Viktor Heikel
Heikel was born in Turku to educator and priest Henrik Heikel and Wilhelmina Johanna Schauman. He had ten siblings, including brother Felix Heikel (1844–1921), a bank manager and politician and sister Anna Heikel, head of the School for the Deaf. In 1873 Heikel married Hanna Kihlman. He was father to doctor Allan Phayllos Heikel (born 1885) and ethnologist Yngvar Heikel (born 1889). He was also cousin to ethnographer Axel Heikel and philologist Ivar Heikel. Between 1867 and 1869 Heikel studied gymnastics in Stockholm and Germany. In 1869 he became a teacher of gymnastics at the Svenska normallyceum i Helsingfors (Swedish Normal School in Helsinki), and in 1873 a lecturer in gymnastics at the Nykarleby Seminary. From 1876 to 1911 he was senior lecturer in gymnastics at the University of Helsinki. He was awarded the title of professor in 1907 and was promoted to honorary doctor of medicine in 1919. Heikel helped found and taught at the Nya svenska samskolan, a private co-educational school in Helsinki, in 1888. He developed a system based on Swedish and German gymnastics that reformed Finnish gymnastics. He was also interested in swimming, rowing and athletics. He was opposed to modern sports with its specialization, competitiveness and pursuit of records, while Artur Eklund, in a polemic with Heikel, expressed himself pejoratively about gymnastics. Heikel participated extensively in the cultural and social endeavours of the time. In the 1860s, together with his sister Anna Heikel, he helped introduce the Baptist church to Finland. Critical of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, he supported the foundation of the Association for Religious Freedom and Tolerance in Finland (, ) in 1887; he was also involved in the Prometheus student society which campaigned for freedom of religion. Heikel died 27 July 1927 in Porvoon maalaiskunta, Finland.
Life
Frans Viktor Heikel (23 August 1842 – 27 July 1927) was a Finland-Swedish gymnastics teacher, known as "the father of Finnish school gymnastics".