Vilho Koskela
fictional human
Vilho Johannes "Ville" Koskela is a fictional character in Väinö Linna's 1954 war novel The Unknown Soldier and the Under the North Star trilogy (1959–1962). In The Unknown Soldier, Koskela's military rank is initially that of a sergeant major, but he later rises to lieutenant. According to Väinö Linna, Vilho Koskela's role model was Nilsiä-born Einari Kokkonen. Another officer who provided material for Koskela's character was a lieutenant named Niemelä, who fell in the aftermath of the Battle of Pertjärvi, and whom Linna also valued as a leader.
In the literature
The Unknown Soldier
Vilho Koskela is an almost 30-year-old sub-lieutenant when the Continuation War breaks out. The soldiers serving under him are more understanding of Koskela than of the other squad leader, Lieutenant Lammio (who later, as an active officer, will succeed Captain Kaarna as company commander). Koskela is quiet, calm and friendly, and therefore manages to gain the trust of his soldiers. Because of his reticence, he is nicknamed Ville Vaitelias ("Quiet Ville"). Koskela is quite modest and often more of a soldier than an officer. Koskela dies during the defensive battles of the summer of 1944; he is shot with a machine gun while destroying an enemy tank with a satchel charge, and his attempt to prevent the Finnish line from breaking apart is wasted.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vilho Koskela” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.