Kari Valtteri Tarkiainen (born 14 June 1938 in Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

), 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...

 is a historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 and archivist, who served as the national archivist of Finland 1996-2003. He is a grandson of the scholar Viljo Tarkiainen.

Tarkiainen has had a career in the world of archives both in Finland and Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

. From 1971 he was employed in the Swedish National Archives in Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

. He finished his career as archivist in Helsinki as chief of the National Archives of Finland

National Archives of Finland

The National Archives of Finland is a Finnish government agency responsible for archiving official documents of the Finnish state and municipalities. It is situated in the capital Helsinki....

 1996-2003.

Tarkiainen became a PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 in 1974 with a dissertation on the view of Russia in Sweden during the early great power era. He is a specialist in medieval history, and has formed the conception of the Finnish reformer Mikael Agricola

Mikael Agricola

Mikael Agricola was a clergyman who became the de facto founder of written Finnish and a prominent proponent of the Protestant Reformation in Sweden . He is often called the "father of the Finnish written language". Agricola was consecrated as the bishop of Turku in 1554, without papal approval...

. Amongst his most important works are a history of Finnish migration to Sweden, Finnarnas historia i Sverige 1-2 (1990–93), and Sveriges Österland från forntiden till Gustav Vasa (2008), which concerns the central issues of Finland's history, with special focus on the relations between Finnish and Swedish language, economy, settlement, church organisation, administration, and cultural forms. Tarkiainen has also written a biography of Paavo Haavikko

Paavo Haavikko

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

, modernisternas furste (1997).