The past in the grip of change
COLUMN
Markku Jokisipilä
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By Erkki Pennanen
Finland is a good example of how the recent history of a nation is often like clay in the hands of politicians, and especially statesmen. But historical researchers also mould it: a new generation of researchers always wants to question previous interpretations, and to break the "old myths".
From the 1960s onwards,
President Urho Kekkonen tried to implant as the dominant view that Lenin gave Finland its independence as a gift. It seemed like kow-towing to the Kremlin, but Kekkonen had an ulterior motive: if Lenin gave Finland its independence, it would also serve a reminder to Lenin’s heirs that Finland’s special position was a gift from Lenin.
At that time the young historical researcher Tuomo Polvinen showed that this was more a myth than a historical fact based on Lenin’s generosity. Later Polvinen was to become perhaps the most respected researcher and authority of our country’s recent history. The results of his research have hardly ever been criticised, and certainly not questioned.
One young researcher, Markku Jokisipilä, who was born in 1972, has dared to do just that. His doctoral thesis on Finnish-German wartime relations, Aseveljiä vai liittolaisia? ("Brothers in Arms, or Allies?"), seeks to crush, in a witty style, the "myths" held until now. He nevertheless does this in the manner of scientific research.
In that connection Tuomo Polvinen comes under fire, along with many others. The criticism of Polvinen is not too severe, but it is severe enough.
Jokisipilä’s thick study is an impressive example of historical research by the younger generation. Although the topic would seem to have been exhaustively researched, Jokisipilä shows that this has been a misconception.
For instance, I had no idea how powerfully Germany’s Foreign Ministry and the German Embassy in Helsinki pressured its comrade-in-arms to sign a political agreement in the last two years of the Continuation War.
The German Ambassador put pressure on the Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs and other political leaders on an almost daily basis, just as intensely as the Soviet ambassadors or local KGB station chiefs did in the decades of the Finnish-Soviet Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance (FCMA).
The Finnish state leadership was in a very tight spot with respect to Germany, as it was later with respect to the Soviet Union because of the FCMA Treaty.
Jokisipilä graduated from school in 1991, the same year that the Soviet Union disbanded and Finland was starting to think of applying for membership in the European Union. He ridicules the theories that Finland was a helpless log adrift in the currents of international politics, and of the attempt at a later point to adhere to the myth that its war with the Soviet Union was separate from the wider Second World War.
He seeks to show how the written promise made to Germany by President Risto Ryti not to seek a separate peace with the Soviet Union was a mistake, because Finland no longer needed German armaments aid. There was plenty of that already, and more was coming.
This could be true, on the basis of an analysis of the situation after the fact. Nevertheless, the argumentation of the young researcher appears to be unreasonable in its hindsight. The political leadership was struggling under tremendous pressure and could not know at that stage what was later to come.
The Tali-Ihantala defensive battle was still in progress at the time. For instance, Jukka Tarkka, a historian of the older generation, continues to defend Ryti’s agreement, and does not see that it would have caused Finland any further harm.
Tuomo Polvinen, currently a professor emeritus, examines Jokisipilä’s thesis in a slightly sour tone in the magazine Kanava.
Polvinen gives the researcher some credit, but nevertheless he feels that the "overly enthusiastic attempt to topple myths" has a disturbing effect on the overall picture.
It has been more than 35 years since Polvinen himself was toppling myths of Finnish history.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 15.9.2004
ERKKI PENNANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
erkki.pennanen@hs.fi
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| 21.9.2004 - THIS WEEK |
 The past in the grip of change |
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