Political science has never been as active in qualitative research as sociology or cultural studies. What methods do we then have available if we try to reread nationally elevated and politically interpreted 19th-centuryliterature? To avoid conveying an anachronism, a certain methodological distance is needed. This article suggests conceptual history and “geographical reading” as possible ways of analyzing political ideas in fiction through a focus on the first Finnish novel, Aleksis Kivi’s (1870) Seven Brothers. Scholars have emphasized the role of 19th-century novels in imagining the nation. However, Kivi postponed the images of nation and outlined radical political futures that were neglected by the Finnish nationalists. A methodological reading, thus, can challenge the canonical understanding of Kivi as a nationalist icon. The merits of conceptual history would be widely useful in social research.
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