Elmo Kaila: Chairman of the Academic Karelia Society (1923-1927 and 1928-1930) and Caretaker of the War Archives

(6 February 1888 - 16 March 1935)

Biography

Kaila's parents were Kokkola vicar Edvard Johansson (1859–1915) and Märtha Carolina Anna Köhlin. Kaila's brothers were the diplomat, statistician and writer Toivo T. Kaila (1884–1961) and Jaeger Colonel Auno Kaila (1898–1975).

After attending Kokkola's Finnish co-educational school, Kaila completed her matriculation in 1905, graduated from the University of Helsinki with a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1908 and received her doctorate in geography in 1932. He worked as a teacher of economic geography at the Finnish Business School 1908–1917 and at the Helsinki University of Business and Economics 1911–1912, and wrote the national school's geography textbook together with Mikael Soinine and also delivered Geographical section of the encyclopedia.

After the outbreak of the First World War, Kaila worked as a recruit in the jaeger movement, and with her help, among others, Paavo Talvela started a trip to Germany. After the Russian revolution of March 1917, Kaila joined the pro-independence newspaper Uusi Päivä as the editorial secretary. Kaila was also creating a secret network of activists and considered its central location to be first her own office in the Otava publishing house and then the cover company called Uusi Metsätoimisto, which operated at Yrjönkatu 25. From there, contact was made with the Jaegers in Germany, a network of agents operating around the country was managed, passports were forged, espionage information was passed on to the Germans, and weapons were smuggled into Finland.

In the fall of 1917, through Kaila's network, guardianship councils began to be founded and trained all over Finland. Kaila hoped that the working population would also have joined the protection councils in the same way as they did in the jaeger training, but the wish did not come true. After the civil war broke out in 1918, Kaila continued to lead her network from Helsinki.

Kaila was involved in hijacking the icebreaker Volynetši and moved via Tallinn to Berlin, from where he returned to Finland after the Germans captured Helsinki

Elmo Kaila with Elias Simojoki

In May 1918, Kaila gave her network to the monarchists and sent anti-republican propaganda through her agents. In Kaila's opinion, only German support and a German king in Finland would enable Eastern Karelia to be annexed to Finland. After the end of the First World War in November 1918, with the defeat of Germany, Kaila changed direction and started planning a right-wing coup d'état, which would make General Mannerheim the dictator of Finland and launch an attack on St. Petersburg. However, these plans failed in the summer of 1919, and Ståhlberg became the president of Finland.

In the winter of 1919−1920, Kaila began to outline a new action program, the purpose of which was to unite Finns in the fight against Russia and Russianness. The program also involved the replacement of officers who had previously served in the army of the Russian Empire with officers with a Jaeger background in the Finnish army. In Kaila's opinion, a war between Finland and Russia was inevitable in the future, and before that the nation had to be unified and the defense forces strengthened and the people's support obtained for them. Kaila therefore opposed the right-wing trend against the social democrats in the protection councils and wanted to gather working-class Finns into the ranks of the protection councils as well. Kaila started to influence opinion through her agent network. In addition, he influenced the opinions of the rank-and-file, first as editor-in-chief of Suojeluskuntalainen Lehti 1919–1923 and then as editor-in-chief of Sana ja Mieka 1924−1926. Kaila's new program brought her closer to her former opponent during the monarchy struggle, the Maalaisliitto and its leader Santeri Alkio, and led to a break with Mannerheim, the former general of the empire.

In the 1920s, Kaila was the chairman of the Academic Karelian Society from 1923−1927 and 1928−1930, and here, too, he emphasized the unification of the people and the emphasis on the hatred of Russians. AKS members committed to Kaila's goals formed an inner circle called Vihan Veljet. Kaila did not accept the true Finnishness of AKS, because in her opinion it violated the goal of unifying the nation when it pitted Finnish and Swedish speakers against each other.

In 1929, Kaila was seriously injured after being hit on the head by an airplane propeller, and he never fully recovered from the injury. Kaila, who was the secretary of the Finnish Air Defense Association, had arrived from Helsinki in Hämeenlinna for the flight days held on Pentecost 1929 with the Air Defense Association's new "Pilvetär" airplane. When the plane had landed in Hämeenlinna at the Aulango airstrip, Kaila got out of the plane that had landed in the water and tried to get to the pier along the pontoon. However, he did not notice that the plane's propeller was still spinning, and the propeller hit him in the back of the head and in the face.

In the early 1930s, Kaila began to focus on research instead of politics. He received his doctorate in 1932, and the subject of his dissertation was Ostrobothnia and the sea in the 17th and 18th centuries. Kaila was appointed caretaker of the War Archives, and he served in this position until her death.

Kaila remained relatively little known in politics, because he did not want to appear in public herself, but pursued her goals by behind-the-scenes influence.

Elmo E. Kaila was married twice, from 1912 to 1920 to Aino Lyydi Pohjonen and from 1922 to Martha Maria Eleonora Anthon.