Ragnar Granit, 30 October 1900 - 11 March 1991

Abstract

Ragnar Granit was born in Finland in 1900, during the period when Finland was still a Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire. He was the son of an affluent forester, and the grandson of a sea-captain. His father’s family came from the small island of Korpo in the Åboland archipelago, which reaches from Finland to Sweden. His family had Swedish as their native tongue, as most Finns living in the coastal areas around the Baltic have had for centuries. Granit grew up in Helsinki and started school early. He received a classical training in the ‘Swedish Normal Lyceum’ with latin and to some degree greek - a schooling which, according to his own account, fostered logical reasoning. His schooling was interrupted in the spring of 1918, when civil war arose as Finland succeeded in breaking loose from Russia, as a consequence of the Bolshevik revolution. The young man from the lyceum joined the forces trying to make Finland independent, fighting against the socialist forces which strived to instead make Finland into a ‘Soviet republic’. A very bitter civil war followed. For several months Granit was actively engaged as a soldier at the front and was decorated with the Cross of Freedom (Cl. IV, with sword). He mentioned this period not without pride. He then returned to school to complete his training in 1919.