Books by Ainur Elmgren
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Den första republikens Finland föddes ur ett världskrig och gick under i ett världskrig. Sverige ... more Den första republikens Finland föddes ur ett världskrig och gick under i ett världskrig. Sverige gled in i ännu ett sekel av sorglös fred och välstånd på andras bekostnad. Så såg det i alla fall ut på andra sidan Östersjön. Den finländska pressen levde i symbios med den rikssvenska. Man konsumerade, kommenterade och attackerade rikssvenska texter, både på finska och på svenska, med brinnande intresse och frenetisk energi. Sverige kunde ikläs rollen som det dammiga förflutna, paradiset på jorden, förrädarnas hemvist, modernitetens avantgarde, det trygga moderlandet. Svenskarna var självupptagna, solidariska, varmhjärtade, degenererade, pacifistiska, kapitalistiska, ”förjudade”. Svenskarna var fränder, främlingar, fiender. Ibland var svenskarna till och med finländare. De finländska stereotyperna av Sverige speglar politiska och samhälleliga behov och problem i den framväxande nationalstaten under 1920- och 1930-talet. Mellankrigstidens språknationalister föreställde sig en lycklig framtid då Finland endast skulle bebos av rena finnar. Socialister och liberaler arbetade för andra former av nationell enhet i klasskampens och folkbildningens namn. Kulturkonservativa längtade efter starka ledargestalter som skulle lära folket att lyda. Tillsammans var alla frustrerade över det bistra faktum att nationalstaten var en juridisk tvångströja, inte en kärlekens gemenskap.
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Book Chapters by Ainur Elmgren
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Finnishness, Whiteness and Coloniality
Finnish and Tatar intellectuals shared a position of subordination and relative privilege in the ... more Finnish and Tatar intellectuals shared a position of subordination and relative privilege in the Russian Empire from the early 19th century onward. They did not simply accept or reject Western racial knowledge production, which was increasingly used to justify colonialism and imperialism toward the end of the 19th century; they appropriated it and created a localized version of racial hierarchy, subverting derogatory racial stereotypes to sources of vitality. Within that framework, the heritage of another empire that had managed to menace the white West, the Mongol Empire, had an undeniable attraction to Finns and Tatars, who shared the experience of middle-men minorities providing experts and services to a multi-national empire, while aspiring for empires and colonies of their own.
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Conceptualising Public Health; pp 46-60 (2018), 2018
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European Studies, 2013
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This chapter explores the myth of the Golden Age of Progress in the Nordic countries by looking b... more This chapter explores the myth of the Golden Age of Progress in the Nordic countries by looking back at the 20th century and asking: when did the progressive project of the future become a lost land of bliss in the past? As the hegemonic narrative of the welfare state as a success story conquers the liberal press in Sweden and Finland – exemplified by editorials in Dagens Nyheter and Helsingin Sanomat from the early 1930s to the late 1990s – the critique of the utopian aspects of the project takes on new forms. Its success is proven by the way that its critics accept its defence when it is already imagined to have passed away. The ironic terms for the initially mocked utopia – lyckolandet, lintukoto – now become unquestioned epithets for the lost land of bliss. Liberal anti-utopianism becomes liberal welfare state nostalgia.
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The Paradox of Openness: Transparency and Participation in Nordic Cultures of Consensus, 2015
The relationship between openness and populism in the political rhetoric produced by the Finns Pa... more The relationship between openness and populism in the political rhetoric produced by the Finns Party (previously known as the True Finns) is ambiguous. The party won a record number of seats in the 2011 parliamentary election, becoming Finland’s third-largest party, with thirty-nine of the two hundred seats: thirty-four more than in the 2007 elections. This chapter analyses the connections between populism as self-identification and the increasing demands for openness (avoimuus) directed by party activists against the government. Critics often claim that the Finns Party promotes a closed society. I argue that openness as a concept in their political ideology, now self-defined as populism, rests on an essentialist view of the nation state and elements of xenophobia, and is used as a tool for exclusion. Exclusion as a political strategy is not unique to the Finns Party in Finnish politics. It is their choice of terms, intended to differentiate themselves and emphasize their innovative character, which sets them apart, not their political goals.
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Radical Left Movements in Europe, 2017
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Kansanvallan polkuja : Demokratian kehityspiirteitä Suomessa ja Ruotsissa 1800-luvun lopulta 2020-luvulle, 2018
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Demokratins drivkrafter : Kontext och särdrag i Finlands och Sveriges demokratier 1890-2020, 2018
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Articles by Ainur Elmgren
Nationalist and regionalist geopolitical concepts were appropriated in the service of Communist w... more Nationalist and regionalist geopolitical concepts were appropriated in the service of Communist world revolution by Finnish activists in Sweden, Finland, and Soviet Karelia. The influence of Social Democratic statesman and scholar of geopolitics, Väinö Voionmaa, can be traced in the negotiations that led to the foundation of an autonomous Karelian Labour Commune in 1921. Exiled Finnish revolutionaries persuaded the Bolsheviks that Karelia could become a stepping-stone towards revolution in Finland and Scandinavia. A greater Socialist Soviet Republic of Scandinavia, united by cultural, geographical and economical factors, would monopolize the timber market and exercise economic power over Western Europe. The idea of a Scandinavian revolution was abandoned along with the idea of world revolution in the mid-1920s. The last mentions of a Soviet Scandinavia can be found in anti-Soviet propaganda long after the demise of its promoters in the Great Terror.
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Journal of Jesuit Studies, 2018
The tenacious negative stereotypes of the Jesuits, conveyed to generations of Finnish school chil... more The tenacious negative stereotypes of the Jesuits, conveyed to generations of Finnish school children through literary works in the national canon, were re-used in anti-Socialist discourse during and after the revolutionary year of 1917. Fear of the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 paradoxically strengthened the negative stereotype of “Jesuitism,” especially after the attempted revolution by Finnish Socialists that led to the Finnish Civil War of 1918. The fears connected to the revolution were also fears of democracy itself; various campaigning methods in the new era of mass politics were associated with older images of Jesuit proselytism. In rare cases, the enemy image of the political Jesuit was contrasted with actual Catholic individuals and movements.
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Journal of Political Ideologies, 2018
The concept of populism has been in use in political debate for over a century. Because ‘populist... more The concept of populism has been in use in political debate for over a century. Because ‘populist’ is often used in a pejorative sense today, those to whom it is applied to tend to reject it. However, a closer look at the history of the concept reveals that while its meaning may fluctuate and even be dismissed as irrelevant, its use can become a political tool. This study of the use of ‘populism’ refrains from making value judgments on the actual populist nature of certain parties or political tendencies. Instead, it analyzes uses of the concept from a historical perspective. Special emphasis is placed on politicians who chose to define themselves as populist, or accept the label imposed by others, with particular focus on the Finns Party of Finland. Such self-identified populists draw their conceptions of populism from the ever-growing field of populism research, striving to appropriate and realize what scholars have only hypothetically described as a professed ideal. A closer look at the uses of populism as a political self-identity forces us to rethink its uses as a pejorative, or as an analytical, concept.
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Studia Orientalia Electronica
Visual stereotypes constitute a set of tropes through which the Other is described and depicted t... more Visual stereotypes constitute a set of tropes through which the Other is described and depicted to anaudience, who perhaps never will encounter the individuals that those tropes purport to represent.Upon the arrival of Muslim Tatar traders in Finland in the late nineteenth century, newspapers andsatirical journals utilized visual stereotypes to identify the new arrivals and draw demarcation linesbetween them and what was considered “Finnish”. The Tatars arrived during a time of tension inthe relationship between the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland and the Russian Empire, withthe Finnish intelligentsia divided along political and language lines. Stereotypical images of Tatarpedlars were used as insults against political opponents within Finland and as covert criticism ofthe policies of the Russian Empire. Stereotypes about ethnic and religious minorities like the Tatarsfulfilled a political need for substitute enemy images; after Finland became independent in 1917,these visual ster...
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Nordic Histories of Human Rights
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Books by Ainur Elmgren
Book Chapters by Ainur Elmgren
Articles by Ainur Elmgren
"Vrt. myös Pulkkinen (2014), joka väittää Gananderin alkujaan sijoittaneen lintukodon pohjoisen sijaan Etiopiaan. Väärinkäsityksen taustalla hän otaksuu olleen toimittajan tai latojan, joka on virheellisesti sekoittanut Turjan (pohjoinen) ja Urjan (Etiopia)."
Kyse on siis Kristfrid Gananderin Mythologia Fennicasta, joka ilmestyi ensimmäistä kertaa vuonna 1789.
Ensimmäinen ajatukseni on että kyseessä on pila. Pitäisihän kaikkien tietää, että Urjan maa on Bengali! ...