Finnish students have worked on a piece based on Seven Brothers, a novel written by Aleksis Kivi, who is considered the national author of Finland. The novel was published in 1870.

Seven Brothers is widely regarded as the first significant novel written in Finnish and by a Finnish-speaking author. Some people still regard it as the greatest Finnish novel ever written.

The novel was particularly reviled by the literary circles of Kivi's time, who disliked the unflattering image of Finns it presented. The title characters were seen as crude caricatures of the nationalistic ideals of the time.

This is what Seven Brothers' original storyline is about:

At first, the brothers are not a particularly peaceful lot and end up quarreling with the local constable, juryman, vicar, churchwarden and teachers—not to mention their neighbours in the village of Toukola. No wonder young girls' mothers do not regard them as good suitors. When the brothers are required to learn to read before they can accept church confirmation and official adulthood — and the right to marry—they decide to run away.

Eventually they end up moving to distant Impivaara in the middle of relative wilderness, but their first efforts are shoddy—one Christmas Eve they end up burning down their sauna. The next spring they try again, but are forced to kill a nearby lord's herd of bulls and pay them back with wheat. Ten years of hard work clearing the forest for fields, and of hard drinking, eventually lead them to mend their ways. They learn to read on their own and they finally return to Jukola.

In the end, most of them become pillars of the community and family men. Still, the tone of the tale is not particularly moralistic.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seitsemän_veljestä

Picture: A promotion picture by Finnish Erasmus+ students in Lahden yhteiskoulu.