Urho Kekkonen was born in Pielavesi. His father, Juho Kekkonen, was originally a farm-hand but later gained the position of a forestry manager. Kekkonen's mother, Emilia Pylvänäinen was a farm-owner's daughter. At school Kekkonen composed short stories under the influence of Jack London, Jules Verne, and Mark Twain, planning a career as a writer. He also finished some plays and participated - without much success - with a short story in a writing competition arranged by the magazine Suomen Kuvalehti. He changed then from fiction to sport and journalism. During the Finnish Civil War (1917-18), Kekkonen worked a war correspondent, reporting the events from the side of the White troops and took part in fighting in Eastern Finland. He also witnessed the execution of six Red Army prisoners as a commander of an execution patrol squad. After the war, he moved to Helsinki, where studied law at Helsinki University, and worked at the Ministry of Agriculture before entering parliament. In 1936 he completed his doctoral dissertation.
Kekkonen´s career as a journalist started in newspaper Kajaanin Lehti (1919-20). In the 1920s he was a columnist on magazineSuomen Heimo and as the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper Ylioppilaslehti (1927-1928). From 1924 he was active in the Academic Karelia Society, but also created important social and political connections through his career in The Finnish Sports Organization and the Finnish Olympic Committee. As an athlete Kekkonen had won high-jump championship in 1924.
In 1924 Kekkonen visited Germany and witnessed Hitler's rise to power. Next year he joined the Agrarian Party and published a pamphlet entitled DEMOKRATIAN ITSEPUOLUSTUS, in which he warned of the threat from the extreme Right. However, Communism was considered more dangerous and it had been earlier banned in Finland.
In 1936 Kekkonen became a member of the parliament and the second Minister of the Interior. During the period of the Second World War Kekkonen served as the director of the Karelian evacuees welfare center (1940-1943) and then as the ministry's commissioner for coordination from 1943 to 1945. In 1942 he began writing on political issues under the name of Pekka Peitsi ('Peter Pikestaff') for the weekly magazine Suomen Kuvalehti. His other pseudonyms on were Olli Tampio, Veljenpoika and Liimatainen. In Ilmari Turja´s magazine Uusi Kuvalehti Kekkonen published columns under the name Veljenpoika (1952-54) while working as Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs.
After the war Kekkonen started to create actively good relationships to the Soviet Union, based on mutual understanding and commercial relationships. He lost in 1950 the presidential election to Juho Kusti Paasikivi. In 1954 Kekkonen published his topical pamphlet ONKO MAALLAMME MALTTIA VAURASTUA ('Does our country have the patience to get rich?'), in which he presented his ideas on economic policy. In 1956 Kekkonen was elected President - he won his rival by two votes, and remained in power until 1981.
Although Kekkonen was very productive writer, he never finished his memoirs. The first volume, VUOSISATANI I, appeared in 1981. It was actually composed by the poet, novelist and dramatist Paavo Haavikko who has scrutinized in his many works power and leading politicians in harsh light. "Demokratia itse voi suorastaan synnyttää ja kehittää vaikeita valtiollisia epäkohtia. Sellaisissa oloissa demokratian puoltajien on oltava valmiit juuri kansanvallan säilyttämiseksi tarpeen tullen luopumaan jostakin demokratialle vähemmän, tai ehkä enemmänki, oleellisesta, voidakseen pelastaa sen, minkä turvin kansanvalta voi sitä vastaan kohonneen myrskyn ajan säilyä ja sitten olosuhteitten rauhoituttua puhdistuneena ja selkeentyneenä taas kehittyä demokratian sisäistä olemusta enemmän vastaaviin muotoihin." (Kekkonen in 1933, from Vuosisatan I, 1981) The most comprehensive biography of Urho Kekkonen was written by Juhani Suomi. Kekkonen's life work and his exercise of power has been under re-evaluation especially from the 1990s. This was because the president, as the director of foreign policy, used his influence also in domestic affairs through his personal network of friends and other acquaintances. He also did not hesitate to dissolve parliament when he saw it necessary. Often he expressed his opinions in personal letters, more or less poignantly. A selection of them, KIRJEITÄ MYLLYSTÄNI I-II, appeared in 1976.
The highlight of Kekkonen's career was the Conference on Security and Cooperation (CSCE) in 1975. After resignation in 1981 Kekkonen remained at his Tamminiemi residence until his death in 1986. In Tamminiemi Kekkonen kept always a pen and a notebook near his hand; especially before his resignation, writing was for him also a way to remember things. At the bedroom table he had a book by Anatole France, The Opinions of Mr. Jerome Coignard (trans. into Finnish by Eino Leino), which he had bought in 1926. Like President Paasikivi, his predecessor, he had a copy of Machiavelli's classic work of politics, The Prince. His favorite novel was Cervantes's Don Quixote - its central theme, the eternal battle between idealism and realism, was one of the undercurrents of his own political work. Other writers in Kekkonen's large bookshelves were Mika Waltari, whom he admired greatly, Väinö Linna, Kalle Päätalo, Maiju Lassila, Paavo Rintala, Viljo, Kojo, Ilmari Kianto. Tamminiemi was turned into the Urho Kekkonen Home Museum. On the same year that President Kekkonen died, Jörn Donner published his roman à clef, PRESIDENTEN (1986), in which the republic's long-time leader is seen through the eyes of one of his mistresses. A wise and sensitive Kekkonen made a cameo appearance in Christer Kihlman's novel DYRE PRINS (1975). His character has inspired a number of other writers, too, among them Jari Tervo, whose MYYRÄ (2004, 'mole') is actually a thriller about espionage, Finland and her neighbor the Soviet Union, "the largest concentration camp in the world". Tervo portrays Kekkonen at the same time as a mythical historical figure and a cynical, masterful political player. "The silence of the President is seen by political scientist as wisdom," Tervo said in Helsingin Sanomat, "even though it was not much different from the life of the baker of Treblinka."
Urho Kekkonen was married from 1926 to author Sylvi (Uino) Kekkonen (1900-1974). His contacts with writer's, artists and the cultural élite were wide before the beginning of his presidency. Before her marriage, Sylvi Kekkonen had worked for a short time for Friends of Finnish Handicraft and then at the secretariat of the security police, where she met Urho Kekkonen. Her first book, KITEITÄ, a collection of aphorisms, appeared in 1949. A collection of reminiscences, KOTIKAIVOLLA, was published three years later. After giving up paid employment and becoming a writer, Sylvi Kekkonen created a small literary circle. In spite of suffering rheumatoid arthritis, she performed her public duties. She also overlooked her husband's extramarital affairs. Her books of memoir, LANKKUAIDAN SUOJASSA, appeared in 1968. Sylvi Kekkonen´s best know work, AMALIA (1958), has been translated into many languages.
Kekkonen read widely novels, and often bought books after reading reviews from newspapers. During the 1960s the traditional values of the Church, the fatherland, and the army came under attack by the left-wing radicals, and one of the most crucial literary battles arose when writer Hannu Salama was prosecuted for blasphemy for his novel Juhannustanssit (Midsummer Dance). Salama lost the case and he was duly sentenced in 1968 to a term in prison, but he was pardoned by Kekkonen in the same year. President also sent Salama a postcard later - with the text "greetings from Himalayas". There was also limits for tolerance and pluralist cultural policy. In 1975 the writer and artist Carl-Gustaf Lilius argued that the editorials in Finnish papers preferred not to take critical line towards the Soviet Union and accused journalists of self-censorship. This view has been commonly accepted after Kekkonen's death although in the 1970s it did not find too much defenders among writers. The cartoonist Kari Suomalainencriticized Kekkonen and the government from the 1950s in the largest newspaper Helsingin Sanomat more cutting than any author. Pentti Saarikoski, a highly influential leftist poet, sent Kekkonen a poem, where he indirectly expressed his admiration -"räntäsateessa liput märkinä ystävyyden merkiksi". Like a number of other authors, he was fascinated by power. And Kekkonen often asked young radicals, artists, intellectuals to Tamminiemi. These meeting were called the "children's party"
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