Early Life
Olavi Paavolainen was born in Kivennapa, Carelia, in Russian Finland in 1903. Paavolainen descended from a family of civil servants and soldiers. His father, Pietari (Pekka) Paavolainen, was a lawyer and Member of Parliament and his mother was named Alice Laura (Löfgrén). In 1914, he moved to Helsinki where he started to write poems already at the age of twelve. He later studied aesthetics and literature at the University of Helsinki from 1921 to 1925, but without graduating. While studying at the university, Paavolainen already started to publish critics and poems.
The young poet Katri Vala, whose first book appeared in 1924, was instrumental in encouraging Paavolainen in his choice of literary career. In the same year Paavolainen contributed to the anthology Nuoret runoilijat I (young poets) under the pseudonym Olavi Lauri, which he used some years. During this early period, Paavolainen was interested in nudism, and he deemed the works of Comtesse de Noailles important for his development. In his letters to Vala, Paavolainen also expressed his interest in fine suits, and mocked himself as a dandy. However he was heterosexual, particularly attracted to older powerful women, and among his friends was the notorious Minna Craucher, who had contacts to the extremist right-wing Lapua movement. Craucher was murdered in 1932.
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