Aamulehti: Historians call for thorough examination of Finlandisation era

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Leading researchers into recent Finnish history have argued that the period of so-called "Finlandisation" be opened up to comprehensive study.
      According to the online edition of the Tampere daily Aamulehti, ten of eleven prominent historians and professors interviewed by the paper’s Helsinki staff take the view that acquiescence to the will of the Soviet Union in the post-war period continues to dwell on the minds of people in this country.
     
The greatest reason in the view of the researchers is that those radical young lions of the 1970s who admired the Soviet Union are now in key positions in politics, science, and the media.
      Emeritus Professor Tuomo Martikainen, formerly Professor of Political Science at Helsinki University, comments that the old activists form a kind of bottleneck to debate because they avoid reference to Finlandisation in their remarks and are content to approve of explanations that underplay the importance of the phenomenon in Finnish life.
      In Martikainen’s opinion the "political discount sale" of Finland in the 1970s has not yet been subjected to rigorous scientific scrutiny or analysis. He suggests for instance an examination of how leftist radicalism briefly achieved a position of dominance in the media and in the student and cultural networks of the time.
     
Finlandisation is the term used to describe the political culture widespread in the 1970s under which Finland surrendered a measure of its freedom of expression and sovereignty in order to appease and placate the Soviet Union, as the country sought to walk a narrow Realpolitik path between Western market leanings and a reluctance to annoy a powerful eastern neighbour. Whilst for the most part it manifested itself in cautious foreign policy decision-making and a dogged neutrality in superpower-related affairs, the self-censorship of the time meant that matters relating to Moscow were sanitised in the media - even to the point where Soviet leaders expressed surprise.
      The phenomenon was jestingly described by Kari Suomalainen, a celebrated Helsingin Sanomat cartoonist of the time, as: "The art of bowing to the East so discreetly that it could not be regarded as mooning the West."
     
The subject has risen to the surface once more in recent weeks and months in connection with news items about the relationships that leading Finnish political figures and others had with the former East Germany, following a high-profile espionage case and the refusal by the Security Police (SUPO) to publish the so-called "Rosenholz files". These allegedly list individuals whom the GDR's intelligence service Stasi had recruited or were grooming as sources.
      The resulting lack of concrete evidence that the names would or would not include senior political figures has prompted much speculation.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Security Police will not release Stasi list (7.9.2007)

Helsingin Sanomat