Finland: Crime and Context

Abstract

Finland — for many non-Scandinavians — remains something of a closed book, and few of the clichés that routinely spring to foreign minds about other Nordic countries present themselves in connection with this country. Finland’s independence is a relatively recent phenomenon, dating from the beginning of the last century, and it bears many scars from incursions by near and not-so-near neighbours (notably, of course, the Swedish presence and the subsequent Russian invasion). In consequence, and as an impulse towards resistance, the amour propre of the Finn is notably well developed, and the visitor will often be proudly presented with a list of the country’s achievements (which are, it has to be said, considerable, given the foreign influences under which the country laboured). The downtrodden image of a joyless, communist-era Finland (though the country became independent before that era) has been thoroughly banished, as have most of the other Russian influences such as language (the famous attempts to make Finns speak Russian were always doomed to failure and have perhaps led to the nationalistic desire to speak the Finnish language). Interestingly (regarding the contentious legacy of Russia), one of the country’s finest composers, Uuno Klami (1900–61), struggled to escape the all-pervasive influence on Scandinavian music of Sibelius, who as well as being perhaps the twentieth-century’s greatest composer of ‘absolute’ abstract music presented a nationalist case in such pieces as Finlandia.