To Toil and to Survive: Wartime Memories of Finnish Women Cover Image

To Toil and to Survive: Wartime Memories of Finnish Women
To Toil and to Survive: Wartime Memories of Finnish Women

Author(s): Pia Olsson
Subject(s): Cultural history
Published by: Slovenská Akadémia Vied - Kabinet výskumu sociálnej a biologickej komunikácie
Keywords: Finnish women and wartime memories; personal history; generations; identity;

Summary/Abstract: The article concerns the way women have remembered their wartime experiences in Finland almost 50 years afterwards. Special attention is paid to a certain group of women called the Lottas, who worked voluntarily both on the home front and in the theatre of operations supporting the military forces. The organization was suppressed by order of the government after the war, but despite this some stereotypical pictures of it have persisted to this day. I will discuss how these women themselves have responded to this public revaluation of wartime and to women’s role during it. The material referred to in the article is a set of written reminiscences collected at the end of the 1980s. The memories are shown to be linked both to a generation and to a gender, and they speak out not only for the time of war but also for the years after it.

  • Issue Year: 2002
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 127-138
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: English