fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2580 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2580 ⌋

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Oddly specific question from the Finnish-anon.

I've always wondered how Winter War and Continuation War are/were talked about in Russian history writing/teaching, or indeed if they're talked at all. I don't even know if Russians call them that, but they're the battles between Finland and Soviet Union during WWII. Because in Finnish history teaching they're all about how we kicked Soviet ass and how this united the Finns as a nation and healed the scars of the Civil War, blah blah blah.

There are two distinct lines of thought in regards to the Finnish war.

1. The Liberals (alias the folks who feel strongly about political and personal freedom and equality, disapprove of the USSR as a political regime, and think that the West is more progressive than Russia) think and teach that the Finns heroically resisted the Soviet army. They didn't "kick their ass", exactly, but they made the best of what they had and were ultimately successful. Also, Mannerheim is a BAMF. This is basically what I've been taught (because I happened to go to a largely "Liberal" school).

2. The pro-Soviet folks think and teach that the Finns made an agreement with the Nazis and were generally just a shitty buffer nation. Their war was pointless.

The official view is something in-between, I'd say. Like, nobody denies that to create the Mannerheim line was a good strategic move and that ultimately, the war was a success for the Finns, but there's often a strong "they were just Russophobes and worked with our enemy" vibe.

Thanks for answering! This is all really interesting.

I've got one additional question: How the start of this particular conflict (i.e. Shelling of Mainila) is taught?

Not taught at all :D Russian kids don't study the Finnish war in much detail. It just kinda goes "and then the war with Finland happened, the Mannerheim line, blah blah, let's go to the next topic". It is probably different in the schools that have in-depth history studies as a subject, but I've not gone to one of these. Oh, and of course it is taught in the universities, but I'm by no means a future historian.

I suspected something like that. :D

We talk about the war in history classes a lot (mostly on the Soviet-parts because the history books still don't like to talk about our involvement with Nazis). Basically most of Finland's history from the independence until the fall of Soviet Union is about trying to tiptoe around Soviets and then fighting them for a while and more tiptoeing. And most of 1800's history is tiptoeing around Russia, which we were part at the time. And before that it was being grumpy at Swedes.

Yeah, many people around me seem to think that the Finns have a sort of a national trauma over the Finnish war and the whole Soviet deal. Because for a long time they were under a threat of invasion, but, unlike the countries such as Estonia and Latvia, they never actually ~got~ invaded. And now it's an unfinished business, a collective nightmare that never came true but is still somewhere out there (like a monster under a bed).

It was a real fear during the Cold War, yeah, and it can be seen in Finnish politics during the period (we were bending over backwards to please USSR). But it's not very common these days, except maybe among the older folk, mostly people seem to fear that we get swallowed by EU.
If we're talking about national traumas the Civil War was more of a one than Winter/Continuation War. Finns are proud of Winter War, which can get a bit awkward if one mentions that we fought that with the Germans.

[ SECRET POST #2580 ]

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)