Falls es irgendwann verschwindet vom Archiv, machen wir's so:
Viewed from America, Finland still looks like a frontier land
Jason Lavery writes pithy survey Finnish history
By Juha Sihvola
Lalli, Mikael Agricola, and C.G.E. Mannerheim can be found in their familiar locations in the fresh survey of Finnish history by Jason Lavery.
When examining more recent times, he gives space for how Finnishness was analysed by rock musician Juice Leskinen, by the multicultural aspects of Lola Odusoga, (a Finn with a Nigerian father who won the title Miss Finland), and the detective stories of Leena Lehtolainen, whose criminals "emerge from the context created by globalisation".
Lavery, a professor of history at Oklahoma State University, combines the knowledge of the Finnish collective psyche which he absorbed during the year that he was in Finland as an exchange student, and the attitude of an outside observer, in a refreshing manner.
General presentations of Finnish history have their own trends. A few years ago massive volumes were written on the subject (Jouko Vahtola, Pentti Virrankoski). Now the trend is for condensed summaries of about 200 pages.
Within a period of a few months, short histories of Finland written by Lavery, as well as by David Kirby, Professor Emeritus at University College, London, and by Professor Henrik Meinander of the University of Helsinki, have all appeared. The group will soon be joined by another Finnish researcher, Heikki Ylikangas.
The works of Kirby, Meinander, and Lavery complement each other in an intriguing manner. All three deviate from the tradition of national history writing by emphasising the dependence of Finnish development on external conditions, which mapped out the space that Finnish domestic choices had to adapt to.
Kirby emphasises the mentality of respect for authority and the integration of minorities as a special style of Finnish adaptation. Meinander, meanwhile, underscores the political and cultural significance of language.
Lavery’s starting point, on the other hand, is the random nature of history. In his opinion, many turning points of the past might have led to a situation in which Finland’s place in the family of nations would have been quite different from what it is today.
Historical coincidences are more than a mere starting points
in Lavery’s view; he feels that these coincidences are what gave birth to Finnishness, allowed it to develop, and helped it achieve new expressions.
His book, The History of Finland, describes how the national ideology of one mind and one language morphed into a congenial bilingualism, how the rebellious working class was integrated, and how this marginal area, which visualised itself as being external to Europe, re-interpreted its identity to become a model student in the EU.
Nevertheless, Lavery feels that Finland has remained a frontier land between East and West from the stone age all the way to the time of globalisation.
Lavery is not interested in mentalities and national characters as explanations of history. It is almost with a sense of annoyance that he comments on the invocation of the mythical concept of Sisu as a way of explaining the "miracle fo the Winter War" to foreigners.
In his view, suggesting that Finns possess a unique internal courage insults both the target audience of the boast, as well the veterans of the Winter War.
Lavery himself explains, with a good deal of expertise, the relative strengths of the two sides, and the Finnish secret weapons - the motti tactic of encirclement, and the Molotov Cocktail. He certainly does not dispute the exceptional willingness of the Finns to pay any price to defend their country.
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