Collective memories, emotional analogues and war: How the Winter War shaped the Finnish public understanding of the War in Ukraine

Culturally specific collective memories often give rise to potent and emotional historical analogues, used to mobilize people and to understand new situations. This article examines such emotional analogues through the still dominant but highly selective Finnish collective memory of the Winter War, which shaped the Finnish public discourse of the War in Ukraine after 2022. The Winter War constitutes a central building block for Finnish national identity. The similarities between the Winter War and the War in Ukraine helped make the latter more relatable among the Finnish society. The emotions raised by the analogue helped with the mobilization of sympathy for the Ukrainian cause. Simultaneously, the piecemeal use of the Winter War analogue transposed mythical expectations from Finnish collective memory on Ukrainians in a manner that biased attempts to understand the ongoing war. By linking socially constructed collective war memories to emotional historical analogues, the article emphasizes the importance of cultural sociology of war.