This collection of essays in honour of Professor Leo Granberg presents fourteen scholarly contributions to rural studies as well as questions of economical and social transition in Finland and Central East Europe. The collection is bilingual, in Finnish a

This collection of essays in honour of Professor Leo Granberg presents fourteen scholarly contributions to rural studies as well as questions of economical and social transition in Finland and Central East Europe. The collection is bilingual, in Finnish and English. Essays dedicated to Finnish rural motifs cover a wide spectrum. The first chapter reveals the impact of the Great Depression in the 1930s on the agricultural production in Southern Ostrobothnia, the second the commercialisation of Finnish agriculture in the 19th century. Further chapters deal with the remote areas as open spaces of hope, with the rise of a new sense of local identification, with the history of Finnish rural studies and co-operative organisations as a form of social innovation. As for European developments, Vera Majerova discloses metamorphoses of the rural sociology in the Czech Republic, Katalin Kovacs the rural area transformation in Hungary, while Mariana Draganova focuses on Bulgaria. Jouko Nikula discusses plot farming in post-Soviet Russia and Estonia, whereas Pawel Starosta feeling of public safety.