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* Max Engman, ed. Fänrikens marknadsminne: Finska kriget 1808-1809 och dess följder i efterväldens ögon. Helsinki: Svenska Litteratursällskapet i Finland, 2009.
During 2008-09 Finland and Sweden commemorated the bicentennial of the Finnish War between Sweden and Russia. The Russian victory in the conflict resulted in the Swedish kingdom losing its territories east of the Gulf of Bothnia known collectively as Finland. The war's outcome transformed the internal politics of both Finland and Sweden. The concurrent Napoleonic Wars, of which the Finnish War was a subset, redrew the political geography of the entire Nordic region.
This collection of articles examines how the war has been remembered over the last 200 years in historical scholarship, public history, and the arts. As a unity, these articles illuminate the significant differences in memory concerning the war in Sweden, Russia, and Finland. They also reveal how these memories have changed over time.
In his contribution (27-96), Âke Sandström examines die history of memory of the Finnish War in Sweden. He convincingly demonstrates that die war has had an obscure place in collective Swedish historical memories compared to other historical events before and after 180809. Sandström gives several well-argued reasons for this collective amnesia. The most persistent one is that the Peace of Fredrikshamn in 1809 represents Sweden's greatest military defeat. The kingdom lost a quarter of its population and even more of its land area. Sweden could no longer harbor any delusions of resurrecting itself as a great power. Over...