The School Textbooks at the time of the Finnish Occupation of Karelia (1941–1944)

Abstract

We elaborate on the specific features of the school policy implemented in Karelia by Finnish military occupation authorities against the overall background of the school education situation in occupied areas of the USSR. The focus is on the content of school textbooks for the Karelian populace. The approaches maintained by the authors of the primer and textbooks in geography, history, and local lore were identified. The primer for Karelian children was analyzed to demonstrate how the key ideologemes and images of ‘the Great Finland’ were implanted into the book, and how its author adapted them to be best perceived by children. The alternation of Karelian- and Finnish-language texts were meant to create a sense of cultural kinship between Karelians and Finns. Colorful illustrations generated an idealized image of Finland in the imagination of the children who have been to this country. In contrast to the primer, history and geography textbooks for teenagers handle propagandist tasks in a straightforward way, through ‘head-on attack’, by directly contraposing Russian (equaled to Soviet) vs. Finnish culture. The article argues that the Finnish school and the textbooks created for it were designed to shape an individual averted from the Soviet system of values, a churched person ready to be integrated into the Finnish homeland and become a patriot citizen of Great Finland — a scheme not fated to be realized.