Finland as a question, Russia as reply

Next March the Finnish publisher WSOY will release an unfinished work by the poet, author and publisher Paavo Haavikko, who died last year at the age of 77. The book bears the slightly odd title Suomi kysymyksessä, vastauksena Venäjä (literally "Finland in question, Russia in reply"), and is an attempt to trace and analyse the historical relations between Finland and Russia throughout the centuries, concentrating on the genetic myths and memories, and the hatred and hostility that developed in the conversation between the two countries, influenced by official propaganda on both sides.

Echoes of the Arctic Sea

Writing à propos of Thomas Berglund's recent article in Svenska Dagbladet on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Treaty of Fredrikshamn, at which Sweden had to sign away its territories east of the Gulf of Bothnia to Imperial Russia (Berglund calls it a "national trauma"), Tobias Ljungvall looks back on some of the less well-known aspects of the Finnish independence struggle. He discusses the role of a later independence activist, the writer and revolutionary Konni Zilliacus the elder (1855-1924), whose life, Tobias says, "ought to merit a film or television series". Zilliacus, the author of such venerable but probably now little-read works as Det revolutionära Ryssland, Från ofärdstid och ofärdsår, Korruptionen i Ryssland, and Moskoviter och finnar, was actively involved in the so-called "Grafton Affair" , which involved an unsuccessful attempt to smuggle arms to the Finnish resistance by ship along the Baltic in 1905.

The comments to Tobias' post make rather sad reading: someone has posted part of Silmien Välliin, a Finnish wartime song from 1942, which talks of "shooting the Russians between the eyes", and another (Russian?) commenter has responded with what purports to be a Russian translation of the song's words, but is in fact a totally different text accusing Finns of racism and Nazi sympathies.
See also: The Landmark Year

Uppslagsverket Finland on the Web

The whole of the extensive 5-volume Finland-Swedish encyclopedia and reference work Uppslagsverket Finland is now available on the Web. Access is free of charge.

The official URL appears to be http://www.uvf.fi/, but this translates to Uppslag.kaapeli.fi/bin/view/Uppslagsverket/WebHome

Access was a bit patchy today, but hopefully these are just teething troubles. Hufvudstadsbladet has a feature on the project.

Bildt "may be unwelcome" in Israel

The Jerusalem Post reports that because of the Swedish government's refusal to condemn the Aftonbladet article which accused IDF soldiers of stealing the organs of Palestinian civilians, Swedish officials, including the country's foreign minister, Carl Bildt, may be "unwelcome" in Israel:

While [Israeli Finance Minister Yuval] Steinitz did not specify his meaning, his comments were possibly a reference to Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who is set to visit Israel in early September but has rejected calls to condemn the story.

"We have a crisis until the Swedish government responds differently," Steinitz said.

In another development, the Israeli newspaper Maariv says that the Swedish foreign ministry helped to fund the book which contains the accusations of organ harvesting.