Report 4 – Finland

Teaching and Curricula on the Far-Right

When history teachers across Finland convened for the first time in 1935, more than 17 years after the Finnish Civil War1, the problem of mono-perspectivity in Finnish history education was never acknowledged as such. Rather, the guidelines for teaching history at the time were rooted in the nationalist notion that history education in the newly founded republic ought to be concerned with learning about one’s origin. In practice, however, what this meant for working-class children – particularly those whose family members had fought on the defeated side of the Civil War – was that they never encountered accounts of their parents’ suffering through history textbooks until a much later date2. Similarly, as throughout the history of Finland, the origin of the Finnish people has become a potent source of national myths in history textbooks, which have empowered narratives of their characterisation as survivors, warriors, Europeans and, more recently, peacekeepers3. Depending on when such history textbooks have been authorised, they have emphasised certain aspects of Finnish national identity whilst dismissed others. For instance, the current conception of the European identity of Finland gained popularity following Finland’s accession to the European Union in 1995, which marked a significant shift in the discussion around Finnish national identity. By contrast, the survivor or warrior myth of the early 20th century, which focused on the early struggles of Finnish nationalists, has been largely replaced by the contemporary peacekeeper myth, which emphasises Finland’s contribution to international peace and security in the 21st century.

Another problem never acknowledged by history teachers in 1935 was that concerning the rise of right-wing radicalism in Finland such as the Lapua Movement, which, as the first openly fascist movement to emerge in Finland, had famously attempted to overthrow the Finnish government only three years earlier. To be sure, as public life became dominated by the notion of White Finland4, the issue of right-wing radicalism in the interwar period was conceived differently from its leftist counterpart because of the result of the Civil War, which saw the defeat and collective punishment of the Reds by the Whites. It was only at a much later date that history textbooks began to address the rise of right-wing radicalism in Finland, most notably the rise of fascist movements in the early 1930s. To analyse these changes in history textbooks, this report will seek to understand how far-right and fascist movements have been portrayed in history textbooks in Finland and how these portrayals have changed over time, focusing also on what contributed to such changes. This is because no matter the temporal distance, the issue of right-wing radicalism is still present in Finnish society, so much so that when far-right groups in 21st-century Finland commemorate the past, they often do so whilst referring to the legacy of the 1930s5.

This report will refer to over 25 history textbooks authorised for educational use in Finland, as well as eight national curricula from the period of 1941 to 2014. It will examine how far-right and fascist movements have been portrayed in these books and provide a brief summary of their descriptions, including an analysis of what factors have possibly contributed to the discussion of such movements in Finnish history education. In particular, the report will focus on the Lapua Movement and its successor, the People’s Patriotic Movement, which represented the two most prominent fascist movements in interwar Finland, yet excluding the Academic Karelia Society, a nationalist organisation that openly advocated for history teaching to be harnessed for propaganda purposes6. Although such groups enjoyed considerable popularity in the interwar period, during which views in support of White Finland prevailed in historical research and education7, their political activism came to a halt following the end of the Second World War, when the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947 introduced a ban on fascist organisations. Due to the political pressure to appease the Soviet Union, this also targeted the contents of history textbooks8.

For the following decades, the issue of right-wing radicalism became conspicuous by its absence in post-war Finnish history education. This may be explained by the fact that even a great deal of historical research at the time focused on more distant issues, rather than issues that had occurred within the same period9. Indeed, new studies of right-wing radicalism and its various modes of manifestation emerged only in the 1960s, yet prior to their publication, historians widely disagreed on the meaning of such divisive issues10. It was only in the 1970s and later in the 1980s that the issue of right-wing radicalism in Finland became perceived as a historical phenomenon deemed worthy of critical attention11. Since then, historians have gained a better understanding of the fascism of 1929–1932 that has also translated to the contents of history textbooks and national curricula as a critical analysis of said phenomenon12. This is despite the fact that right-wing radicals continued to operate under different guises throughout the Cold War, although their efforts to maintain an active presence in Finnish politics were greatly limited by the Paris Peace Treaties13.

  1. Selection of History Textbooks

As stated in Chapter 1, this report will refer to over 25 history textbooks authorised for educational use in Finland, as well as eight national curricula – the earliest of which are merely referred to as educational guidelines – from the period of 1941 to 2014. The report will discuss textbooks from five different publishers from as early as the 1940s until the 2010s, including different editions of the same book, and provide an overview of the coverage of far-right and fascist movements in Finnish history education. To achieve this, this report will heavily rely on secondary sources, most importantly a study by the University of Tampere, which specifically focused on the Lapua Movement in Finnish history textbooks, and only refer to some of the textbooks as primary sources. This is because the task of examining how far-right and fascist movements have been portrayed in Finnish history textbooks14 has already been taken up, which facilitates the upcoming discussion in the sense that the report can then focus more on analysing the meaning of these changes in history textbooks rather than the changes themselves.

Table 1: History textbooks from different publishers over the period 1940–2020.

YearsWSOYOtavaKustannuskiilaEditaSanoma Pro
1940-195010000
1950-196012000
1960-197030000
1970-198020000
1980-199011100
1990-200002300
2000-201022020
2010-202012011

The above table shows the distribution of history textbooks over the period of 80 years, including which publishers have contributed to Finnish history education throughout the course of the 20th century. However, since this excludes their authors altogether, which remained more or less the same from the 1950s until the 1980s, the report will not discuss their individual contributions, although the influence of individual authors on the contents of such textbooks throughout the 20th century can be said to have been significant, namely authors such as Matti Castrén and Salme Vehvilä. Since the 1990s, the number of history textbooks has also increased rapidly because of the variety of book series available, which reflects a wider selection of history textbooks in circulation.

Whilst this report will not be able to discuss each of the history textbooks included in this report individually, their contents will be explored in more general terms according to when they have been authorised and whether a pattern can be identified between history textbooks of one time with those of another. This is because the report will seek to understand how the discussion of far-right and fascist movements in history textbooks has evolved over time, rather than why specific textbooks favour a particular interpretation over another. Given the sensitivity of the issue at hand, however, it is quite likely that individual authors, particularly in the 20th century, held varying opinions about the issue of right-wing radicalism and how it should be discussed in the context of Finnish history education. This will be also seen in the coming pages: whilst some accounts omitted certain details about the Lapua Movement’s history of violence, they probably did so either out of ignorance, or because their authors sympathised with the movement’s goals.

In the next chapter, this report will examine how far-right and fascist movements have been portrayed in history textbooks based on the earlier assumption that the discussion of right-wing radicalism in Finnish history education has been informed by at least two developments: the lack of academic consensus, on one hand, as well as the emerging critical scholarship on the history of far-right and fascist movements in Finland, on the other. Whilst the latter has since the 1980s paved the way for Finnish history education to include the notion of fascism as a less acknowledged aspect of public life in early 20th-century Finland, the former can still be observed in the strong lack of agreement over the very definition of fascism in the post-war period15. This shows that whilst the common understanding of fascism as a historical phenomenon has become more nuanced in Finland, the continuing debate over the terms used to describe extremist politics, particularly in the 21st century, proves that the issue of right-wing radicalism is nowhere near only historical, but also contemporary due to the recent rise of right-wing populism in Europe.

  1. Right-Wing Radicalism in Finnish History Education

The earliest discussions of right-wing radicalism in Finnish history textbooks can be found as early as in 1943, when the Lapua Movement was described as “having engaged in acts not accepted by all of its supporters”16. Whilst a contemporary reader would understand these acts to refer to the movement’s violent activities, which included a series of kidnappings, beatings and even murder, students at the time were left in ambiguity as to what such acts were because of their lack of specificity. Moreover, the same instance discussed the movement’s attempt to overthrow the Finnish government in 1932 – equally ambiguously – as an “inevitable occurrence in Mäntsälä” without further describing what exactly had happened in Mäntsälä, leaving students unaware of the failed coup attempt, also known as the Mäntsälä rebellion. This prompts the following question: why was the Lapua Movement described with such ambiguity when its history of violence, namely the events that took place in Mäntsälä, was the sole reason for its banning under the Protection of the Republic Act of 1930? This can be partially explained by the trends in historical research at the time: the Lapua Movement was described, in somewhat admiring terms, as a uniquely Finnish phenomenon without discussing its common characteristics with other fascist movements in Europe, and most importantly, through its commitment to anti-communism and nationalism17.

  1. Post-War History Education

In post-war Finnish history education, the discussion of right-wing radicalism in Finnish history education began cautiously in the late 1940s and 1950s18. Typically, history textbooks covered the Lapua Movement often within less than a page, reflecting a certain hesitancy to address the role of violence in fascist politics19. However, although a number of books deemed anti-Soviet had been removed from circulation due to Soviet pressure, resulting in what was effectively political censorship20, the omission of the movement’s violent activities from history textbooks was not likely caused by said censorship, which targeted pre-war and wartime propaganda, but because the issue of right-wing radicalism was widely debated amongst historians and academia alike. Even when occasional references to violence were made in such textbooks, the acts of violence were more associated with individuals rather than the whole movement itself21. In 1941, the new educational guidelines for history also called for national unity and a shared responsibility for the nation’s defence, which discouraged teachers and students from discussing potentially divisive issues on the basis of increasing their patriotism22. Another reason for the lack of coverage may simply be explained by the temporal proximity of the events: the Lapua Movement’s ideological successor, the Patriotic People’s Movement23, was banned only in 1944, again on the insistence of the Soviet Union, and much like history textbooks today, their scope and focus on contemporary issues was consequently somewhat limited.

The question of temporal proximity aside, the poor coverage of the Lapua Movement in the early post-war history textbooks was likely caused by two related reasons: the lack of critical analysis on issues related to right-wing radicalism in interwar Finland, on one hand, and the lack of historians willing to take up this task, on the other. Indeed, perhaps one of the most influential historical biographies at the time, written by historian Arvi Korhonen and published in 1949, covered the Lapua Movement only to a very limited degree, and whilst his work was certainly not without merit in other aspects, the inadequate understanding of the movement’s history influenced the contents of history textbooks through his sympathetic discussion of the movement’s anti-communism, rather than how the movement’s violent activities threatened Finnish democracy in the 1930s24.

The 1960s and 1970s saw an increase in the coverage of far-right and fascist movements in Finnish history textbooks. This can be greatly attributed to the new educational guidelines for history, released in 1963, which placed a particular focus on the Lapua Movement within the framework of “ideological struggles between 1918 and 1939”, viewing that the movement had contributed to the development of competing notions of political and social order during Finland’s first decades as a sovereign country. Unlike previously, when the movement’s history of violence had been omitted altogether, history textbooks from the 1960s to the 1980s began to include brief descriptions of violent acts and murders committed by members of the movement, also known as Lapua activists25. As the guidelines no longer called for national unity unlike in 1941, history education also became gradually more responsive to the findings of the emerging critical scholarship on the history of far-right and fascist movements in Finland26. Prior to the 1980s, however, the coverage of such movements in history textbooks remained still relatively limited – and varied – in practice because a great deal of historical research up until that point had focused on more distant issues, such as Finland in the Middle Ages, which had left the movement’s history poorly researched and understood by the public27.

As stated earlier, new studies of right-wing radicalism and its various modes of manifestation began to emerge in the decades leading up to the 1980s, when the changing circumstances resulting from temporal distance and new available sources allowed historians to tackle the issue of right-wing radicalism in Finland whilst engaging in critical reflection about their previous ideological standpoints. To be sure, as the critical scholarship on the history of far-right and fascist movements expanded, so too did the discussion of such movements in history textbooks. Instead of omitting details about their history of violence, descriptions of violent acts and murders committed by Lapua activists were included in them from the 1980s.

Whilst murders, which there were three in total, were not consistently discussed in every instance, the movement’s history of violence was nevertheless made known to students through detailed descriptions of their violent acts as well as pictures, which struck a stark contrast with the lack of such graphic content in 1940s and 1950s textbooks in terms of depicting the movement’s violent activities. Consequently, the portrayal of the movement’s goals and strategies was no more shrouded in “political mystery”28, as new historical knowledge helped shed light on the violent means by which their members operated in Finnish society, which included a series of kidnappings, beatings and acts ranging from interrupting meetings of leftist groups to engaging in a failed coup attempt against the Finnish government in 1932.

By the 1990s, the existing coverage of far-right and fascist movements had already become more extensive than ever, which showed that the issue of right-wing radicalism in Finnish history education was considered nowhere near divisive as it used to be. By focusing on the politically-motivated violence of Lapua activists, history textbooks also shifted to discuss the movement as a serious threat to Finnish democracy in the 1930s, during which the rise of authoritarian regimes in much of Central and Eastern Europe served as a warning that democratic rule was eroding in Europe – a scenario also possible in Finland. When portrayed within this framework, the issue of right-wing radicalism became a national security issue akin to other extremist ideologies that threatened the stability of democratic institutions at the time. This was further enabled by the new educational guidelines of 1981, which referred to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 as a basis for education in Finland. In this respect, the earlier omission of the movement’s history of violence contradicted with the values promoted by the declaration, such as justice, equality and human dignity, which pushed Finnish history education to address the issue of right-wing radicalism in the 1920s and 1930s without overlooking or downplaying the role of violence in fascist politics.

  1. Since the Cold War

Since the end of the Cold War, Finnish history education has placed a particular emphasis on teaching about Finnish history within the existing European and global frameworks, which capitalised on the European identity of Finland. The foundation for a more globally-oriented history of Finland was already laid out in 1982, when the guidelines for upper secondary education called for such measures to be taken and to increase focus on global trends and developments, which included teaching about global economic, social and cultural history over Finnish political history29. As a result, it could be expected that history textbooks also began to discuss the rise of far-right and fascist movements in Finland as part of a broader European phenomenon, yet this did not fully materialise until the 2000s. In fact, most history textbooks from the 1960s to the 2000s30 discussed the Lapua Movement as a uniquely Finnish phenomenon, with only occasional references to other such movements in Europe31. However, because of their similar party manifestos, such textbooks nevertheless drew parallels between the Patriotic People’s Movement and its ideological counterparts in Germany and Italy: the Patriotic People’s Movement was openly inspired by Italian fascists, which might explain why the former became more associated with the latter in Finnish history textbooks than the Lapua Movement.

When it comes to national curricula, the 1990s marked a shift towards a deeper understanding of Finland’s path to democracy, which involved discussions of its threats and challenges in the early 20th century. Introduced in 1994, the new national curriculum for history changed the focus of history education so that it not only discussed global trends and developments, but also the most important turning points in Finnish history since the 19th and 20th centuries32. In particular, the focus shifted to what was perceived to have threatened Finnish democracy and how competing notions of political and social order brought about a climate of uncertainty that characterised much of public life in early 20th-century Finland, which namely applied to political movements such as the one in question. In history textbooks, however, this did not necessarily mean any more coverage for the Lapua Movement. Rather, the change occurred more in tone than in substance, reinforcing the earlier notion of the Lapua Movement as a national security issue akin to other extremist ideologies that sought to change the trajectory of public life in Finland.

Even later national curricula, introduced in 2003 and 2015, did not lead to a broader coverage of the Lapua Movement, yet the coverage of the movement’s history and impact on Finnish politics in the 1930s was already more extensive in the 2000s than in any other educational instance before33. Since the coverage remained much the same throughout the following decades – both in tone and in substance – it might also be that there was a genuine lack of new perspectives into the Lapua Movement from a research standpoint, which led to the notion that was no need to revise the prevailing mode of teaching and learning about the movement’s history. This also applied to the coverage of the Patriotic People’s Movement, which had been commonly discussed as an ideological successor to the Lapua Movement, including its limited electoral success from 1932 to 1944, although in frequent reference to European right-wing radicalism more so than the latter34.

Like a number of textbooks throughout the 20th century, some history textbooks in the 2000s also discussed the Lapua Movement’s loss of public support in the early 1930s despite the widespread sympathy for its goals, citing the kidnapping of former President Ståhlberg as the single most important reason for the changing public perception of the movement’s legitimacy35. Others, however, cited the Mäntsälä rebellion as the leading cause for the movement’s failure, including then-President Svinhufvud’s role in defending Finland’s commitment to rule of law and democracy; explanations combining all these reasons have also appeared in history textbooks since the late 1940s. Yet despite the variety of explanations presented here, it appears that no reason has been cited significantly more than the other at a given time36. History textbooks, regardless of when they have been authorised, have provided varying accounts of the movement’s failure, although commonly the explanation has combined either one or two of the above reasons37. In historical research, there was also no shift towards any particular explanation, nor did national curricula require textbooks to take a stance on the issue: what such textbooks might then reflect is rather a disagreement between their authors about which factors first and foremost contributed to the movement’s failure.

Whilst the movement’s violent activities have remained an important aspect of teaching about the history of fascism in Finland, which are now depicted through detailed descriptions as well as pictures, the three murders committed by Lapua activists were not consistently discussed in every 2010s history textbook38. This reveals an inconsistency between different history textbooks, which existed already in their 20th-century counterparts, and how they omit certain details about the movement’s activities in the early 1930s. Although the number of murders was small, the murders had nevertheless a significant impact on the public perception of the movement’s legitimacy, which can be said to have turned public opinion away from sympathising with the movement’s goals. Needless to say, precisely because Lapua activists engaged in such criminal activities, they perhaps never gained mainstream popularity, which is why omitting the murders from history textbooks conflicts with the aspirations of the previous national curricula. Yet far from being glorified in history textbooks, the movement has since served as an example of extremist politics that threatened the stability of democratic institutions in the 1930s, regardless of whether historical accounts of their activities have included descriptions of murder.

  1. Conclusions

This report has now described the discussion of far-right and fascist movements, namely the Lapua Movement, in Finnish history textbooks and attempted to provide a broad overview of their coverage, beginning from the earliest discussions of such movements in 1940s and 1950s history textbooks to some of the latest in the late 2010s. Moreover, this report has identified three important reasons for the varying accounts of the Lapua Movement’s activities at different times, which can be summarised as follows: first, the descriptions of far-right and fascist movements in Finnish history textbooks, whether sympathetic or not, had a great deal to do with temporal distance and whether their substance was more widely debated amongst historians and academia. Since this was the case for much of the early to mid-20th century, the contents of history textbooks at the time had little new to add to the discussion of right-wing radicalism in Finland because they reflected a wider hesitancy to address, for instance, the role of violence in fascist politics. As the topic became less controversial, although not necessarily any less debated, the descriptions of the Lapua Movement’s activities in history textbooks also became more varied.

Second, as historians began to tackle the issue of right-wing radicalism in Finland whilst engaging in critical reflection about their previous ideological standpoints, allowing the critical scholarship on the history of far-right and fascist movements to expand, so too did the discussion of such movements in history textbooks. Whereas earlier descriptions of the Lapua Movement had overlooked or downplayed the role of violence in fascist politics – either out of ignorance or because their authors sympathised with the movement’s goals – new textbooks from the 1980s provided a more consistent account of the movement’s activities in the 1930s. By capitalising on the politically-motivated violence of Lapua activists, such textbooks also began to discuss the movement’s threat to the stability of democratic institutions, which particularly had to do with the failed coup attempt in 1932. Since then, the portrayal of the movement’s goals and strategies has been no more shrouded in “political mystery”, but rather served as an example of early 20th-century ideological struggles, the legacy of which still persists today.

Third, although the role of historians cannot be understated, the final decision to change the focus of history education was still that of the Finnish government, which implemented such measures that allowed the issue of right-wing radicalism to be discussed more openly in classrooms without omitting details about its history of violence. More importantly, the educational guidelines in the 1980s, and more so following the end of the Cold War, placed a particular emphasis on teaching about Finnish history within the existing European and global frameworks, which also required the rise of right-wing radicalism in 1930s Finland to be discussed in relation to other such movements in Europe. This not only meant a more globally-oriented approach to Finnish history, but also that it should be taught in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which shifted the focus of history education in a crucial way from learning about Finnish history for its own sake to providing students with a more complete understanding of the threats and challenges that the nation faced in the early 20th century.

Needless to say, the presence of government action in the form of statutory guidance means that history education cannot be separated from politics. This can be seen not only in the context of national curricula and their implementation, but also when it comes to textbook authors and how their views might have influenced their work. Depending on when history textbooks have been authorised and which processes in historical research and education have contributed to their contents, including which views have prevailed at a given time, the contents of history textbooks can be understood as products of their time, which explains how each author conceived the issue of right-wing radicalism in 20th-century Finland. Although this is not the primary focus of this report, it is nonetheless important to acknowledge the relationship between history and politics, as well as the challenge of neutrality that results from this relationship39.

Another important aspect of politics in history textbooks has been outlined in UNESCO’s Guidelines on Educational Materials, which finds that racist undertones in educational materials, such as when immigration is portrayed as a threat to social order, can feed into right-wing populism40. More importantly, it notes that when the discussion of racism only occurs in the context of historical right-wing radicalism, the historicisation of racism can leave students with the narrow understanding of racism as an individual prejudice or explicit rhetoric, rather than a systemic issue that continues to violate the rights and dignity of citizens around the world today. To prevent this from occurring, the report concludes that “[history textbooks] should raise awareness of structural/systemic racism as complex, historically evolved, global and societal power relations and disparities that are embedded in concepts and practices” whilst discussing “the existence of racism at the centre of society, as racism cannot be reduced to extreme manifestations”41. Given the national curricula since the 1980s, these recommendations by UNESCO would also comply with their aspirations, namely when it comes to following the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Whilst Finnish history textbooks certainly never glorified the Lapua Movement, their omission of its violent activities was at least somewhat apologetic. Indeed, it fostered a culture of silence around the movement’s history of violence until it was broken by new historical evidence in the 1980s, which paved the way for candid classroom discussions about the movement’s goals and strategies in the 1930s. Moreover, the early hesitancy to discuss this aspect of their politics can be understood as an attempt to perpetuate a sense of heroism or chivalry associated with the movement’s goals and to portray their activities as having noble ends despite their violent means42. Due to their commitment to anti-communism and nationalism, including what was practically Russophobia, the Lapua Movement gained a great deal of sympathy from different segments of Finnish society in the interwar period, which was later partially extended to the movement’s ideological successor, the Patriotic People’s Movement, after the former was banned in 193243.

Why was the Lapua Movement discussed as a separate historical phenomenon from other such movements in Europe? Historians have concluded that because the movement, despite the widespread sympathy for its goals, never gained mainstream popularity, they also never achieved as much as their German or Italian counterparts, therefore they were treated as a separate historical phenomenon. Needless to say, their plans, which were certainly inspired by the latter, ultimately followed in the latter’s footsteps, and although they later rejected Italian fascism as the movement’s ideological basis, their activities were practically no different from those in Italy44. On the other hand, studies have occasionally referred to the Lapua Movement merely as a “proto-fascist” movement, whereas the Patriotic People’s Movement has been perceived as having been more directly influenced by Italian fascists than the former45. This might also help explain why the Patriotic People’s Movement, not the Lapua Movement, has been discussed in the context of other such movements in Europe more so than the latter.

The preceding discussion on the issue of right-wing radicalism in Finnish history education has certain implications for historians, teachers and general readers seeking to be informed citizens. In the 21st century, as racism, prejudice and intolerance are again at the forefront of national politics in Europe due to the recent rise of right-wing populism, the contents of history textbooks may serve as an important source of historical awareness that can cultivate a more informed approach to the discussion of similar challenges in the present. More specifically, students should be provided with the notion that the traces of fascist politics do not reside solely in the past and are thus far from being dormant, which, even in the strongest democracies, highlights the importance of history education in nurturing a more nuanced understanding of fascism not only as a historical phenomenon but also as a growing contemporary concern in European public life46. Since history has ceased to be limited to its definition as an academic discipline, with history education merely as its offspring, a more informed approach also lends itself to the conception of history education as a life-long learning process, which may begin at school but should certainly not end there47. To this end, this report concludes that Finnish history textbooks, when they discuss the history of far-right and fascist movements in 20th-century Finland, should do so whilst promoting students’ understanding of different uses of history and how historical narratives play an increasingly important role in contemporary politics.

Notes

  1.  For a comprehensive overview of the history of the Civil War, see Tepora, Tuomas and Aapo Roselius. The Finnish Civil War 1918: History, Memory, Legacy. Leiden: Brill, (2014). ↩︎
  2. See Ahonen, Sirkka. Coming to Terms with a Dark Past: How Post-Conflict Societies Deal with History. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, (2012). ↩︎
  3. Ahonen, Sirkka. Suomalaisuuden monet myytit: kansallinen katse historian kirjoissa. Helsinki: Gaudeamus (2017). ↩︎
  4. The term White here refers to the victors of the Civil War, also known as White Guards or simply Whites, as opposed to the defeated Reds. See Hentilä, Seppo. Pitkät varjot: muistamisen historia ja politiikka. Helsinki: Siltala, (2018): p. 100. ↩︎
  5. Pesonen, Mikko. “Äärioikeistotutkija näkee nykyajassa merkkejä 1930-luvulta – ‘Vietetään tammisunnuntaita ja käydään Eugen Schaumanin haudalla kuin elettäisiin taas valkoisessa Suomessa.’” Yle, 1 January 2020, https://yle.fi/a/3-11104772/. Accessed 6 March 2024. ↩︎
  6. Silvennoinen, Oula, Marko Tikka and Aapo Roselius. Suomalaiset fasistit: mustan sarastuksen airuet. Helsinki: WSOY, (2016): p. 115. ↩︎
  7. Hentilä (2018): p. 257. ↩︎
  8. Ekholm, Kai. Kielletyt kirjat 1944–1946: yleisten kirjastojen kirjapoistot vuosina 1944–1946. Jyväskylä: Things to Come, (2000): pp. 24–25, 77–79. ↩︎
  9. Ruuskanen, Esa. Viholliskuviin ja viranomaisiin vetoamalla vaiennetut työväentalot: kuinka Pohjois-Savon Lapuan liike sai nimismiehet ja maaherran sulkemaan 59 kommunistista työväentaloa Pohjois-Savossa vuosina 1930–1932. Jyväskylä: Jyväskylän yliopisto, (2006): p. 16. ↩︎
  10. Ibid., pp. 9–17. ↩︎
  11. E.g., Hyvämäki, Lauri. Sinistä ja mustaa: tutkielmia Suomen oikeistoradikalismista. Helsinki: Otava, (1971); Rasila, Viljo, Eino Jutikkala and Keijo Kulha. Suomen poliittinen historia 1905–1975. Helsinki: WSOY, (1980); Siltala, Juha. Lapuan liike ja kyyditykset 1930. Helsinki: Otava, (1985); cf. Jussila, Osmo, Seppo Hentilä and Jukka Nevakivi. Suomen poliittinen historia 1809–2009. Helsinki: WSOY, (2009). ↩︎
  12. Ruuskanen (2006): p. 22. ↩︎
  13. Kotonen, Tommi. Politiikan juoksuhaudat: äärioikeistoliikkeet Suomessa kylmän sodan aikana. Jyväskylä: Atena, (2018). ↩︎
  14. Suikkanen, Simo. Lapuanliike lukion historian oppikirjoissa 1943–2018. Tampere: Tampereen yliopisto, (2021). ↩︎
  15. See Kotonen, Tommi. “Terminological Games: The Finnish Security Police Monitoring the Far-Right Movements in Finland during the Cold War.” Redescriptions: Political Thought, Conceptual History and Feminist Theory 23, no. 1, (2020): pp. 54–70. ↩︎
  16. Harkola, Uolevi and Einar Juwa. Suomen historia lukioluokkia varten. Helsinki: Otava, (1943): p. 228. ↩︎
  17. Korhonen, Arvi. Suomen historian käsikirja. Jälkimmäinen osa. Helsinki: WSOY, (1949): pp. 505–518. ↩︎
  18. Suikkanen (2021): p. 7. ↩︎
  19. Harkola and Juwa (1943): p. 228; Ruutu, Martti. Suomen historia. Helsinki: Otava, (1951): p. 252. ↩︎
  20. Whilst this also targeted nine history textbooks, none of them were banned because of their portrayals of the Lapua Movement. Rather, such textbooks were censored because they were deemed anti-Soviet, which encompassed pre-war or wartime propaganda related to Finnish and Estonian independence, the Treaty of Tartu, and the wars between Finland and the Soviet Union. See Ekholm (2000). ↩︎
  21. Vehvilä, Salme. Suomen historia lukioluokkia varten. Helsinki: WSOY, (1955): p. 260. ↩︎
  22.  Finland fought two wars with the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1944, which explains the lack of classroom discussions on sensitive topics such as the Lapua Movement, including why teaching about them was particularly discouraged, because the discussion of such topics was deemed harmful to maintaining national unity at a time when the Finnish war effort depended on it. See Kivimäki, Ville and Matti Hyvärinen. “Forging a Master Narrative for a Nation: Finnish History as a Script during the Second World War.” Scandinavian Journal of History 47, no. 1, (2022): pp. 83–105. ↩︎
  23. Founded in 1932, the Patriotic People’s Movement was controlled by more or less the same people as the Lapua Movement. Silvennoinen et al. (2016): pp. 235–238. ↩︎
  24. Korhonen (1949): pp. 503–518: cf. Ahtiainen, Pekka and Jukka Tervonen. Menneisyyden tutkijat ja metodien vartijat: matka suomalaiseen historiankirjoitukseen. Helsinki: Suomen historiallinen seura, (1996): p. 102; see also Koskinen, Ulla. “Rauhantahtoinen soturiaateli? Historian yleisesitysten kuva Suomen rälssistä 1500‐luvulla.” Historiallinen Aikakauskirja 111, no. 2, (2013): pp. 216–226. ↩︎
  25. Vehvilä, Salme and Matti Castrén. Suomen historia lukioluokkia varten. Helsinki: WSOY, (1967): pp. 193–194. ↩︎
  26. Cf. Elio, Keijo. “Mitä historian ainedidaktiikka on?” In: Historia koulussa, edited by Castrén, Matti, Sirkka Ahonen, Pauli Arola, Keijo Elio and Arja Pilli. Jyväskylä: Yliopistopaino, (2002): pp. 68–72. ↩︎
  27. Until the 1960s, the history of fascism in Finland had been typically conceived from various ideological standpoints, which reflected the lack of agreement amongst historians on the meaning of such divisive issues because they were deemed too sensitive to study without engaging in political commentary or judgement. See Ruuskanen (2006): pp. 9–17. ↩︎
  28. Hyvämäki (1971): p. 209. ↩︎
  29. Opetusministeriö. Lukion kurssimuotoinen oppimääräsuunnitelma: koulutus ja täydennysosa. Helsinki: Kouluhallitus, (1982): pp. 16–17. ↩︎
  30.  Ekonen, Jouni, Vilho Kulju, Terttu Matsinen and Jukka Tarkka. Lukion horisontti: Suomen historian käännekohtia. Helsinki: Otava, (2002): p. 78. ↩︎
  31. Suikkanen (2021): pp. 16–17. ↩︎
  32. Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö. Lukion opetussuunnitelman perusteet 1994. Helsinki: Opetushallitus, (1994): p. 99. ↩︎
  33. Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö. Lukion opetussuunnitelman perusteet 2003. Helsinki: Opetushallitus, (2003): p. 176; Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö. Lukion opetussuunnitelman perusteet 2015. Helsinki: Opetushallitus, (2015): pp. 170–173. ↩︎
  34. Suikkanen (2021): p. 18. ↩︎
  35. Ekonen, Jouni, Vilho Kulju and Terttu Matsinen. Ihmisen tiet: lukion historian kurssi 6. Helsinki: Otava, (1994): p. 103; cf. Ekonen, Jouni, Vilho Kulju and Terttu Matsinen. Ihmisen tiet: lukion historian kurssi 6. Helsinki: Otava, (1997): p. 79. ↩︎
  36. Suikkanen (2021): p. 20. ↩︎
  37.  It should be noted here that all these reasons can be seen as serving a particular interest when discussing the movement’s failure: for example, the emphasis on then-President Svinhufvud’s personal role in putting an end to the Mäntsälä rebellion can be understood as a tendency to view historical events through the lens of “great men” and their “charismatic authority”, a rhetoric commonly employed by conservative historians. On the other hand, those citing the Mäntsälä rebellion as the leading cause for the movement’s failure might argue so on the basis of legality, therefore the Lapua Movement failed because they violated the Protection of the Republic Act of 1930; ironically, the said Act was enacted in part due to the movement’s efforts to combat communist influence in Finland. ↩︎
  38. Suikkanen (2021): p. 14; cf. Kohi, Antti, Hannele Palo, Kimmo Päivärinta and Vesa Vihervä. Forum: Suomen historian käännekohtia. Helsinki: Otava, (2011): pp. 79–83. ↩︎
  39. See Gold, Jonathan. “Shifting Out of Neutral.” The Education Digest 81, no. 9, (2016): p. 31. ↩︎
  40. Fuchs, Eckhardt and Simiao Yu. Unmasking Racism: Guidelines for Educational Materials. Paris: UNESCO, (2024). https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000388802/. Accessed 5 April 2024. ↩︎
  41. Ibid., p. 66. ↩︎
  42. Siltala (1985): p. 165. ↩︎
  43.  See Silvennoinen, Oula. “‘Home, Religion, Fatherland’: Movements of the Radical Right in Finland.” Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies 4, no. 2, (2015): pp. 134–154. ↩︎
  44. Silvennoinen et al. (2016): pp. 21–22. ↩︎
  45. Koskelainen, Sami and Titus Hjelm. “Christ vs. Communism: Communism as a Religious Social Problem in Finland’s Proto-Fascist Lapua Movement in the 1930s.” Journal of Historical Sociology 30, no. 4, (2017): p. 796. ↩︎
  46.  See Giroux, Henry. “Resisting Fascism and Winning the Education Wars: How We Can Meet the Challenge.” Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review 35, no. 1, (2022): pp. 111–126. ↩︎
  47. Seixas, Peter. Theorizing Historical Consciousness. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, (2004); cf. Ahonen, Sirkka. “Historical Consciousness: A Viable Paradigm for History Education?” Curriculum Studies 37, no. 6, (2005): pp. 697–707. ↩︎

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