New Glimpses at Finnish Indigenous Religion and Folk Beliefs

Pulkkinen, Risto 2014. Suomalainen kansanusko. Samaaneista saunatonttuihin. Helsinki: Gaudeamus. Ill. Maps. ISBN 978-952-495-340-5

Religious ritual contested: anti-religious activities and women’s ritual practice in rural Soviet Karelia

After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks sought to establish a new atheistic order which would eradicate from the public consciousness all vestiges of "religious prejudices", which were regarded as a residue from the imperial era and an instrument used to exploit the masses. Even though it was generally held that religion would automatically disappear from socialist society when its material precondition, the class society, was abolished, the regime made concentrated efforts to speed up the process by means of virulent anti-religious propaganda. The ultimate goal was to wipe out the persistent remains of the bourgeois system of values. No force was to be used since it was feared this would merely offend the religious sentiments of the people and strengthen their adherence to religion. Theoretically, the ultimate goal was to be achieved through education and information, but in practice, anti-religious activities were at times quite brutal. These attacks were successful in curtailing the activities of religious institutions in Karelia, but did not bring to an end the religious practices of lay people, which were continued, in one form or another, throughout the entire Soviet period. One fundamental reason for the survival of religious rituals, both Christian and indigenous, was the fact that they were so deeply embedded in people's consciousness and intimately integrated with their everyday lives. Every important phase and turn in human life was sanctified by rituals. The goal of the present paper is to examine what forms anti-religious attacks took in Soviet Karelia and how people reacted to them. The focus is on the attacks against the very fundaments of the ritual complex of the church and, by extension, on the effects of these attacks on the indigenous ritual complex, which co-existed in parallel with that of the "official" religious institutions

Rereading Finno-Ugrian religion from a gender point of view

The male "normal subject" underlying the prior religious descriptions has been constructed in two intertwining processes. Firstly, the scholar, by focusing on men's ideas and practices in the culture he has studied, has created concepts, models and a classificatory system forreligious phenomena, which tends to exclude and distort the phenomena which are based on women's perhaps differing ideas and practices. Secondly, these ideas and practices have been filtered through the male scholar's frame of reference. His ethnocentrism and preconceived ideas as well as the tendency to view his object of study in hierarchical terms has coloured the phenomena studied as well as his overall religious constructs. The challenge of the gender perspective on religious studies is to deconstruct the male normal subject and to elaborate more nuanced and comprehensive models and classificatory systems which also would encompass women's religious ideas and practices. The author illustrates the issue at hand by analysing the overviews in some central handbooks and entries in encyclopaedias on the Finno-Ugrian religions as well as the central monographs in the series Suomen suvun uskonnot (The Religions of the Finnic Peoples) on which these overviews are largely based

The mystery of the M74 syndrome solved: Plentiful fatty sprat as prey for salmon leads to reproduction disorder

Press release 4.4.2012, Finnish Game and Fisheries Research InstituteThiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency results in mortalities of yolk-sac fry of salmon (M74). Deficiency of thiamine develops when the fat content of prey fish is high and the thiamine concentration too low in comparison to energy density and the content of unsaturated fatty acids. Abundance of young sprat as food for salmon increases the prevalence and severity of M74 and impairs the reproduction of Baltic salmon

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Finsk, svensk eller sverigefinsk? : Finskheten för andra generationens finnar i Sverige

Kirjallisuusarvostel

M74-syndromets myserium löst: Stora mängder fet skarpsill (vassbuk) i födan orsaken till Östersjölaxens reproduktionsproblem

Pressrelease 4.4.2012, Vilt- och fiskeriforskningsinstitutet, FinlandBristen på tiamin (vitamin B1) i laxens rom leder till dödlighet för ynglen i gulesäcksstadiet (M74). Tiaminbristen uppkommer då födan har hög fetthalt och den mängd tiamin, som fås från födan, är för liten i relation till energiinnehållet och mängden omättade fettsyror. Den överstora mängden ung skarpsill i laxens föda ökar förekomsten av M74-syndromet och dess effekt och försämrar Östersjölaxens reproduktion

M74-oireyhtymän mysteeri ratkaistu: Runsas, rasvainen kilohailiravinto syynä Itämeren lohen lisääntymishäiriöön

Tiedote 4.4.2012, Riista- ja kalatalouden tutkimuslaitosMädin tiamiinin puutos johtaa lohen ruskuaispussipoikasten kuolleisuuteen (M74). Tiamiinin puutos syntyy, kun ravinnon rasvapitoisuus on suuri ja ravinnosta saatava tiamiinipitoisuus liian pieni energian ja tyydyttymättömien rasvahappojen määrään nähden. Nuorten kilohailien ylenpalttinen määrä lohen ravinnossa lisää M74-oireyhtymän esiintymistä ja voimakkuutta ja heikentää Itämeren lohen lisääntymistä