One Life and Two Perspectives Separated by the Border. The case of Taisto Huuskonen
One Life and Two Perspectives Separated by the Border. The case of Taisto Huuskonen

Summary/Abstract: This article discusses Finnish writer Taisto Huuskonen who defected to the Soviet Union in 1949. It examines his biographical and testimonial novel, The Child of Finland (Laps’ Suomen), which describes Huuskonen’s defection and life in the Soviet Union. The focus of the article is to show how Huuskonen constructs ‘I’, ‘we’, and ‘other’ in the novel and how these constructions often produce a complex dilemma of positionality. In the novel, various topographical, symbolical and metaphorical borders are central, and they affect the way that Huuskonen defines his position and agency in relation to ‘I’, ‘we’, and ‘other’. The article argues that the significance of Huuskonen’s novel is that it represents the lives and destinies of thousands of Finns. At the same time the novel serves as a medium by which to process the painful experiences he recounts and the miracle of survival. At the time of its publishing in 1979, the novel The Child of Finland was interpreted in the context of the Cold War. Although Huuskonen’s purpose was to write a survival story, his story was extensively seen to pronounce the juxtaposition between East and West, which gave it the appearance of a scandal novel vilifying the Soviet Union.

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