Page 417 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

417
aCta
looked for their own conception of the world, connected tightly to the fear of a nuclear war.
This combination crated a favourable climate to a conflict between generations. The youth
took up a new attitude towards society, patriotism and the wars. One of the most biting ex-
pressions was when some youngster uttered to some invalids of war: “Why did you go to war
– It’s your own fault” .
21
A lot of people were offended and resented. In television, radio, and in some of the news-
papers and books the young left-wingers were backed up: Finland lost; it was guilty to the
wars, was their message. The older generation on their behalf believed that their offerings
had not been useless. Contradictory to the guilty, the leftist youth saw the Winter War, backed
up with the Viet Nam war, as a mythical fight between small and big, David and Goliath.
President Kekkonen reminded that in a world of nuclear weapons, the best way of nation-
al defence and patriotism of the youth was the work for peace. He knew that the regulation of
controversies required control of conflicts and tolerance. By acting in this way, he seems to
have influenced the youth so that they did not have big difficulties in integrating themselves
into organized society. The following generation developed a new picture of the world. It
listened to their grandparents and saw the Finnish struggle almost from their ancestors’ point
of view. One of them said when arguing with his relatives: “If grandad had not been in war,
you would now be in Russia” .
22.
During the presidency of Urho Kekkonen some influential persons criticized in their writ-
ings that he had in his foreign policy forgotten the experiences of 1939-1944. Actually Kek-
konen had not forgotten the experiences, but he made different conclusions and was trying
to build a lasting peace to the northern hemisphere and additionally to some other means
created the Finnish participation to UN peacekeeping missions.
When the Kekkonen era in the beginning of 1980s had ended, the conception of defeat,
made many Finns rise on their hind legs. They insisted that Finland had got a defensive vic-
tory, in Finnish “torjuntavoitto”. This dispute is still going on: some saying it was a torjun-
tavoitto others insisting: no, the outcome was a defeat. One reason for this confusion might
have developed from the immediate post war consciousness, in which the Winter War was
a mentally von war but the Continuation War was a lost war. Like one historian explained:
“Finland survived the wars because of its favourable location, skilful steersmen of a quick
water boat and tough oarsmen, though seriously disabled” Few seem to think that an army
23
may win a fight and be unbeaten but the nation loses the war, and in spite of this keeps its
independence.

ePilOgue
Today the specific burial grounds for war heroes are kept up by the parishes, the family
members bring their flowers to the graves and society and some organizations arranges every
year some memorial ceremonies over there. Every spring in some cities the secondary school
graduates honours the fallen by laying down their flowers on the memorial stone in the grave-

21 Honkasalo 2000, p. 379.
22 Kronlund 1.8.2008.
23 Niemi 1988, p. 216, Jussila, HS 17.5.1987.