the war over REMEMBRANCE
After the Moscow Armistice in 1944, Finland signed the Paris Peace Treaties, officially ending its state of war against the Soviets and other Allies. Under treaty terms, an Allied Control Commission, headed by Soviet general Andrei Zhdanov, was sent to Finland. With the legalization of the Communist Party in the country and changes in the international scene, Finnish politicians began a process of self-censorship that limited public criticisms of the Soviets.
From the absence of military memorials to censored movies that steered clear of negative portrayals of the Soviets, official Finnish attitudes during much of the late 1940s and 1950s was contained and filled with caution. Most high-level Finnish politicians and military leaders refrained from discussing the war, and those who did blamed themselves or fellow politicians for instigating the war with the Soviets.
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Cover for the Finnish movie "The White Reindeer", released in 1952.
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Despite the government's official silence on many aspects of World War II remembrance, the populace continued to celebrate veterans and the Finnish war effort in many ways. Through group visits and gatherings at war cemeteries, commoners remembered the heroic deeds of Finnish soldiers during the Winter and Continuation Wars. Their meetings and activities were mostly unregulated by the government, whose official postures of censorship were carried out more for strategic interests than for political purposes.
Finnish War Cemetery in Helsinki
popular REMEMBRANCE
Andrei Zhdanov, member of the Soviet Politburo and chief Allied commissioner in Finland
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Veterans and other Finnish citizens who were involved during the war against the Soviets also formed private organizations, and many veterans' magazines circulated across the country. After the withdrawal of the Soviet Control Commission from Finland in 1948, the popular Agrarian and Social Democratic parties reestablished control in parliament, severely curtailing the Finnish Communist Party's influences on domestic policies.
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Despite the withdrawal of direct Soviet influences in Finnish domestic affairs, Finland's leaders maintained a posture of deference to Soviet political interests. Finland's prime minister, Urho Kekkonen, took part in the "war trials" against leading Finnish politicians and military figures during the Second World War, though similar to other policies adopted during this period, these trials were intended mostly as a statement of compromise to pacify the Soviet Union.
popular versus OFFICIAL narratives
Most Finnish people during the immediate Post War period recognized the presence of an alternative, modified variant of national history as an act of appeasement on the part of their government. As such, most Finns remained respectful to the official tone towards Finland's involvements during World War II. At the same time, because most politically prominent individuals in the country adopted rhetorics of self-criticism only in the context of national security, popular narratives of the war as seen in local magazines, gatherings of private citizens, and minor newspapers were mostly ignored or overridden by more publications that appeased the Soviets at the national level. In this atmosphere, actual attempts by the Finnish government to suppress popular perspectives of remebering the war were few.
American political cartoon during World War 2, depicting a perceived discrepancy between Allied and Axis resources in 1942.
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great power politicsAs the interests of the Great Powers increasingly influenced the plights of secondary and minor forces in the international scene, small countries such as Finland did their best at playing the interests of different major powers against each other in securing their safety. During the war, this can be seen through Finland's cooperation with Germany both for its economic security (it had few trade partners) and its political safety (from the Soviet Union). Following Germany's fall from power, Finland naturally proceeded to tailor many of its policies to appease the Soviets, as seen in the signing of a "Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Aid" with the Soviet Union in 1948.
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