Bringing Finnish history up to date

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By Unto Hämäläinen
     
      "It is a valuable thing that the experiences of the Lotta [Finland's wartime women's auxiliary organisation] are collected, and that a film is made that tells the true story about the work that the Lottas did", writes 81-year-old Rakel Keltto from Lapua on the web site of the film Lupaus ("Promise").
      At the end of her message Keltto adds that she would like to see the film some day.
      Rakel Keltto and thousands of other Lotta veterans will be able to see Lupaus, which had its premiere on Friday. They will not be disappointed, because the film tells the "true story", just as she hoped.
      The authenticity is guaranteed by the council of the Lotta Svärd Foundation, which followed the production of the film.
      The wealthy foundation also helped finance the production. Scriptwriter Elina Halttunen and director Ilkka Vanne say that during the filming of the movie, it came out that the mothers of both had been members of the organisation, but that the matter was not discussed in their homes over the decades.
      Similar revelations might be in store in other homes after the premiere. During the decades that followed the war, the fact that 240,000 women were members of the Lotta Svärd organisation and served in various tasks to help the war effort was not talked about much. The reason for the silence was that after the war, the organisation was even said to be fascist.
      At the insistence of the Soviet Union, Lotta Svärd was abolished in the autumn of 1944. Its significant property holdings were turned over to a foundation, and the memory of the organisation was kept alive only in small circles. It was not until last year that the foundation took back the name Lotta Svärd.
      Lupaus, which tells the story of three young Lotta girls, helps rehabilitate the organisation, but it is also part of a broader project aimed at writing a new memory for the nation.
     
The rewriting of the history of the last war began when the Soviet Union had fallen apart in 1991. Naturally, the memory of the war had been kept alive before that. However, there was a major impediment to remembering the war: the Soviet Union felt that the war was Finland's fault.
      For this reason, discussing wartime events had to take place in an even-tempered manner. It was important not to irritate the great neighbour, so it was wise to begin the common chronology from the interim peace agreement of 1944 and the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance of 1948.
      The anniversaries of the signing of those treaties became "second independence days", and this is what Finland adapted to in the decades that followed.
      Time also had its impact. The more the war years receded into the past, the more appropriate it was to emphasise the achievements of peacetime. The backpacks that fathers who fought on the front brought back home fell apart, and moths ate the Lotta uniforms of many mothers.
      In the 1970s there was a tendency to question the actions of Finland's wartime leaders. People asked if Finland might have been able to avoid the Winter War somehow. There were also questions as to whether Finland sought an alliance, or was forced into it in 1941. Was the Continuation War a "separate war" from the Second World War, or did Finland willingly fraternise with Nazi Germany?
     
Now the tendency is to question the interpretations of the 1970s, and to look for understanding for the wartime leaders. The time is right for that: the atmosphere has changed, archives have opened up, and new studies have been published.
      When reading studies from the 1970s, one has to pinch oneself from time to time: can this really be true? The Soviet Union had a tight grip on the minds of the Finns, and this can also be seen in the interpretations of history.
      The Soviet Union would not even admit that it had divided up Europe with Germany in the autumn of 1939. It was claimed that the agreement signed by Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop could not be found in Moscow.
      The view of the powerful neighbour had an impact here in Finland as well. As it was not considered proper to evaluate the Soviet Union honestly, efforts were made to find a guilty party for the Winter War in Finland. One of the things that was pondered then was whether or not Soviet dictator Josif Stalin or Finnish Foreign Minister Eljas Erkko was more blameworthy. At times the Winter War was referred to colloquially as "Erkko's War".
      The debate over the Winter War changed immediately after the Soviet Union broke up. Stalin was found to be the guilty party, and Erkko was assessed in his proper role as the foreign minister of a small country which had to choose from a number of poor alternatives.
      There will be more information on the actions of Eljas Erkko in the coming years, because professors Ohto Manninen and Raimo Salokangas are currently writing Erkko's biography. They are the first researchers to have access to the whole archive of Eljas Erkko.
     
Another major topic of discussion has been how Finland joined the Continuation War. The issue has been debated throughout the postwar period. Professor Arvi Korhonen wrote in the 1950s that Finland was a piece of "driftwood" in a raging river, which was forced to become an ally of Germany.
      American researcher Hans-Peter Krosby sank the driftwood theory already in the late 1960s. He showed with his research that Finland did not drift into war, noting that Finland sought to ally itself with Germany during the period of peace between the Winter War and the Continuation War. There have been no attempts to dispute Krosby's conclusions later.
      In the 1970s the view gained ground that Finland could have averted the Continuation War if it had sought to establish a relationship of "trust" with the Soviet Union.
      The present thinking is that Finland had no better option than to join forces with Germany, and that it would have been impossible to reach any accord with the Soviet Union.
      "The cause of the Continuation War was Stalin's policy, which caused a situation in which Finland had to stand alongside Germany, and the Soviet dictator was therefore really culpable for the Continuation War", writes Professor Pentti Virrankoski in his extensive book on Finnish history which was published in 2001.
      Max Jakobson has said that during the peace between the two wars, Finland had to choose between the plague and cholera.
     
These ponderings are crystallised in the expression "separate war", which means that Finland fought its own war alongside Germany against the Soviet Union. According to Soviet researchers, Finland did not fight a separate war; it simply let itself be "a tool of German fascism", as Molotov said after the war.
      Even today Russia does not approve of the idea of a "separate war" fought by Finland. In the winter the country's foreign minister criticised a speech by President Tarja Halonen in which she used the expression.
      Halonen defended her choice of words, saying that the term is generally accepted in Finland. This was not yet the case in 1970, when the entire wartime leadership was accused of making common cause with Nazi Germany.
      Nowadays the idea of a separate war has sunk so deep into people's minds that information that contradicts it is not easily believed. When Elina Sana published her book two years ago in which she said that during the Continuation War Finland had deported over more than 2,000 people to Germany, people did not want to credit it.
      Sana's book revived the question of whether or not the link between Finland and Germany was so close that something like this could happen.
      The answer to this will come in a couple of years, when an official report on wartime deportations is made ready.
     
As the outcry over Sana's book was going on, some people asked why nobody says anything about how Finland sent a much larger number of people to the Soviet Union. The claim that this really was the case was recently proven correct in a book by Jussi Pekkarinen and Pekka Lähteenkorva, Ei armoa Suomen selkänahasta. Ihmisluovutukset Neuvostoliittoon 1944-1981) ("No mercy at Finland's Expense. Extraditions to the Soviet Union 1944-1981"), which appeared in September.
     
It is interesting to ponder why their book did not raise as intense a debate as Sana's volume did. One possible reason might be that Finns had already grown accustomed to the embarrassing idea that during the war, and also after the war, the country's leaders were forced to do something that was morally wrong - for the good of the nation.
      "Actually we were very flexible. When the centre of power was Berlin, we closed our eyes at the atrocities of the Nazis. When the centre of power moved to Moscow, we closed our eyes at the atrocities of Stalin. We did what we could to appease the massive neighbour", writes Max Jakobson in his new book Tulevaisuus? ("Future?").
     
The same kind of flexibility can be seen in the rewriting of history. It was long claimed that Finland had lost the war. Or did it?
      "The old fact that every age writes its own history and its interpretations came true again. The concept of a ‘defensive victory' dominated debate", says Professor Timo Soikkanen, as he describes the change in atmosphere that occurred in the 1990s. Soikkanen has written about the interpretations in Jatkosodan pikkujättiläinen ("Little Giant of the Continuation War"), which appeared in November.
      The 1,200-page book, compiled by Dr. Jari Leskinen and Lieutenant-Colonel Antti Juutilainen, brings together the most recent research information and new interpretations of the events of the Continuation War. The book reached the finals for the Tieto Finlandia prize for non-fiction literature this autumn, and it is likely to become a handbook for war history buffs.
      Soikkanen's observation is on the mark. The notion of a defensive victory has become an established expression for describing the final outcome of the war. Speaking about a defensive victory constitutes approval - even if it is not deliberate - of the actions of the wartime leadership in the spring and summer of 1944.
      Then Finland rejected the first terms for peace that it was offered, after which the Red Army began a massive offensive. President Risto Ryti was forced to give a promise of loyalty to Germany so that Finland might get armaments and other aid against the onslaught of the Soviet forces.
      Still in the 1970s there was much dispute over whether or not Finland could have been spared the carnage of the summer of 1944 by approving the first peace terms. Nowadays, there is no discussion about such things.
     
Attitudes toward President Risto Ryti have especially changed. In 1994 the government offered a public apology to the next of kin of Ryti and the others who were sentenced to prison in the so-called "war guilt" trials. Nowadays they are generally seen as scapegoats of the nation.
      Nobody any longer questions - at least in public - the present practice under which those who are awarded the Mannerheim Cross are the first to be admitted to the Independence Day reception of the President.
      In the first decades after the war, such a move would have been unthinkable.
      General Adolf Ehrnrooth, who died last year, succeeded in getting those decorated with the Mannerheim Cross into the celebration, and his television interviews became the climax of the whole event.
     
Is the present view of the Winter War and the Continuation War the final truth? It is not.
      A couple of weeks ago it was said that the wartime archives of Stalin and Molotov would finally be opened. The National Archives plan to microfilm them for use by Finnish researchers.
      The findings might yet shake our image of the reasons for the war, and the course of events. We shall return to the matter ten years from now.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 4.12.2005


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish wartime leaders on trial for "war guilt" 60 years ago (28.10.2005)
  Finnish-German seminar examines wartime cooperation between Finnish Valpo and Gestapo (28.10.2005)
  Book details history of extradition of Soviet defectors and refugees (15.9.2005)
  Finland may have deported up to 50 Jewish prisoners of war to Nazi Germany (21.11.2003)

UNTO HÄMÄLÄINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
unto.hamalainen@hs.fi