Life Moving Forward: Soviet Karelia in the Letters & Memoirs of Finnish North Americans

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dc.contributor.advisorPerin, Roberto
dc.creatorSaramo, Samira Susanna
dc.date.accessioned2015-08-28T14:51:03Z
dc.date.available2015-08-28T14:51:03Z
dc.date.copyright2014-09-02
dc.date.issued2015-08-28
dc.date.updated2015-08-28T14:51:03Z
dc.degree.disciplineHistory
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractIn the first years of the 1930s, some 6500 Finnish Canadians and Finnish Americans moved to Soviet Karelia, motivated by the economic depression and the dream of participating in the building of a Finnish-led workers’ society, with employment, education, and healthcare for all. Their recruitment as “foreign specialists” who would modernize the Karelian economy secured for them preferential access to food, housing, and work postings, but life in Karelia was very different than what the immigrants had previously known. Despite difficulties and a heavy return migration, those who stayed threw themselves into the building of socialism. However, by 1936, the Stalinist regime viewed ethnic minorities and foreigners as threats to the Soviet order, and the Finnish leadership in Karelia was ousted and a violent attack on ethnic Finns and Finnish culture took over the region, shattering the dream of the ‘Red Finn Haven.’ This dissertation examines letters written by Finnish North Americans in Karelia to friends and family remaining in Canada and the United States, as well as memoirs and retrospective letter collections that look back on life in Karelia in the 1930s. These sources, brought together under the umbrella of life writing, are analysed in two ways. They are used to construct a history of the immigrants’ everyday life, with chapters exploring topics such as travel and first impressions, housing, food, health and hygiene, clothing, children’s experiences, formal labour, political participation, celebrations, popular culture, sociability, and repression. The study of everyday life is grounded in the broader context of the immigrants’ North American and Finnish backgrounds and the evolving realities and contestations of Karelian autonomy and life in the Soviet Union. Life writing also offers opportunities to analyze the ways that individuals represent their experiences, form group identifications, and have used narratives to work through the emotional aftermath of the Great Terror. An examination of how gender and life cycle impact both experiences and their representations lies at the core of this work. Narrative analysis allows this dissertation to engage with the growing interdisciplinary field of scholarship that considers the form and applications of letters and memoirs.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/29866
dc.language.isoen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectHistory
dc.subject.keywordsFinnish immigrants
dc.subject.keywordsKarelia
dc.subject.keywordsSoviet Union
dc.subject.keywords1930s
dc.subject.keywordsCanada
dc.subject.keywordsUnited States
dc.subject.keywordsLetters
dc.subject.keywordsMemoirs
dc.subject.keywordsLife writing
dc.subject.keywordsEveryday life
dc.subject.keywordsForeign specialists
dc.subject.keywordsGreat Depression
dc.subject.keywordsSocialism
dc.subject.keywordsLiving conditions
dc.subject.keywordsFood
dc.subject.keywordsHousing
dc.subject.keywordsMaterial goods
dc.subject.keywordsChildhood
dc.subject.keywordsYouth
dc.subject.keywordsWork
dc.subject.keywordsInter-ethnic relations
dc.subject.keywordsGender
dc.subject.keywordsLeisure
dc.subject.keywordsSport
dc.subject.keywordsCommunity involvement
dc.subject.keywordsCulture
dc.subject.keywordsGreat Terror
dc.subject.keywordsCensorship
dc.subject.keywordsMemory
dc.subject.keywordsSilences
dc.subject.keywordsTrauma
dc.subject.keywordsCommunity identification
dc.subject.keywordsNarrative analysis
dc.titleLife Moving Forward: Soviet Karelia in the Letters & Memoirs of Finnish North Americans
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertationen_US

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