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Historisk tidskrift 128:3 • 2008

Innehåll (Contents) 2008:3

Uppsatser (Articles)

För krig och kärlek. Kollektiv anknytning och kärlek som (des)integrerande faktorer i Finland under andra världskriget

Ville Kivimäki och Tuomas Tepora

Fulltext (pdf)

Summary

For war and love: collective attachment and love as (dis)integrating factors in Finland during the Second World War

The article examines personal and collective bonds of attachment in war by using the Finnish experience in the Second World War to bring together various theo- retical viewpoints stretching from nationalism research to gender studies and from the history of emotions to psychoanalytically oriented approaches. The aim is to understand the central and often perverted role of love both in the endurance of and the motivation for wartime violence. Three interwoven aspects are studied: emotional bonds between soldiers, male-female relations in war, and collective, national bonds of attachment as a source of sacrifice and motivation. Contradic- tions and fragilities of emotional commitment in war and some of its post-war consequences in Finland are also discussed.

Neither primary group theory nor nationalist ideology as such can explain the soldier’s willingness to fight. Soldiers killed and were killed voluntarily for the sake of what they considered most meaningful and dear in their lives. These bonds of attachment formed the social fabric of the society at war. Positive emotions in war are inseparable from destructive ones. Love could promote violence and hatred, and other attachments had to give way to an all-demanding patriotism.

Keywords

attachment, comradeship, emotions, Finland, love, military history (modern), nationalism, Second World War, war