Īfter serving in several houses Eenokki Kekkonen married Anna-Liisa Koskinen. Kekkonen's paternal grandfather Eenokki was part of a landless group grown in the 19th century and lived on temporary work and working as a farmworker. The paternal side of Kekkonen's family had overtaken swiddens and the maternal side had been a peasant family staying on their own site. The ancestors of Urho Kekkonen up to twelve generations had always been descendants of peasant families from eastern Finland. The house had been bought as the family's own home. Īlthough Kekkonen's birth home in Pielavesi is known as "Lepikon torppa", Kekkonen did not come from a crofter background. He was probably from either Kangasniemi or Joroinen. 1630) is first mentioned in documents in Pieksämäki in 1673. His seventh-great-grandfather Tuomas Kekkonen (born ca. Kekkonen himself thought it possible that the family might instead originate from Western Finland, for example from Tavastia, where there have been place names connected to their surname from as early as the 15th century. Although it is not known where the Kekkonens came to Savonia from, there has been speculation that they are from Karelia as people with the name were known to have lived in certain settlements of the Karelian Isthmus for centuries. The ancestors of Urho Kekkonen most likely settled in the Savonia region before the 16th century. The Kekkonens are an old Savonian family. Even during his presidency, he wrote humorous, informal columns ( causerie) for the Suomen Kuvalehti magazine (edited by his long-time friend Ilmari Turja) under several pseudonyms.īiography Family history In addition to his extensive political career, he was a lawyer by education, a policeman and athlete in his youth, a veteran of the Finnish Civil War, and an enthusiastic writer. After Kekkonen's presidency, the reform of the Constitution of Finland was initiated by his successors to increase the power of the Parliament and the prime minister at the expense of the president.īefore becoming president (and either prior to or during his premierships) Kekkonen served as minister of foreign affairs (1952–53, 1954), speaker of the Finnish Parliament (1948–50), minister of justice (1936–37, 1944–46, 1951) and minister of the interior (1937–1939, 1950–1951). On the other hand, his perceived hunger for power, his divide-and-rule attitude in domestic politics and the lack of genuine political opposition, especially during the latter part of his presidency, significantly weakened Finnish democracy during his presidency. He is credited by Finnish historians for his foreign and trade policies, which allowed Finland's market economy to keep pace with Western Europe even with the Soviet Union as a neighbor, and for Finland to gradually take part in the European integration process. He hosted the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in Helsinki in 1975 and was considered a potential candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize that year. Critical commentators referred to this policy of appeasement pejoratively as Finlandization. Nevertheless, he remains a respected figure.Īs president, Kekkonen continued the "active neutrality" policy of his predecessor President Juho Kusti Paasikivi that came to be known as the Paasikivi–Kekkonen doctrine, under which Finland retained its independence while maintaining good relations and extensive trade with members of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
Holding a large amount of power, he won his later elections with little opposition and has often been classified as an autocrat. Head of state for nearly 26 years, he dominated Finnish politics for 31 years overall.
He was the third and most recent president from the Agrarian League/Centre Party. He also served as prime minister (1950–53, 1954–56), and held various other cabinet positions.
Urho Kaleva Kekkonen ( pronounced ( listen) 3 September 1900 – 31 August 1986), often referred to by his initials UKK, was a Finnish politician who served as the eighth and longest-serving president of Finland from 1956 to 1982.
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