The white and red forces of the Civil War: problems of modern public interpretation of historical memory in Finland

The article characterizes the modern public discourse in Finland on the impact of the red and white forces on the developments unfolding in the course of the Civil War through the interpretation of historical sources. It also draws a conclusion about the transformations that historical memory has experienced in Finland over the past decades. The research tasks are solved by using the methodology of historical trauma and mechanisms of its overcoming, the historical narration of everyday life, sociological methods. The article considers the concepts of official scientific and public discourse on controversial historical issues, indicates the different functional content of these categories. The fact of granting independence to Finland in 1918, and most importantly, the fact that the independence was maintained further on, was actualized in the public narrative in 2018. On this basis, it is possible to analyze the assessment of the white and red forces within modern Finnish society, due to the higher interest to the Civil War in connection with the Jubilee data and comparatively larger number of sources on historic memory that have appeared in scientific discourse. In the interwar period, Finland saw the cult of the Civil (“Liberation”) War, where the red forces were presented as opponents of the independence of the state, and the whites, on the contrary, contributed to the acquisition of the sovereignty. However the statistical data, commemorative products, cultural phenomena presented in the article show that the public discourse about the Civil War tends to smooth the categorical evaluations, despite the fact that the discourse about the further Winter War and, moreover, the World War II tends to exacerbate the approach. The Finnish society is aware of the need to investigate crimes against the reds, preserves the memory of war crimes on both sides, and keeps the war graves of both Reds and Whites in the similar way. The rethinking of the legacy of civil confrontation is the potential for humanitarian dialogue between Russia and Finland.

Winter War, Anti-Communism and the volunteers from abroad, 1939-1940

The 1939 invasion of Finland by the Soviet Union attracted more than just journalists to the frigid north. Thousands of volunteers around the world rallied under the Finnish flag, willing to risk their lives for a foreign country. Over ten thousand arrived before the end of the war, with more on their way, coming from Hungary and Estonia, Canada and the USA, Sweden and the UK. Were they all ardent anticommunists or did they have other motives? This article seeks to answer that question, utilising Finnish and British archives as well as contemporary research into war volunteering. The origins and motives of the volunteers are examined, revealing that their motives ran a wide gamut, including such reasons as anti-communism, linguistic fraternity and spirit of adventure, to name a few.

Finland in World War II

The Soviet invasion of Finland began on 30 November 1939. For a long time, Russian historiography referred to the ensuing Winter War (1939–1940) as a border clash, a sort of dress rehearsal for the Great Patriotic War. The war between a great power with unlimited manpower and material resources and its small Nordic neighbor was fought under severe Arctic weather conditions for which, unlike the Finns, the Red Army was badly prepared. The Finnish resistance lasted for 105 days until 13 March 1940. Partly owing to the changes in the international situation the war ended in a negotiated settlement, the Moscow Peace Treaty, and the Soviet Union annexed one tenth of Finnish territory. Both belligerents suffered heavy losses. Western nations had offered sympathy and military assistance to the Finns during the war but after Germany occupied a large portion of Northern Europe, Finland was practically cut off. Thus the fifteen-month period of Interim Peace (1940–1941) saw a change in Finnish foreign policy orientation toward Germany. In the Winter War Finland, a nation with a population of less than 4 million, was fighting almost alone against the Soviet Union of 170 million inhabitants, but in June 1941 the much stronger Finnish Army joined the German-led Operation Barbarossa to reclaim the lost areas. Finland was aligned with the Germans but was not formally an Axis member. Yet the country was a signatory of the Anti-Comintern Pact. The German troops were primarily stationed in northern Finland. The Finnish Army advanced deep into the Soviet territory in the Continuation War (1941–1944). The offensive was followed by two and a half years of stationary war. In June 1944 the Soviet Union started its major strategic offensive to occupy all of Finland. In the battles fought during that summer the Finnish Army fell back to near the 1940 borders where it managed to stop the Soviet onslaught. The Soviets no longer demanded unconditional surrender, and Finland avoided occupation for the second time. However, the armistice agreement of September 1944 stipulated that the Finns should push the German forces from Finnish territory into Norway. This marked the beginning of the Lapland War (1944–1945) that lasted until April 1945. The fate of Finland was at stake twice, in 1940 and 1944. Yet the country was able to remain independent and a democratic republic.

Lexical representation of the concept "Honor" (Сhest’) in A. T. Tvardovsky’s works about the war

One of the eternal problems raised in Russian literature is the problem of honour and dishonour, which becomes particularly urgent during wartime periods. The front-line poet A. T. Tvardovsky, who participated in two wars as a war correspondent – the Soviet-Finnish (Winter War) and the Second World War, could not remain indifferent to this topic. In order to find out how the concept of "Honour" (Chest ̓ ) is understood in his poems about war and the poem "Vasily Terkin", we analysed the contextual semantics of the lexeme honour (chest) and its derivatives using the method of continuous sampling of language units, methods of structural-semantic and functional-stylistic analysis of language signs. The article shows that the concept of "Honour" (Chest ̓ ) is one of the important cognitive units in the concept sphere of Tvardovsky. This concept is embodied in the lexical units of honour (chest ̓), honest (chestnyi), honour (pochest )̓ . According to the poet, it is the indomitable spiritual resilience and loyalty to the person̓s moral principles that characterise Russian people. Tvardovsky repeatedly expressed the idea that dishonour for a man is worse than shame and more terrifying than death. He believed that there was no excuse for fighters betraying honour and the sense of self-respect. This understanding of the concept "Honour" (Chest ̓) – not only in line with Pushkin̓s tradition but wider – lies in the spirit of the national mentality.

Outstanding doer of Russian dentistry Zakhar Borisovich Piryatinsky

he study is devoted to the professional and social activities of the outstanding Russian dentist, associate professor Zakhar Borisovich Piryatinsky. The paper presents an analysis of hard-to-reach literary sources and statements of contemporaries about Z.B. Piryatinsky. The data on the formation of Z.B. Piryatinsky as a dentist, his professional activities during the First World War and the Great Patriotic War, in the battles near Lake Khasan and the Khalkhin-Gol River, as well as in the Soviet-Finnish (winter) war of 1939—1940. His role in the opening of the Odontological Society, the first state dental laboratory at the Palace of Labor, the Institute of Public Dentistry, the dental laboratory in the center of Leningrad, which was reorganized into the Central Dental Polyclinic, then into the Scientific and Practical Dental Institute, and later — the Leningrad Dental Institute, was noted. In the conclusion, it is noted that, being one of the founders of domestic dentistry, as well as the school of dentists and maxillofacial surgeons, he is rightfully recognized as one of the patriarchs of national healthcare.

Finland’s Continuation War (1941–1944): War of Aggression or Defence? War of Alliance or Separate War?

In September 1939, after having included a secret protocol on spheres of influence in the so-called Molotov- Ribbentrop Pact, Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland and divided it between themselves. It was not long before the Soviet Union approached Finland by proposing exchanges of certain territories: ‘in our national interest we want to have from you certain territories and offer in exchange territories twice as large but in less crucial areas’. Finland, suspicious of Soviet motives, refused – the outcome was the Soviet war of aggression against Finland by the name of the Winter War in 1939–1940. The Soviet Union won this war and compelled Finland to cede several territories – about 10 per cent of Finland’s area. After the Winter War, Finland sought protection from Germany against the Soviet Union and decided to rely on Germany. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, Finland joined the German war effort in the so-called Continuation War and reoccupied the territories lost in the Winter War. Finnish forces did not stop at the old border but occupied Eastern (Soviet) Karelia with a desire eventually to annex it. By that measure, Finland joined as Germany’s ally in its war of aggression against the Soviet Union in violation of international law. In their strong reliance on Germany, the Finnish leaders made some very questionable decisions without listening to warnings from Western States about possible negative consequences. Germany lost its war and so did Finland, which barely avoided entire occupation by the Soviet Army and succeeded in September 1944 in concluding an armistice with the Soviet Union. Finland lost some more territories and was subjected to many obligations and restrictions in the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty, dictated by the Allies. This article analyses, according to the criteria of international law, Finland’s policy shortly prior to and during the Continuation War, especially Finland’s secret dealings with Germany in the months prior to the German attack against the Soviet Union and Finland’s occupation of Eastern Karelia in the autumn of 1941. After Adolf Hitler declared that Germany was fighting against the Soviet Union together with Finland and Romania, was the Soviet Union entitled – prior to the Finnish attack – to resort to armed force in self-defence against Finland? And was Finland treated too harshly in the aftermath of World War ii? After all, its role as an ally of Germany had been rather limited.

‘Among the faded lines of the Combat Leaflet...’. Yury Inge

The article is dedicated to the pre-war poet Yury Inge, who was killed at the very start of the German invasion of the USSR. A war correspondent during the Winter War (1939–1940), Inge joined the newspaper Krasnoznamyonniy Baltiyskiy Flot in 1941 at its headquarters at the new Soviet naval base in Tallinn. Inge took part in the so-called Tallinn disaster, a tragedy yet to be fully explained: the Soviets lost two-thirds of their Baltic Fleet ships during evacuation to Kronstadt. Inge was leaving on the icebreaker Valdemārs, when it was sunk by a naval mine placed by the Soviet military just days before. A witness account describes the poet, wearing a long black naval coat and equipped with a gas mask and a pistol, helping women and children into a lifeboat, while remaining on board of the damaged ship the entire time. Inge died before reaching his 36th birthday. The article offers a first estimation of the tragedy’s scale and lists all literary workers attached to the Baltic Fleet who met their end on the 28th–29th of August, 1941.