The Meta-violence of Trumpism

The rise of Donald Trump in United States politics relied on violence. This article examines uses of physical and rhetorical violence in the context of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election campaign to analyze the emergence of a new social movement: “Trumpism.” Though its meaning and utility are fluid and contested, Trumpism offers a useful lens for viewing a new phase of U.S. pop politics. Defined in terms of populism, strongman politics, and identitarianism, Trumpism employed emotional evocations of violence—fear, threats, hatred, and division—which at times erupted into physical displays of aggression. The article argues that the impact of Trumpism can be understood through the lens of meta-violence, evidenced by extreme emotions, social antagonisms, and international tensions

The Letters, Memories, and “Truths” of Finnish North Americans in Soviet Karelia

The letters of seven Finnish North American immigrants in Soviet Karelia, written between 1931 and 1942, and those of two correspondents writing retrospectively about their experiences between 1972 and 1997 introduce readers to unique voices from inside Stalin’s Russia. The letters speak to both collective experiences and personal negotiations of place and self. They shed light on two aspects often overlooked by other sources: youth culture and the transnational flow of everyday items. The Finnish Canadian and American letter writers also offer historians an opportunity to explore individual responses to migration, political repression, and difficult pasts. Looking at the ways in which the writers invoked memories of North America, their experiences of the Great Terror and Finnish Continuation War, and freshly recollected memories of daily life provides glimpses of their fluid sense of self. Reading the letters in light of the silences – what is not said – begins to unravel the writers’ understanding of their “truths.”Les lettres qu’ont écrites entre 1931 et 1942 sept immigrants nord-américains d’origine finlandaise en Carélie soviétique et celles qu’on rédigées entre 1972 et 1997 deux correspondants se remémorant leurs expériences respectives proposent aux lecteurs un regard unique sur la vie en Russie stalinienne. Les lettres témoignent de vécus à la fois collectifs et personnels du lieu et du soi. Elles mettent en lumière deux aspects souvent négligés par d’autres sources : la culture des jeunes et le flux transnational d’articles de tous les jours. Les auteurs canado et américano-finnois de ces lettres offrent aussi aux historiens l’occasion d’observer les réactions individuelles à la migration, à la répression politique et à de difficiles passés. L’évocation des souvenirs de leur vie en Amérique du Nord, de leur vécu des Grandes Purges et de la guerre de Continuation menée par la Finlande ainsi que de souvenirs encore tout frais de leur quotidien donne un aperçu de la fluidité de leur sentiment d’identité. Lire les lettres à la lumière de leurs silences – de ce qu’on n’y dit pas – offre un début d’éclairage sur la compréhension qu’ont leurs auteurs de ce que sont leurs « vérités »

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

In 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

Finnishness, Whiteness and Coloniality

Hoegaerts, Josephine, Tuire Liimatainen, Laura Hekanaho and Elizabeth Peterson (editors). 2022

The Meta-violence of Trumpism

The rise of Donald Trump in United States politics relied on violence. This article examines uses of physical and rhetorical violence in the context of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election campaign to analyze the emergence of a new social movement: “Trumpism.” Though its meaning and utility are fluid and contested, Trumpism offers a useful lens for viewing a new phase of U.S. pop politics. Defined in terms of populism, strongman politics, and identitarianism, Trumpism employed emotional evocations of violence—fear, threats, hatred, and division—which at times erupted into physical displays of aggression. The article argues that the impact of Trumpism can be understood through the lens of meta-violence, evidenced by extreme emotions, social antagonisms, and international tensions

Millaista muutosta Kanada haluaa?

The article outlines the main issues raised by the Canadian federal election in October 2015.</p

Introduction: Moving Memories of Stalin-era Repression and Displacement

The introductory chapter situates the collection within the field of memory studies and the study of Soviet repression and its remembrance. After briefly providing the broad historical context that connects the diverse studies explored by the chapters included in the book, the Introduction reflects on the commemoration of Soviet repression and communism within different memory cultures and the development of memory studies as an academic field. We argue that by bridging case studies of different moments and places under Stalinism, we are able to explore the connections, overlaps, and intersections of how Soviet repression and forced migration has and continues to mark and shape memory, identity, and history. Through an introduction of the twelve chapters of the book, we demonstrate the collection’s contribution to better understanding the transnationalism and mobility of memory, the transgenerational aspects of the remembrance of difficult pasts, as well as their implications on the sense of belonging and identification. The chapter highlights that multiply moving – as in mobile, fluid, and emotive – memories not only reflect Eastern European or even European memory culture but also reach far beyond.Peer reviewe