Forging a master narrative for a nation: Finnish history as a script during the Second World War

ABSTRACT

In our article, we study how Finnish historians produced historical texts to be applied inside the Finnish army to give lessons, speeches, and informal talks to the rank-and-file soldiers during two periods: first during the Winter War of 1939–40 and then in the last stages of the Continuation War in 1944. Employing narratological methodology to this task, we examine the purposeful construction of a master narrative of the national past by telling the story of ‘Finland’ and the ‘Finnish people’ in their perpetual, existential fight against Russia. We approach the history texts as emergent scripts that were offered to the particular audience of soldiers so that they would internalize the historical framework of their current situation and experiences. The history texts underline the inevitable continuity and teleology of Finnish history. This is done by constructing a vast historical context into which the hardships of the present moment are embedded through repeating crucial past images and analogues, which reserved the role of sufferer and experiencer for the Finnish people. The historians’ wartime accounts offer a case where the master narrative is purposefully built and propagated under official auspices.

KEYWORDS:

• Finland
• historiography
• master narrative
• scripts
• narratology
• propaganda

Acknowledgements

Matti Hyvärinen’s research was financed by the Academy of Finland research project Voices of Democracy (SA 308792) and Ville Kivimäki’s research by the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences (HEX) at Tampere University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See Kvernbekk & Bøe-Hansen, ‘How to win wars’; van der Vlies, ‘Multidirectional war narratives’.

2. For overviews, see Stenius, Österberg & Östling, Nordic Narratives; Kinnunen & Jokisipilä, ‘Shifting Images’; Kivimäki, ‘Three Wars’.

3. This general development of Finnish war propaganda is well-established in research from different perspectives, see e.g. Salminen, Propaganda rintamajoukoissa; Julkunen, ‘Toiveiden ja todellisuuden’; Jutikkala, Valtion Tiedoituslaitoksen; Kemppainen, Isänmaan uhrit; Tilli, Continuation War.

4. Manninen, Suur-Suomen, 48–52, 63–4, 107–16; Ahtiainen & Tervonen, Menneisyyden tutkijat, 81–3; Herlin, ‘Linjoilla ja linjojen takana’; Sulkunen & Kinnunen, ‘Suomen Historiallinen Seura’, 97–8; Karonen, ‘Historiantutkijat’, 508–12.

5. Most importantly Jaakkola, Suomen historian ääriviivat; and Juva, Suomen taistelu itää vastaan; see also Tommila, Suomen historiankirjoitus, 199.

6. See e.g. Kulha, Tarkoituksellista tiedotustoimintaa; Perko, TK-miehet jatkosodassa; Luostarinen, Perivihollinen; Wunsch, Punainen uhka; Kemppainen, Isänmaan uhrit; Pilke, Omat haukkuivat politrukeiksi.

7. On the concept of ‘curated stories’, see Fernandes, Curated Stories.

8. The importance of history lessons is noted in Esko Salminen’s and Helena Pilke’s works on propaganda for the frontline troops in 1941–44, but not analysed more in depth; Salminen, Propaganda rintamajoukoissa, 25, 48–50, 115, 139, 158; Pilke, Omat haukkuivat politrukeiksi, 14, 54, 110–12, 153. Otherwise, the topic is discussed in detail in Petteri Mäkinen’s MA thesis but not elsewhere, as far as we know; Mäkinen, Historian punaiset langat.

9. For a similar approach, see Haapala, ‘Lived Historiography’.

10. White, Tropics of Discourse, 14.

11. Paul, Hayden White, 4.

12. Cohn, The Distinction of Fiction; Hatavara & Mildorf, ‘Fictionality, Narrative Models’.

13. Nielsen et al., ‘Ten theses’.

14. Fludernik, Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology, 24–5. She points out ‘the essential experience of the events which the necessarily human agents undergo in fictional texts and which is lacking for historical agents in historical discourse’, p. 24. Note below the experiencing agents in the few anecdotal stories.

15. The plot-and-closure focused narrative theory was based on reading Aristotle’s normative claims as empirical. See Abbott, Introduction, 52–60.

16. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 137–45.

17. Schank & Abelson, Scripts, Plans, Goals.

18. Bruner, Acts of Meaning.

19. See also Herman, Basic Elements of Narrative; Hyvärinen, ‘Expectations and Experientiality’.

20. Bamberg, ‘Considering Counter Narratives’, 360.

21. Buschmann & Carl, ‘Zugänge zur Erfahrungsgeschichte’; Buschmann & Reimann, ‘Konstruktion historischer Erfahrung’; Reimann, Der große Krieg, 10–13.

22. Cf. e.g. Kaljundi, Laanes & Pikkanen, ‘Introduction’, 31–43; Pikkanen, ‘The Dangers’; Haapala, ‘Writing Our History’, 36–8.

23. For the work of educational officers (valistusupseeri), see Salminen, Propaganda rintamajoukoissa; Pilke, Omat haukkuivat politrukeiksi.

24. See ‘Uudet tehtävät’, in Murtaja 1/1940, 1–2. Both Valistusaineistoa and Murtaja are to be found in the collections of the National Library of Finland in Helsinki.

25. National Archives of Finland (NAF), Collection of the Finnish Army High Command’s Information Department (PM Ttus), T 10601/13, Martti Santavuori, ‘Katsaus Suomen sotilaspoliittisen ja -maantieteellisen aseman kehitykseen’, attached to Captain Timo Tiitola’s brief to Major Rautavaara, 10 May 1944.

26. NAF, PM Ttus, T 10601/20, Einar W. Juva, ‘Suomen kansan kohtalonyhteys’, Tiedoitusaineistoa 9/1944, 18 October 1944.

27. Our original intention was to do research at the National Archives of Finland in order to gather a similarly coherent source basis for 1944 as we have on the Winter War. For this purpose, we were planning to read through all the army’s ‘Information Material’ leaflets printed in 1944 and apparently preserved at the archive collection of the Finnish Army High Command’s Information Department. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic ruined this plan, as the National Archives of Finland closed its doors on 1 December 2020. We have therefore resorted to materials that we already had in our hands.

28. Salminen, Propaganda rintamajoukoissa, 25. This had its roots in the earlier development in the 1930s, when the ‘fatherland’s history’ rose to a central role in the army’s civil education for conscripts; Mäkinen, Historian punaiset langat, 13–17; see also Ahlbäck, Manhood, Ch. 4.

29. Anon., ‘Suomen historian isä’, Valistusaineistoa 1/1939, 3–4.

30. Anon., ‘Suomen geopoliittinen asema’, Valistusaineistoa 1/1939, 4–5.

31. Peltonen, Muistin paikat; for an English overview, see Tepora & Roselius, The Finnish Civil War 1918.

32. Anon., ‘Yksimielinen Suomi v. 1495’, Valistusaineistoa 1/1939, 5.

33. Anon., ‘Tasan 40 vuotta sitten’, Valistusaineistoa 1/1939, 6; cf. Erkkilä, ‘Jalmari Jaakkola’, 364–6.

34. Fludernik, Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology, 82–91, discusses anecdote and exemplum as inherited, oral story types. Their form is similar – a very detailed story about a moment – but while the anecdote invests in amusing, the exemplum aims at giving a moral teaching.

35. ‘Tasan 40 vuotta sitten’, 6.

36. Fludernik, Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology, 91.

37. Eggins, Introduction, 26: ‘[…] the register describes the immediate situational context in which the text was produced’.

38. White, Content of the Form, 25.

39. Anon., ‘Poimintoja Suomen sodan 1808–1809 historiasta’, Valistusaineistoa 2/1939, 1–4.

40. Herman, Basic Elements of Narrative, 14.

41. According to Martin & Rose, Genre Relations, 52, the anecdote follows the model ‘remarkable event – reaction – affect’, whereas the exemplum has the structure ‘incident – interpretation – judgment’.

42. ‘Poimintoja Suomen sodan 1808–1809 historiasta’, 3.

43. Ibidem.

44. See Pikkanen, Casting the Ideal Past, 48.

45. ‘Poimintoja Suomen sodan 1808–1809 historiasta’, 4.

46. Anon., ‘Venäjän laajentumispolitiikka, sen päämäärät ja menettelytavat’, Valistusaineistoa 3/1939, 2–5; anon., ‘Narvan taistelu’, Valistusaineistoa 3/1939, 5–7.

47. Tommila, Suomen historiankirjoitus, 186–7.

48. Jalmari Jaakkola, ‘Suomen kansan kasvu itää kohti’, Murtaja 2/1940, 2–3; see also Tilli, ‘The Idea of Mission’; for the politics and nationalism of Jaakkola’s thinking, see Erkkilä, ‘Jalmari Jaakkola’.

49. Cf. also anon., ‘Muistakoon Stalin Xerxeen kohtalon!’, Murtaja 2/1940, 4–5.

50. For an analysis of religious language in Finnish military chaplains’ speeches, see Tilli, Continuation War.

51. Ilmari Salomies, ‘Kansamme kärsimysten ja voittojen tie’, Murtaja 2/1940, 12–13.

52. Jalmari Jaakkola’s expression in his ‘Suomen kansan kasvu itää kohti’, 3.

53. Cf. Tommila, Suomen historiankirjoitus, 177.

54. See above 35., 6.

55. Anon., ‘Kulku Beltien yli v. 1658’, Murtaja 3/1940, 14. The author of the text even notes that the story of 1658 highlights the importance of coastal defences – hardly an encouraging message for the Finnish defenders at the Bay of Vyborg, fighting in their fully unprepared positions.

56. Hatavara, ‘Composing Finnish National History’.

57. For the only exception, see map illustration, ‘Kahdeksan Suomen ja Venäjän rauhaa kautta vuosisatojen’, Murtaja 4/1940, 3.

58. Cited in English in Meinander, ‘Finland and the Great Powers’, 72.

59. Tilli, Continuation War, 57–66; see also Luostarinen, Perivihollinen, 207–22.

60. Julkunen, ‘Toiveiden ja todellisuuden’, 235–40; Luostarinen, Perivihollinen, 286–9, 350–6; Kivimäki & Tepora, ‘Meaningless Death’, 254–5.

61. NAF, PM Ttus, T 10601/13, Martti Santavuori, ‘Katsaus Suomen sotilaspoliittisen ja -maantieteellisen aseman kehitykseen’, attached to Captain Timo Tiitola’s brief to Major Rautavaara, 10 May 1944.

62. Santavuori, ‘Katsaus Suomen’, 1.

63. Jaakkola, Die Ostfrage Finnlands; Auer & Jutikkala, Finnlands Lebensraum.

64. Heikura, Rintamajoukkojen mieliala, 91–105.

65. See above 62., 1.

66. NAF, PM Ttus, T 10601/13, anon., ‘Tuska ja sisu – historiamme valtapiirteet’, attached to Captain Timo Tiitola’s brief to Major Rautavaara, 10 May 1944.

67. Salminen, Propaganda rintamajoukoissa, 165–6; Mäkinen, Historian punaiset langat, 29–30.

68. Auvinen, Holmila & Lehtimäki, ‘Epävarma itsenäisyys’, 218–23; Holmila & Mikkonen, Suomi sodan jälkeen, 37–40.

69. NAF, PM Ttus, T 10601/20, Einar W. Juva, ‘Suomen kansan kohtalonyhteys’, Tiedoitusaineistoa 9/1944, 18 October 1944.

70. Tommila, Suomen historiankirjoitus, 183.

71. Hudal, Grundlagen des Nationalsozialismus.

72. Cf. Stenius, ‘Kansalainen’, 318–19.

73. Juva, ‘Suomen kansan kohtalonyhteys’, 8.

74. Ibidem, 9.

75. See Cohn, Distinction of Fiction; Hatavara & Mildorf, ‘Fictionality, Narrative Models’.

76. Juva, ‘Suomen kansan kohtalonyhteys’, 9–10.

77. For similar references, see Auvinen, Holmila & Lehtimäki, ‘Epävarma itsenäisyys’, 215.

78. Juva, ‘Suomen kansan kohtalonyhteys’, 10–11.

79. For this historical storyline in the autumn of 1944, see also Aulis J. Alanen, ‘Kuitenkin korjaa aika ja uusi sukupolvi isoimmatkin vammat’, Suomen Kuvalehti 40/1944, 1136–7.

80. The army propaganda remained, in general, more bound to the victorious and unanimous spirit of 1941, while the home front propaganda had to cope with the diverse and partly conflicting interests of the civilian population; see Julkunen, ‘Toiveiden ja todellisuuden’, 236–7.

81. Kemppainen, Isänmaan uhrit, 219–26; Tilli, Continuation War, passim.

82. See above 38., 24.

83. Tammi, ‘Against Narrative’; McHale, ‘Weak Narrativity’.

84. On narrative progression, see Phelan, Experiencing Fiction.

85. Hyvärinen, ‘Toward a Theory’; more widely, see Lueg & Lundholt, Routledge Handbook.

86. Holmila & Mikkonen, Suomi sodan jälkeen, 45–8; Kirves, ‘Elämä omiin käsiin’; Kivimäki, ‘Uusi Suomi’, 286–7.

87. See e.g. Kinnunen & Kivimäki, ‘Sota sosiaalisena ja kulttuurisena’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ville Kivimäki

Dr Ville Kivimäki, [email protected] (corresponding author), Senior Research Fellow and leader of the Lived Nation research team at the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences at Tampere University, Finland.

Matti Hyvärinen

Research Director Matti Hyvärinen, [email protected], Vice Director of Narrare: Centre for Interdisciplinary Narrative Studies and leader of the Academy of Finland research project ‘Voices of Democracy’ at Tampere University, Finland.