Pirrko Koski

this goal, publishing first her exhaustive study of the Finnish National Theatre in 1974-1991 in Finnish under the title Suomen Kansallisteatteri ristipaineissa (The Finnish National Theatre Caught in Cultural Crossfires) (2019, SKS) and, after re-angling, questioning, and choosing different productions as case studies (p.x) the same material in English in 2022.Unfortunately, I have not had the chance yet to read both books that would enable me to conduct a comparative analysis.Since researchers investigating small cultures often face the challenge of how to make their empirical material relevant and intriguing also for international audiences, the new, international approach chosen by Koski made reading of the book in English especially interesting.Finnish theatre is not terra incognita for me, since I have lived in Helsinki for six years during different periods and have also visited the National Theatre, but only after 1996.My perspective on the book was thus a semi-outsider's one and my reading strategy implicitly comparative because I often compared Koski's statements and writing strategies with the discourse on Estonian national theatre. 1 The book is divided into two sections titled "Operational frames" and "Programming,1 In Estonia, only the National Opera and the National Ballet bear the name and are financed directly from the state budget while all other theatres receive their state subsidies from the Ministry of Culture.Since no other drama theatres have the privilege, discussions on the issue have flared up several times.