Author's name: Tomáš Palát School: Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Arts Institute of Linguistics and Finno-Ugric Studies Nám. Jana Palacha 2, 116 38 Praha 1 Program: Finnish language Title: The picture of common people in selected writings of Finnish canon Consultant: Mgr. Jan Dlask, Ph.D. Number of pages: 79 + attachments Number of attachments: 1 Year: 2012 Key words: Runeberg, Kianto, common people, rural people, Finnish literary canon, cottager, The tales of ensign Stål, Red line, death, dying, nature, bravery, heroism, patriotism, nationalism, clergy, religion This thesis aims to analyze a picture of common people in two separate well-known Finnish writings. First of them is The tales of ensign Stål from Johan Ludvig Runeberg and second is Red line from Ilmari Kianto. Both works were created in a different time periods. The Finnish society in 19th and in the beginning of 20th century was mostly comprised from relatively poor rural people who typically worked in agriculture and describing life of those people was in the same time period very common topic in Finnish literature. In this thesis the picture of common people is being studied through five main topics. How the common people see dying and death; their relationship towards nature; if they are depicted as brave and heroic or...