Agathon Meurmans finnischsprachige Enzyklopädie (1883–1890) als Wissensspeicher und ideologisches Kampfinstrument

The article is dedicated to the first universal encyclopaedic dictionary in Finnish. The Sanakirja yleiseen sivistykseen kuuluvia tietoja varten 1883–1819 (‘Dictionary of General Knowledge’) was written by Agathon Meurman, one of the most influential and versatile conservative politicians of his time. Earlier lexicographichistorical discussions of this work have included exemplary enumerations of lemmatic gaps, recurring examples of selected dictionary articles conceived in an ideologically tendentious manner, and brief references to possible lexicographic sources. One such source, most commonly invoked as crucial to Meurman’s work, is the so called Kleiner Meyer, or Meyers Hand-Lexikon des allgemeinen Wissens 1871–1872. Meurman's lexicon, however, has not yet been systematically studied regarding specific lexicographical questions, such as lemma selection, or the structuring and presentation of information. This article examines in detail the literature-related lemma inventory of Meurman’s dictionary to answer the following questions: 1) To what extent did the author's political and ideological views find its way into the first Finnish encyclopaedia? 2) How was the information ideologically filtered and selected for presentation? The analysis begins with documenting the genesis of Meurman’s dictionary, partly on the basis of previously unused historical sources. Then, for the first time, a reliable identification of the sources used by Meurman is undertaken. Only with a solid basis for comparison is it possible to adequately analyse, both quantitatively and qualitatively, Meurman’s way of presenting literary knowledge in a broader biblio-cultural context. The result confirms that his work can be classified as an instrument of ideological struggle, and reveals ethically questionable procedures. However, the close comparison of sources also casts a critical spotlight on the perception of Meurman’s dictionary as a special case in the history of encyclopaedic writing.