Place, Memory, and the Landscape of Finnish Civil War Reconciliation

An important dimension of the newly independent Finland national narrative was constructed with the deeper historical knowledge of the civil-war monuments erected after independence in 1917. Finnish historical memory struggled to accommodate its horrific 1918 civil war in the new national heritage....

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Historical archaeology 2024-06, Vol.58 (2), p.435-453
Main Authors: Ylimaunu, Timo, Mullins, Paul R., Aalto, Sirpa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Archaeology
Camps
Civil war
Collective memory
Cultural heritage
Graves
Landscape
Memories
Monuments
Narratives
National reconciliation
Original Article
Social Sciences
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:An important dimension of the newly independent Finland national narrative was constructed with the deeper historical knowledge of the civil-war monuments erected after independence in 1917. Finnish historical memory struggled to accommodate its horrific 1918 civil war in the new national heritage. The state rejected public monuments to the civil war’s vanquished “Reds”––the lost, socialist side of the war––but survivors, allies, and families of Reds fabricated a memorial landscape at the many mass graves, execution sites, and prison camps scattered throughout the country. This article examines the ways the Reds negotiated state historical narratives through the establishment of a monumental landscape that was forced to be outside urban spaces and created dissonances and counter-memories of the civil war and a measure of reconciliation between former combatants.
ISSN:0440-9213
2328-1103
DOI:10.1007/s41636-024-00503-w