photojournalist whose work portrayed both famous and everyday people in Finland through the middle of the 20th century.

Born in 1938 in eastern Finland, Julkunen began working in photography in the 1950s.

By the 1970s, Julkenen had started working for Helsingin Sanomat, the largest newspaper in Finland. Julkunen worked in regional offices for the newspaper, often portraying rural life in regions in the east of Finland.

Julkunen retired in 2000, and died in January 2011. His legacy lives on in his photography, a selection of which we have chosen here.

black and white photograph of a Finnish President Kekkonen on an exercise bike. He is topless and wears glasses, with some medical tubing attached

Finnish President Urho Kekkonen's fitness was tested in Laukaa in 1974.

colour photograph, a small red car surrounded by snow

A car is trapped in snow in Kuopio in winter 1989.

black and white photograph, 6 nuns are walking in a field

Nuns from Lintula monastery in eastern Finland going to vote at municipal elections in 1972.

black and white photograph, one woman injecting another woman while a number of people look on

Staff of the newspaper Karjalainen being vaccinated against influenza in 1970.

black and white photograph, a road partly covered with snow stretching off into the horizon

A view of a snowy paved road in Juva - in the Southern Savonia region - in 1982.

colour photograph, group of people at an air show looking up

The audience of an Air Show at Kuopio Airport in 1986.

black and white photograph of a woman in a bakery, she wears work clothing and holds two loaves of bread

Baker Antonina Cheuskina pictured in Cheuskino, USSR in 1979.

black and white photograph, group of people opening a canal lock

The opening of a canal lock in Juustila in 1968.

black and white close-up photograph of an old woman, she is smiling and wears a headscarf

Housekeeper Lyydia Jolkkonen in Hukkala village in Polvijärvi in 1974.

black and white photograph of a wedding taking place, a priest stands in front of a man and woman, two people behind them hold crowns above their heads

A Karelian wedding taking place in Tuupovaara in 1973.

colour photograph of two cows, one stands in front of the other

Cows were brought to the first private farmers in Russia from Finland, photographed in Russian Karelia in 1992.

black and white photograph of two men wrestling with an audience watching, one wrestler has landed on his head

The Nordic Wrestling Championships in Joensuu in 1969.

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