Otava Publishing Company Ltd. (Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava in Finnish

Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

) is a major Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 publisher of books. It was founded in 1890 and now is the second largest in Finland. It publishes fiction, non-fiction, books for teenagers and children, multimedia and teaching materials. The number of new titles a year exceeds 400. Otava has also been at the forefront of encyclopedia

Encyclopedia

An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....

-publishing in Finland, with many well-known series, such as the Otavan Suuri Ensyklopedia (Otava's Big Encyclopedia). Some of the prominent writers whose work Otava has published over the years include; Frans Emil Sillanpää, Eino Leino

Eino Leino

Eino Leino was a Finnish poet and journalist and is considered one of the pioneers of Finnish poetry. His poems combine modern and Finnish folk elements. The style of much of his work is like the Kalevala and folk songs. Nature, love, and despair are frequent themes in Leino's work...

, Paavo Haavikko

Paavo Haavikko

Paavo Haavikko was a Finnish poet and playwright, considered one of the country's most outstanding writers...

, Pentti Saarikoski

Pentti Saarikoski

Pentti Saarikoski was one of the most important poets in the literary scene of Finland during the 60's and 70's...

 and Laila Hirvisaari

Laila Hirvisaari

Laila Ellen Kaarina Hirvisaari is a Finnish author and writer. By 2008, over four million copies of her works had been sold....

.

A short history

Otava was founded in 1890 by Hannes Gebhard and Eliel Aspelin-Haapkylä to publish Finnish national literature. A couple of years later Alvar Renqvist stepped in and gradually took over. He was the main figure during the company's early years. His descendants (surname fennicize

Fennicize

Fennicization or finnicization is the changing of one's personal names from other languages into Finnish...

d to Reenpää) have continued his work so that Otava remains, in spite of its size, to a large extent a family company. 1906 saw the completion of the new headquarters right in the centre of Helsinki. In 1908 printing press

Printing press

A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...

 operations began and in 1916 the printing of magazine

Magazine

Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

s got under way. The first magazine to be launched was Suomen Kuvalehti

Suomen Kuvalehti

Suomen Kuvalehti is a weekly Finnish magazine, published by Otava every Friday. The magazine has a circulation of 101,000 and its editor is Tapani Ruokanen. Suomen Kuvalehti aims to write broad articles about current topics.The comic strip Blondie regularly appears in the magazine...

, which still comes out weekly. From 1945 to 1991 the company was listed in the Helsinki Stock Exchange

Helsinki Stock Exchange

The Helsinki Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in Helsinki, Finland. Since 3 September 2003 it has been part of OMX, referred to as OMX Helsinki . Since NASDAQ's acquisition of OMX in February 2008, the official name of the Helsinki exchange has been NASDAQ OMX Helsinki.- History :The...

. In 1955 a new printing house was put up in Keuruu

Keuruu

Keuruu is a town and municipality of Finland.It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Central Finland region.The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water...

, near Jyväskylä

Jyväskylä

Jyväskylä is the capital of Central Finland and the largest city on the Finnish Lakeland, north-east of Tampere and north of Helsinki, on northern coast of lake Päijänne. The city has been continuously one of the most rapidly growing cities in Finland since World War II. The city is surrounded...

. During the 1960s Otava faced grave financial difficulties but was able to pull through by rationalizing operations. In 1998 Otava bought out its rival company WSOY from the jointly owned Yhtyneet Kuvalehdet, a large publisher of magazines.