Remembering Karelia: A Family's Story of Displacement during and after the Finnish Wars
... Nostalgia about the lost place of home in the past does not concern only Karelian evacuees but is a typical feature of diasporic discourse in general and takes form in different practices as well as having several functions. (Lehto & Timonen 1993;Boym 2001;Armstrong 2004;Willson 2005;Basu 2006;Huttunen 2007;Fingerroos 2008;Niukko 2009; Savolainen forthcoming; see also Korkiakangas 1996;Cashman 2006;on historical inversion: Bakhtin 1981: 146-151.) Intertextuality on the level of simple genre (which could also be called embedded intertextuality) means that units of text that represent simple genres, such as poems, jokes, proverbs, written dialogue, or references to passages from a simple genre, such as lines from a letter, a diary, or a song, are included in and embedded in a piece of reminiscence writing. ...
... 6 The evacuated Karelians and evacuations have been the subject of many investigations, e.g. Waris et al. 1952;Heikkinen 1989;Paukkunen 1989;Lehto & Timonen 1993;Sallinen-Gimpl 1994;Raninen-Siiskonen 1999;Armstrong 2004;Willman 2006;Fingerroos & Loipponen 2007;Fingerroos 2007;Kuusisto-Arponen 2008;Niukko 2009;Kananen 2010;Savolainen 2015. 7 Vološinov 1973Bakhtin/Medvedev 1978;Bakhtin 1981;; on dialogicality, see also Todorov 1984;Lähteenmäki 1998;Allen 2000: 21-30; on the Bakhtin Circle, see Brandist 2005. ...
... However, many other aspects of the identity and culture of displaced Karelians have been extensively studied (e.g.,Armstrong 2004;Fingerroos 2006;Kuusisto-Arponen 2009;Raninen- Siiskonen 1999;Sallinen-Gimpl 2010). ...
... However, many other aspects of the identity and culture of displaced Karelians have been extensively studied (e.g.,Armstrong 2004;Fingerroos 2006;Kuusisto-Arponen 2009;Raninen- Siiskonen 1999;Sallinen-Gimpl 2010). ...
... However, many other aspects of the identity and culture of displaced Karelians have been extensively studied (e.g.,Armstrong 2004;Fingerroos 2006;Kuusisto-Arponen 2009;Raninen- Siiskonen 1999;Sallinen-Gimpl 2010). ...
... However, many other aspects of the identity and culture of displaced Karelians have been extensively studied (e.g.,Armstrong 2004;Fingerroos 2006;Kuusisto-Arponen 2009;Raninen- Siiskonen 1999;Sallinen-Gimpl 2010). ...
... However, many other aspects of the identity and culture of displaced Karelians have been extensively studied (e.g.,Armstrong 2004;Fingerroos 2006;Kuusisto-Arponen 2009;Raninen- Siiskonen 1999;Sallinen-Gimpl 2010). ...
... However, many other aspects of the identity and culture of displaced Karelians have been extensively studied (e.g.,Armstrong 2004;Fingerroos 2006;Kuusisto-Arponen 2009;Raninen- Siiskonen 1999;Sallinen-Gimpl 2010). ...
... However, many other aspects of the identity and culture of displaced Karelians have been extensively studied (e.g.,Armstrong 2004;Fingerroos 2006;Kuusisto-Arponen 2009;Raninen- Siiskonen 1999;Sallinen-Gimpl 2010). ...
... However, many other aspects of the identity and culture of displaced Karelians have been extensively studied (e.g.,Armstrong 2004;Fingerroos 2006;Kuusisto-Arponen 2009;Raninen- Siiskonen 1999;Sallinen-Gimpl 2010). ...
... However, many other aspects of the identity and culture of displaced Karelians have been extensively studied (e.g.,Armstrong 2004;Fingerroos 2006;Kuusisto-Arponen 2009;Raninen- Siiskonen 1999;Sallinen-Gimpl 2010). ...
... This description of positive, vivid, and lively Finnish nature serves as a contrast to the lack of activity in Northern Ontario at Juhannus. In these descriptions, the natural setting, and trees in particular, are an integrated and active part of the narrator's "memory world" (Armstrong 2004). ...
This article examines uses of landscape in Finnish Canadian autobiographical writing. By framing relationships between people and landscapes as dynamic and interactive, this analysis inquires about the persistence of the Finnish Canadian “landscape myth”—that Finns settled there because of the landscape. These life writing narratives are situated within the traditions of Finnish nationalism, Finnish and Canadian settler narratives, and Finnish immigration historiography, yet are viewed as examples of the diverse ways that individuals use, understand, and represent their connections with place and landscape. The article analyzes Nelma Sillanpää's Under the Northern Lights (1994) and Aili Grönlund Schneider's The Finnish Baker's Daughters (1986), further contextualized by additional Finnish Canadian autobiographical works. Though focused on Finnish experiences in Canada, this work contributes to broader discourses on Finnish Great Lakes identities.
... Soviet era however, the experiences of the displaced Finnish Karelians, including those from or familiar with Finnish Vyborg have been more freely recounted and published in Finland, and shared internationally via academic publications in English (see, e.g.,Armstrong 2004;Fingerroos 2006;Savolainen 2017). Opinions and feelings around past and presentday Karelia and the possibility of, and justifications for, returning the area to Finland have been more freely expressed, for example, in the Finnish press (see Laine and van der Velde 2017), which had self-censored during the Cold War era. ...
Before World War II, Vyborg, Russia was Viipuri, Finland. This dissertation examines the meanings and memories young people in Finland today attach to this borderland place. The main purpose of this work is to add to understandings of how the meanings and memories associated with a ‘lost place’ are transmitted across time and between generations and how those transmissions are received, understood and expressed by a specific group. By focusing on young people, this work includes their voices in an academic conversation which has largely focused on the meanings and memories attached to Vyborg by those Finns evacuated from the area as a result of World War II. This work adds to the growing body of research which fruitfully utilises the concept of postmemory - a form of collective intragenerational and transgenerational memory transmission - as a way to understand how and why past events and places may remain meaningful, even for those with no personal experience of them. The other main concept used in this work is spatial socialisation – the socialisation of the individual and the collective to territorial entities such as nation-states. This work acknowledges young people’s active role in integrating (or not) spatial socialisation ‘messages’ relating to Vyborg with their own group and
individual understandings, rather than seeing them as passive objects of the forces of spatial socialisation.
I gathered the data analysed in this work via 38 focus groups held with 325 high school students in 11 different cities across Finland in 2017. Secondary data in the form of 13 short narratives recounting personal memories of Finnish Vyborg already published in a Finnish tabloid magazine was also analysed to compliment and provide a comparison point for the focus group data. Via a thematic content analysis of the focus group data, I found that participants repeated and accepted the narrative of pre-World War II Vyborg as a ‘perfect Finnish place’. Participants also acknowledged the emotional, painful memories of Finnish Vyborg expressed, for example, in Finnish media but mostly rejected the ‘difficult’ feelings of loss and longing as being ones they themselves might feel in relation to Vyborg. The results of this study can be used to trace the transmission and reception of memories of Finnish Vyborg between different groups in Finland and how media representations play a role in this process. The results of this study shed light on how young people in Finland understand ‘ownership’ of place, specifically of the ‘lost’ place of Finnish Vyborg and where Vyborg ‘belongs’ in their individual and group spatial understandings.
Keywords: Vyborg, Finland, young people, place, borderland, postmemory spatial socialisation, focus groups, media
... However, many other aspects of the identity and culture of displaced Karelians have been extensively studied (e.g.,Armstrong 2004;Fingerroos 2006;Kuusisto-Arponen 2009;Raninen- Siiskonen 1999;Sallinen-Gimpl 2010). ...
... The experiences of Karelian refugees have dominated research (e.g. Armstrong, 2004;Savolainen, 2015): they have been the subject of 200 doctoral theses between 1948(Raninen-Siiskonen, 2013. In comparison, Petsamo has yielded only a few dissertations, which focused mainly on the Finnish era (Krosby, 1967;Kuusikko, 1996;Rautio, 2003;Vuorisjärvi, 1990). ...
The paper examines politics of memory related to the Arctic Finnish-Russian-Norwegian borderland, Petsamo-Pechenga. How it has been remembered, shared and interpreted after the Second World War by refugees from Finnish Petsamo and their offspring, on the one hand, and Finnish public writing, on the other hand? Which means have been used to revitalize their collective and personal narratives and construct the geohistorical space of Petsamo? During the Second World War, Petsamo was the focus of the Arctic conflict, and at the end of the war, Finland lost the region to the Soviet Union. Our source material comprises 521 articles, which we analyzed using qualitative and text mining methods. We conclude that compared with the other war refugee communities in Finland, Petsamo is peripheral to Finnish public post-war memory politics and nostalgia tourism. This is for several reasons: the fact that people from Petsamo constituted a minority among the Finnish evacuees (5200 of 420,000) and were subdivided into two groups (Finns and Skolt Sami people), the devastated and polluted environment, militarization and closeness of Russian Pechenga until the 1990s. The politics of memory about Petsamo – such as nostalgia tourism, written memories, monuments, intergenerational experiences of landscape and history books – can be seen as a manifestation of collective sorrow for a lost homeland, both as individual therapeutic surrender and creating a special emotional community of ex-Petsamo people.
... The experiences of Karelian refugees have dominated research (e.g. Armstrong, 2004;Savolainen, 2015): they have been the subject of 200 doctoral theses between 1948(Raninen-Siiskonen, 2013. In comparison, Petsamo has yielded only a few dissertations, which focused mainly on the Finnish era (Krosby, 1967;Kuusikko, 1996;Rautio, 2003;Vuorisjärvi, 1990). ...
The paper examines politics of memory related to the Arctic Finnish-Russian-Norwegian borderland, Petsamo-Pechenga. How it has been remembered, shared and interpreted after the Second World War by refugees from Finnish Petsamo and their offspring, on the one hand, and Finnish public writing, on the other hand? Which means have been used to revitalize their collective and personal narratives and construct the geohistorical space of Petsamo? During the Second World War, Petsamo was the focus of the Arctic conflict, and at the end of the war, Finland lost the region to the Soviet Union. Our source material comprises 521 articles, which we analyzed using qualitative and text mining methods. We conclude that compared with the other war refugee communities in Finland, Petsamo is peripheral to Finnish public postwar memory politics and nostalgia tourism. This is for several reasons: the fact that people from Petsamo constituted a minority among the Finnish evacuees (5200 of 420,000) and were subdivided into two groups (Finns and Skolt Sami people), the devastated and polluted environment, militarization and closeness of Russian Pechenga until the 1990s. The politics of memory about Petsamo-such as nostalgia tourism, written memories, monuments, intergenerational experiences of landscape and history books-can be seen as a manifestation of collective sorrow for a lost homeland, both as individual therapeutic surrender and creating a special emotional community of ex-Petsamo people.
... Samankaltaisesti myös esimerkiksi paikkojen nimien voi ajatella kytkevän itseensä laajasti paikkoihin liittyviä merkityksiä ja tarinoita. ( Ks. s. 228-234;Peltonen 2003;Siikala & Siikala, 2005 116-117;Armstrong 2004, 32: vrt. Foley 1991 Tämänkaltaisen symbolisen tyyppikuvan ja maailman luominen antaa kirjoittajalle mahdollisuuden luoda yhteys menneen, menneisyyden maailmaan ja nykyisyyden välille sekä punoa jatkumo ja linkki elämänsä eri aikatasojen välille. ...
Väitöskirja: Talvi- ja jatkosotien myötä Suomi luovutti alueita Viipurin läänistä Neuvostoliitolle. Alueluovutukset johtivat yli 400 000 asukkaan evakuoimiseen Suomen puolelle uutta rajaa sekä evakkomatkakertomusten syntymiseen. Sittemmin evakkomatka on alkanut määrittää siirtokarjalaisten muistelua kenties enemmän kuin mikään muu yksittäinen aihe.
Tässä kirjassa tarkastellaan siirtokarjalaisten lapsievakkojen evakkomatkaa käsitteleviä muistelukirjoituksia. Tutkimuksen aineiston muodostavat Lasten evakkomatkat -muistelukirjoituskeruun tekstit. Muistelukirjoitusten evakkolapsuus on kerronnassa ilmaistua lapsuutta. Sen rakennusaineita ovat menneisyyden muistot, eletty elämä sekä nykyhetken kokemus ja tavoitteet.
Tutkimuksessa hahmotetaan kolme kerrontastrategiaa, jotka luonnehtivat lapsuuden evakkomatkakirjoituksia ja yleisemminkin muistelukerrontaa. Kerrontastrategiat ilmenevät kirjoittajan erilaisina tapoina käsitellä aikaa ja luoda intertekstuaalisia yhteyksiä kerronnassa sekä liittyvät kirjoittajien yksilöllisiin kirjoittamisen ja muistelun pyrkimyksiin. Muistelukerronnan moninaisuuden hahmottaminen avaa näkökulmia muistelijoiden tavoitteiden ja ilmaisukeinojen rikkauteen sekä monipuolistaa kuvaa menneisyyden muistelun merkityksistä.
Karjalan entisille lapsievakoille lapsuuden koti on sekä aikana että paikkana kaukana. Muistelukerronnassa tätä välimatkaa käsitellään ja ylitetään luomalla ja pohtimalla menneen, nykyisen sekä tulevaisuuden suhdetta. Evakkomatkakirjoituksissa muistot kytkeytyvät konkreettisiin kiinnekohtiin, kuten esineisiin, dokumentteihin, paikkoihin, kehollisiin muistoihin ja merkityksellisiin kertomuksiin. Tutkimuksessa esitetään, että muistelussa konkreettiset kiinnekohdat osoittavat ja vahvistavat menneiden, nykyisten sekä tulevien aikojen välistä sidettä. Kerronnassa ne ilmenevät eriaikaisten muistojen kimppuina ja tiivistyminä - aikahyppyinä ja juonen laajentumisina monille aikatasoille.
Lapsuuden evakkomatkakirjoituksissa käsitellään myös ruokaan ja sosiaalisiin suhteisiin nivoutuvia merkityksiä. Keskeisiä aiheita ovat lasten riippuvuus aikuisista, heidän roolinsa perheessä ja ikäryhmässä sekä evakkojen riippuvuus toisten ihmisten hyvän- ja pahantahtoisuudesta. Tutkimuksessa osoitetaan, että nämä sosiaaliset ja valtaneuvottelut kytkeytyvät laajempiin eettisiin diskursseihin käsityksiin oikeasta ja väärästä, hyvästä ja pahasta, sekä kuvastavat kirjoittajien elämänkokemusta evakkona.
Doctoral dissertation (published monograph): As a result of the Winter War (1939 1940) and the Continuation War (1941 1944), Finland ceded territories of Karelia to the Soviet Union. There was a Finnish population of over 400,000 people living in the ceded area at that time, and this population was evacuated to the Finnish side of the new border. The evacuation generated narratives about the evacuation journey. Later on, the evacuation journey has itself become a symbol enriched with meanings, a symbol that seems to characterize memories and reminiscences of Karelian evacuees more than any other theme.
The research of the present thesis explores the poetics and rhetorical techniques of reminiscence writings about childhood evacuation journeys. The methodological foundation of the research combines theories of folkloristics, oral history research and narrative research. Memories and reminiscences are a fascinating area to explore because they are, according to the approach used here, the contemporary, personal and also narrative interpretations given to the past as well as rendering the significance the individuals assigned to it. Accordingly, the topic of this research is not so much childhood as it was in the past but childhood as it is formulated in writings at the moment of reminiscing. In the case of former Karelian child evacuees, both childhood and the childhood home are remote in time and in space. Narrative reminiscing operates as a tool for handling and crossing this distance. It is a means of creating and analyzing the relationship between the past, the present and the future.
The research reveals three narrative strategies: 1. Truth and history oriented narrative strategy 2. Reflexive narrative strategy 3. Literary narrative strategy
These strategies are illustrated through three different ways of how writers describe the evacuation journey. Strategies are also characterized by certain kinds of intertextual connections on the one hand and the writer s different ways of handling time in narration on the other. These narrative strategies are emblematic of the goals and intentions of the individual writers, and their investigation produces an outline of the genre of reminiscence writings.
In evacuation journey writings, memories tend to interconnect with concrete points of reference, such as objects, documents, places, bodily experiences or crystallized narratives. In this research, these points are defined as sites of memory. Sites of memory testify, authenticate and reassert the link between the past, the present and the future. The research indicates that in reminiscence writings, sites of memory appear as points for the condensation of memories from different times, which in narration are manifested as temporal leaps and expansions of the plot into several overlapping levels of chronology.
In addition, the research explores the significance attached to food and social relations in the writings. Central topics are children s reliance on their parents, their role within the family and peer group, and the dependence of the evacuees on other people s help and benevolence. The research shows that negotiations relating to social and power relations interconnect with more general ethical discourses understandings of right and wrong, good and bad which illustrate a writer s comprehensive experiences of losing his or her home and being an evacuee.
... 29 Formulations of such narrative truth are woven amongst constructions of emotional truths. 30 In narrations of loss, life writers (like other mourners) commonly seek to justify or rationalize the death of a loved one. In the search for truth, old age and long-term illness may offer some sense to meaningdefying death. ...
Life writing has been an important tool for people to work through loss in their lives. In the context of twentieth-century migration, word of death and shared mourning occurred primarily through letters in the international post. Focusing on letters written by Finnish immigrants in the United States and Canada from the 1940s–1960s, this article analyzes some of the ways that letter writing has been used to address death and loss. Positioning personal letters within the broader field of life writing, this work examines how both loss and life writing often trigger a re/defining of the self, addressed in multiple and ambiguous ways by individual mourner/writers. In its unsettling of life, feelings, and connections, loss is a rupture of the self. By narrating their life, writers create personal chronologies, position themselves in places and communities, and declare their values. The life writing of Finnish North Americans provides windows into the difficult work of trying to assign meaning to meaning-defying loss.
... For instance, Marja pointed out that her grandmother was Orthodox, and therefore Orthodoxy has always been present in her life. Her grandparents were among the Karelian Orthodox evacuees who were resettled as part of the Finnish population when the Finnish region of Karelia was ceded to the Soviet Union in 1944 after two wars between Finland and the Soviet Union (Armstrong 2004;Kupari 2011 As I have discussed elsewhere, there are multiple meanings of home, ranging from a place that one physically inhabits to various subjective experiences of home (Tiaynen-Qadir 2016). Various situated and changing experiences of home(s) reveal that being at home is always a matter of "how one feels or how one might fail to feel" (Ahmed 1999, 341). ...
... Notwithstanding the relatively smooth assimilation of the evacuated Finns into their new environment in different parts of Finland itself, the sense of common origin has been passed on to younger generations. Since the first sporadic and semi-clandestine trips to the "old homeland" in the mid-1980s, searching for roots has become a form of ritual, a pilgrimage undertaken by many former evacuees from across the areas once ceded to the Soviets (Paasi 1996;Armstrong 2004;Alasuutari & Alasuutari 2009). In Finland, homeland visits to the Russian borderlands are often organized as custom-made tours, tailored to include the localities -ancestral farms, homes, churches, historical buildings, battle sites, memorials and other monuments -that hold significance for a specific family or community group. ...
The Orthodox island monastery of Valaam in Russian Karelia is today a popular destination for Finnish tourists visiting Russia's western borderlands. Many of these tourists are descendants of the Karelians who had evacuated the area following World War II. The monastery's institutionally sanctioned genealogies construct it as the civilizing force Which had brought Christian enlightenment to the local heathen population. This discursive template is played out in the way the place is presented to visitors, with each highlight telling a carefully constructed story that promotes the monastery's significance for the Russian religious and national identity. Yet, drawing on lived experience, as well as on popular culture, family lore and meanings from collective memory, the Finnish visitors break the monolithic official discourse and produce a complex "third-space" in their own measure. This paper is based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews conducted during a homeland visit to Ladogan Karelia in June 2010.
... Because the majority of these North American Finns had been born in Finland, they were registered in the Soviet Union as Finns, thus making it nearly impossible to know how many came and left. Some have estimated that around six thousand North American Finns came to Karelia (Hokkanen, 1991;Armstrong, 2004). 1960s, collectives (and entire villages) that did not meet standards of productivity were liquidated by moving the population into more productive communes in the area (Pallot, 1990). ...
... As one consequence of the changed situation, there is an increasing number of social research on the displaced Karelians (e.g., Armstrong 2004;Paukkunen 1989Paukkunen , 1997Sallinen-Gimpl 1994), on Karelia as a geographical area (e.g., Baron 2007;Böök 2004Böök , 2006Fingerroos 2006;Hannula 2006;Nagy and Kumpulainen 2006), and on the construction of regional identity related to Karelia (Paasi 1990(Paasi , 1996. A history of the Karelian people and culture has also been published (Kirkinen et al. 1994), and anthologies composed of the evacuees' experiences have appeared Saloranta 2005, 2006). ...
The article is based on a case study of second generation Karelian migrants, whose parents had to move to other parts of Finland from the region of Karelia that was ceded to the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. The article poses the question, how long-lived diasporic identities are, and what are the conditions that affect assimilation or maintenance of a diasporic identity. In the Karelian migrants' case, already the first generation was quite successful in integrating with the rest of the Finnish society, and with the second generation, the integration has been practically complete, largely because of a short cultural distance between the evacuees and other Finns. A recent resurgence of interest in their roots by Karelian evacuees or their family members is primarily due to end of the Cold War and the possibility to freely and openly visit Karelia. Visiting Karelia has a ritual-like function for them. To that concrete, bodily experience of going there they can attach the abstract idea that in some ways they are Karelians and thus strengthen the emotional attachment to their roots. In that sense, visiting Karelia can also be described as a pilgrimage.
The application of genetic relationships among individuals, characterized by a genetic relationship matrix (GRM), has far-reaching effects in human genetics. However, the current standard to calculate the GRM generally does not take advantage of linkage information and does not reflect the underlying genealogical history of the study sample. Here, we propose a coalescent-informed framework to infer the expected relatedness between pairs of individuals given an ancestral recombination graph (ARG) of the sample. Through extensive simulations we show that the eGRM is an unbiased estimate of latent pairwise genome-wide relatedness and is robust when computed using genealogies inferred from incomplete genetic data. As a result, the eGRM better captures the structure of a population than the canonical GRM, even when using the same genetic information. More importantly, our framework allows a principled approach to estimate the eGRM at different time depths of the ARG, thereby revealing the time-varying nature of population structure in a sample. When applied to genotyping data from a population sample from Northern and Eastern Finland, we find that clustering analysis using the eGRM reveals population structure driven by subpopulations that would not be apparent using the canonical GRM, and that temporally the population model is consistent with recent divergence and expansion. Taken together, our proposed eGRM provides a robust tree-centric estimate of relatedness with wide application to genetic studies.
Historical scholarship is currently undergoing a digital turn. All historians have experienced this change in one way or another, by writing on word processors, applying quantitative methods on digitalized source materials, or using internet resources and digital tools. Digital Histories showcases this emerging wave of digital history research. It presents work by historians who – on their own or through collaborations with e.g. information technology specialists – have uncovered new, empirical historical knowledge through digital and computational methods. The topics of the volume range from the medieval period to the present day, including various parts of Europe. The chapters apply an exemplary array of methods, such as digital metadata analysis, machine learning, network analysis, topic modelling, named entity recognition, collocation analysis, critical search, and text and data mining. The volume argues that digital history is entering a mature phase, digital history ‘in action’, where its focus is shifting from the building of resources towards the making of new historical knowledge. This also involves novel challenges that digital methods pose to historical research, including awareness of the pitfalls and limitations of the digital tools and the necessity of new forms of digital source criticisms. Through its combination of empirical, conceptual and contextual studies, Digital Histories is a timely and pioneering contribution taking stock of how digital research currently advances historical scholarship.
The article is a survey of works by contemporary Russian and foreign researchers who apply to the urban identity issues, the collective memory, the process of formation and interpretation of the values of the cultural space of the city. The history of Vyborg, "places of memory", reflected in the urban space, signs and symbols, often becoming the subject of political implications, have always attracted the attention of Russian and foreign, especially Finnish, researchers. The article analyzes the works devoted not only to the study of architectural monuments and other visual objects of the city, but also images that are created on the basis of these visual objects in the narrative, art and other forms of interpretations of urban space, as well as an explanation of cultural contexts and identify the spatial identity. Within the Finnish historiography researchers note the great symbolic value of Vyborg for the Finns however emphasize the one-sided perception of Vyborg in Finland as a city almost entirely Finnish. The idea "Vyborg is our" - one of the concepts that circulate in the culture of modern Finland. In general, the Finnish Vyborg imagological historiography is more advanced and extensive than the Russian. This is due not only to the duration of the time gathering evidence of the Finnish identity, great attention to mnemonic techniques and schemes, but also to trauma syndrome (loss), which stimulates the storage in the collective memory of the city space as a perfect Finnish.
In this article, I examine the intertextuality of reminiscence writings of Karelian evacuees in Finland. The main topics of these writings are the two journeys of evacuation from the ceded Karelia to Finland, which writers experienced as children during and after the Second World War, and journeys back to the region of their childhood, which became possible after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the case of negotiations surrounding spatiotemporal distance and the creation of bridges between the past and the present, I argue that intertextuality plays a crucial but somewhat underanalyzed role in reminiscing.
Before World War II the medieval fortress town of Vyborg (then Viipuri) situated on the Gulf of Finland was Finland's second city and the capital of Finnish Karelia. It is now a Russian town in the Leningrad Oblast 40km from the Finnish border. The town has a twofold identity as a current lived Russian place and as a past Finnish place, a 'ghost town' of memory. This paper examines how the town is represented and remembered in Finland today as a 'lost' and 'perfect' past Finnish place. This paper examines current tabloid media and online representations of Vyborg in Finland. Using Paasi's theory of spatial socialization the constructed collective memory of Vyborg in Finland is placed into the wider contexts of the trans-border Karelia region and ideas about the 'correct' or 'natural' eastern border of the Finnish nation state. This paper traces the formation and circulation of an homogenised, simplistic collective memory of Vyborg in Finland shaped by the idealised memories of Finnish Vyborger evacuees. Using ideas of collective trauma and how this can be transmitted within and between generations the paper ponders how and why Vyborg remains such an importance place of memory in Finland and whether it will remain so in the minds of the next generation. The paper demonstrates the one-sided conceptions and views of Vyborg in Finland; how the town is represented as almost exclusively as a Finnish place, a prospering 1930s regional centre of trade and industry, and how its earlier past, Soviet past and the current living town of Vyborg, Russia are largely ignored.
This article briefly discusses the destruction of Finnish museums in the Second World War during the so-called Winter War of 1939–40. It concerns almost uniquely the museums of Finland’s easternmost province, Karelia, which was ceded to the Soviet Union after the war. Nineteen museums had been founded in Karelia before the war. The removal of museum collections began in the autumn of 1939, but only a small part of them were taken to safety before the outbreak of hostilities. The destruction of museums in Finland and Karelia was part of the broader, deliberate destruction of cultural property in armed conflicts. This article illustrates how wars are never solely about geographical conquest but also about the control over history, especially in situations of invasion and the resulting domination of memory and identity. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has once again become possible to present and investigate the Finnish history of Karelia.
In 2001, while living in Finland, I became fascinated by stories about the mass evacuations of Finnish 'War Children' during the "Winter" (1939-1940) and "Continuation" Wars (1941-1944) fought mostly against the Russians, Finland's historical oppressor. It was then I collected my first accounts of War Child experiences. I learned that, although other child transports during wartime (from Central Europe to other countries during 1919-1922; from Spain to England and the USSR in 1937; from London to the English countryside during World War II; and so on) had been amply researched and written about, 1 the evacuation of Finland's War Children remained relatively little-known. The purpose not only of the present article, but of my research overall, is to investigate the stories told by Finnish War Children in terms of their significant shared features; I also seek an explanation of those features, as well as ways of evaluating individual stories within the larger context of world-wide war victims who have sought to share their early experiences near the ends of their lives. Finland and Finnish War-Child Experiences: The Winter and Continuation Wars of 1939-1944 As soon as the Winter War (1939-1940) broke out between Russia and Finland, Sweden launched an initiative to have Finnish children below a certain age transported to Sweden out of harm's way. The first reaction on the part of Finnish authorities was a refusal to accept material help in any form except that of weapons or money. Soon after, Swedish authorities contacted influential people in Finland, however, and some 9,000 children were sent to Sweden, as well as 3,000 mothers and elderly people. Although Finnish children were also sent to Denmark and Norway, they were returned when those countries came under German attack. With the commencement of the so-called "Continuation War" (1941-1944), this time fought by Finland with Germany against Russia, Sweden again applied pressure on its neighbour to send them those 'remaining' children still in danger—'remaining,' because most of the children sent during the first wave of evacuation were still in Sweden. In 1941 Finland's Minister of Social Affairs accepted amid controversy. 2 The goals and results of the ensuing massive evacuations—it is estimated that, ultimately, some 80,000 Finnish children were sent to Sweden—were complex. An example: During the Winter War, Finns from the eastern region on the Russian border known as "Karelia" were forced to evacuate their homes and live with Finnish families in other parts of the country. 3 At the end of the Winter War a few months later, however, and after Finland regained Karelia, the Finnish government felt that sending Finnish children to Sweden would simplify the return of Finnish families, especially large families, to Karelia. Furthermore, when the Continuation War began, Finnish authorities believed that hostilities might last no longer than six months; consequently, it was anticipated that the separation of parents and children would be anything but catastrophic. Finally, Finnish authorities hoped that transporting children to safely would also help relieve wartime shortages at home.
The article examines the memory writings of a group of transnational “return migrants” in order to illuminate the experience of loss of “home” on relocation to the “homeland”, a fairly common modern trajectory. The primary data analysed were produced by members of a British merchant community established in St Petersburg from 1723, until the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 forced its dispersal and return to the titular homeland. It is suggested that the relationship between narrative templates employed in the memories of returnees and the actual socio-political context in which memories are reproduced is vital to understanding the values and priorities of any such group.
The international news during the summer of 2004 was full of ethnic fighting and a ‘war on terrorism’ that reached around the world. These events raise again the topic of nationalism. Using examples of rhetorical nationalism from two cases, Finland and the United States, this article examines these two distinct expressions of nationalism, how they are based on differing systems of valuation and on whether the message is directed to internal or external relations. Internally-directed nationalism may result in ethnic fighting but it is usually territorial, while externally-directed nationalism has global repercussions.
A useful point of departure for discussing ethics and the role of the researcher in history-writing is in translations, in the post-encounter stage, when what was in the mind of the researcher while preparing, what happened in the interaction with research subjects, and how this dialogue started to find its shape, is translated into conceptual thinking on paper. This includes, in this article on translating encounters with Finnish war widows, reflexive work at all levels of the process, including considerations of concepts, theory, positions, cultural reading, and gender. Translating as a term, even beyond its use for linguistic and cultural transfers, expresses the crux of research praxis, since it involves a process of choices made in relation to the intentions and preferences of the researcher. It is an "ethics in practice".
Different national traditions define disciplines in different ways, and ethnology, folklore, and anthropology are separated in the Finnish university system. The great divide between the more universally oriented anthropological research and the local, especially Eastern and Northern European ethnological traditions is sometimes conceptualized by defining the latter as nationalist. The emergence of Finnish and Finno-Ugric studies in Finland complicates the difference in a way that is relevant to urgent questions of globalization and its relationship to cultural diversity. At the same time this emergence raises important questions about the significance of ethnographic knowledge. Historically oriented ethnological and folkloristic studies in Finland have formulated a multidisciplinary approach analogical to the four anthropological fields for research into the history of Finnish and Finno-Ugric cultures and languages. Researchers have used the accumulated data in new and novel ways, which has opened up perspectives instead of limiting them to the field of area studies. The development of Finnish ethnographic studies clearly demonstrates the necessity of comparison and the comparative perspective.
Memory Meanders is an ethnographic analysis of a postcolonial migrant community, white former Rhodesians, who have emigrated from Zimbabwe to South Africa after Zimbabwe s independence in 1980. An estimated 100 000 whites left the country during the first years of independence. Majority of these emigrants settled in South Africa. In recent years President Mugabe s land redistribution program has inflicted forced expulsions and violence against white farmers and black farm workers, and instigated a new wave of emigration. Concerning the study of Southern Africa, my research is therefore very topical. In recent years there has been a growing concern to study postcolonialism as it unfolds in the lived realities of actual postcolonies. A rising interest has also been cast on colonial cultures and white colonials within complex power relationships. My research offers insight to these discussions by investigating the ways in which the colonial past affects and effects in the present activities and ideas of former colonials. The study also takes part in discussing fundamental questions concerning how diaspora communities socially construct their place in the world in relation to the place left behind, to their current places of dwelling and to the community in dispersal. In spite of Rhodesia s incontestable ending, it is held close by social practices; by thoughts and talks, by material displays, and by webs of meaningful relationships. Such social memory practices, I suggest, are fundamental to how the community understands itself. The vantage points from which I examine how the ex-Rhodesians reminisce about Rhodesia concern ideas and practices related to place, home and commemoration. I first focus on the processes of symbolic investment that go into understanding place and landscape in Rhodesia and ask how the once dwelled-in places, iconic landscapes and experiences within places are reminisced about in diaspora. Secondly, I examine how home both as a mundanely organized sphere of everyday lives and as an idea of belonging is culturally configured, and analyze how and if homes travel in diaspora. In the final ethnographic section I focus on commemorative practices. I first analyze how food and culturally specific festive occasions of commensality are connected to social and sensual memory, considering the unique ways in which food acts as a mnemonic trigger in a diaspora community. The second example concerns the celebration of a centenary of Rhodesia in 1990. Through this case I describe how the mnemonic power of commemoration rests on the fact that culturally meaningful experiences are bodily re-enacted. I show how habitual memory connected to performance is one example of how memory gets passed-on in non-textual ways. Memory Meanders on etnografinen analyysi jälkikoloniaalisesta siirtolaisyhteisöstä, Zimbabwen valkoisista, jotka ovat muuttaneet Etelä-Afrikkaan Zimbabwen itsenäistymisen jälkeen. Zimbabwen itsenäistyminen vuonna 1980 käynnisti valkoisten siirtolaisten laajamittaisen maastamuuton. Arviolta 100 000 valkoista muutti maasta 1980-luvun alkuvuosina. Suurin osa heistä asettui väliaikaisesti tai pysyvästi Etelä-Afrikkaan. Presidentti Mugaben harjoittama maan uudelleenjakopolitiikka ja siihen liittyvä valkoisten tilojen valtaaminen on saanut aikaan uuden muuttoaallon. Eteläisen Afrikan tutkimuksen kannalta työni on näin ollen hyvin ajankohtainen. Yhteiskuntatieteissä on viime aikoina ilmennyt huomattavaa kiinnostusta erilaisiin globaaleihin muuttoliikkeisiin, siirtolaisuuteen ja diasporisten yhteisöjen rakentumiseen. Samanaikaisesti on korostettu sitä, että jälkikolonialismia on syytä tutkia pelkän diskurssin sijaan elettynä todellisuutena näissä yhteiskunnissa. Tutkimukseni tarjoaa näihin keskusteluihin relevantin näkökulman tarkastelemalla sekä diasporisen yhteisön rakentumista, jälkikolonialismia, että kolonialismin rakenteiden ja ideoiden jatkuvuutta valkoisen, entisen siirtomaaeliitin kannalta. Työssäni tarkastelen miten yhteenkuulumista, paikkoihin kuulumista ja sosiaalista muistia rakennetaan. Rhodesiaa, jota ei enää ole olemassa, ylläpidetään keskusteluissa ja muisteluissa, yhteisöllisissä kokoontumisissa ja materiaalisissa näytteillepanoissa. Osoitan kuinka tämän kaltaiset sosiaalisen muistin käytännöt ovat keskeisiä ryhmän itseymmärryksen kannalta. Ensimmäisessä luvussa tarkastelen tiivistetysti Rhodesian siirtomaahistoriaa. Toisessa luvussa keskityn käsityksiin paikan merkityksestä. Analysoin miten elettyjä paikkoja ja ikonisoituja maisemia muistetaan ja narrativisoidaan diasporisessa kontekstissa. Kolmannessa luvussa pohdin kodin merkitystä. Tarkastelen ensin koloniaalista kotielämää ja seuraavaksi tapoja joilla koti siirretään maastamuuton yhteydessä. Osoitan miten sosiaalinen muisti kytkeytyy esineisiin ja analysoin kuinka kotoisuutta luodaan diasporisissa kodeissa niiden avulla. Neljännessä luvussa perehdyn tapoihin, joilla yhteisön sosiaalista muistia tuotetaan. Analysoin ensin kuinka ruoka sekä erityiset ruuanlaittoon ja sen nauttimiseen liittyvät käytännöt kytkeytyvät sensuaaliseen muistiin. Ruuan kautta pidetään yllä yhteyttä menneisiin paikkoihin ja yhteisöllisiin suhteisiin. Toisessa esimerkissä analysoin Rhodesian perustamisen satavuotispäivän kunniaksi järjestettyä muistojuhlaa ja osoitan kuinka seremoniaan liittyvien kehollisten käytäntöjen kautta sosiaalista muistia tuotetaan ja välitetään ei-verbaalisin keinoin.
Tutkimukseni kohteena on suomalaisten evakkolasten elämä talvi- ja jatkosodan vuosina 1939–1944. Sodissa Suomi menetti 13 prosenttia maa-alastaan Neuvostoliitolle, jonka seurauksena 11,6 prosenttia Suomen väestöstä joutui jättämään kotiseutunsa ja asettumaan asumaan muualle maahan. Kaikkiaan sota lähetti evakkotielle yli 400 000 ihmistä, joista suuri osa oli lapsia tai nuoria. Tästä huolimatta Suomen talvi- ja jatkosodan virallista historiaa on kirjoitettu aivan kuin lapsia ei olisi ollut olemassakaan. Tutkimukseni tarkoituksena on haastaa virallinen historiankirjoitus tuomalla esiin evakkolasten omakohtainen kokemustieto. Järjestin tutkimustani varten aineistonkeruun, jonka tuloksena sain 20 omaelämäkerrallista tarinaa. Tämä aineisto avasi minulle toisenlaisen kuvan sodan seurauksista. Se toi esiin sen, mitä evakkolapset ovat sota-aikana henkilökohtaisesti nähneet, kuulleet, kokeneet ja tunteneet. Aineistoni elämäntarinoista hain kodin pakkomenetykseen liittyviä tunteita, syitä syrjinnälle ja vaikenemiselle sekä keinoja näistä kokemuksista selviytymiseen. Tutkimukseni teoreettis-metodologinen lähtökohta ankkuroitui fenomenologisen filosofian periaatteeseen. Sitouduin elämäkertojen kirjoittajien näkökulmaan ja niihin merkityksiin, joita he tapahtumille ja teoille ovat antaneet. Lähestyin aineistoani maltillisen konstruktionismin kautta: sanat rakensivat minulle todellisuutta. Tutkimukseni eettinen tavoite on antaa ääni tutkimukseen osallistuville ihmiselle tuomalla esiin heidän tapansa antaa asioille merkityksiä. Siksi valitsin aineistoni metodologiseksi lähestymistavaksi tarinallisen otteen. Tutkimustulokset avautuivat koodauksen ja tematisoinnin keinoin. Kodin menetystä ja selviytymistä tarkastelin kahdessa eri kontekstissa: lapsuudessa ja aikuisuudessa. Koska lapsen elinpiiri oli huomattavasti rajatumpi kuin aikuisen, liitti lapsi kodin menetykseen erityisesti hänelle merkityksellisiä asioita: lelujen, lemmikkien, kodin pihapiirin ja siihen liittyvien leikkien jättämisen. Äkillinen lähtö kotoa synnytti ennen kaikkea pelon ja järkytyksen tunteita. Vasta myöhemmässä elämänkaaren vaiheessa kodin käsite laajeni koskemaan koko menetettyä kotiseutua ja myös tälle seudulle jäänyttä toimeentuloa. Tällöin kodin menetystä kuvaa parhaiten kodittomuuden ja juurettomuuden tunne, johon kytkeytyy vahva emotionaalinen lataus. Sota-aikaan liittyvä vaikeneminen osoittautui sekä tietoiseksi että pakotetuksi. Puhumattomuuden malli opittiin aikuisilta, joille vaikeneminen oli paitsi raskaiden kokemusten torjuntaa, myös tapa suojella lapsia. Lisäksi sodan jälkeisten arkirealiteettien järjestäminen vei aikaa puheelta. Vahvimmin vaikenemista tuki kuitenkin vallitseva historiallinen aika: sodasta ja sen aiheuttamista menetyksistä ei ollut sopivaa puhua. Evakoiden ja kantaväestön kohtaaminen ei aina sujunut ongelmitta. Aineistostani tulivat esiin erot kulttuurissa, luonteessa ja tavoissa. Paikallisen väestön evakoihin kohdistamat kielteiset tunteet kuvasivat vaikeutta tulla toimeen vierauden ja erilaisuuden kanssa. Vallinnut historiallinen tilanne selitti myös syrjintää: tahtomattaan ja aiheetta kodittomat evakkomatkalaiset leimautuivat Suomen historian vaikean vaiheen symboliksi. Jokaisella kertojalla on ollut omat keinonsa selvitä ja jaksaa. Lapsilla läheisten läsnäolo helpotti menetyksen aiheuttamaa tuskaa evakkomatkalla. Uutta kotiseutuaan lapset kesyttivät omakseen toiminnan kautta, leikkien, harrastusten, koulun ja työn muodossa. Aikuisuuden tärkeimmät selviytymistä tukevat tekijät ovat olleet yhteisöllisyys, perhe ja vahva luonne. Tutkimuksen tulokset olen tiivistänyt ja koonnut yhteen tyyppitarinan avulla. Tämän tarinan olen nimennyt evakkolapsen selviytymistarinaksi. Tutkimuksen tuloksista toivon olevan apua tänä päivänä Suomeen saapuvien pakolaislasten kanssa työskenneltäessä. Vaikka aineistoni evakkolasten ja tämän päivän maahanmuuttajien kokemukset sijoittuvat ajallisesti eri kontekstiin, ovat kokemukset yhteisiä. Keskeisimpinä lähteinä tutkimuksessa ovat olleet: - Furman, Ben (1997) Ei koskaan liian myöhäistä saada onnellinen lapsuus. - Granfelt, Riitta (1998) Kertomuksia naisten kodittomuudesta. - Heikkinen, Kaija ja Simola, Raisa (2003) Monenkirjava rasismi. - Levine, Peter A. (2008) Kun tiikeri herää. Trauma ja toipuminen. - Roos, J.P. (1987) Suomalainen elämä.
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