REVIEWS

The Adelaide Review

NORSCA

Scandinavia

Reviewed by Hugh Stretton

If a brisk history of Scandinavia was to be written and published somewhere in Australia, South Australia was the appropriate place. Within a small nation this small state tries to assert some further difference and autonomy in its culture, political leadership and economic planning. Among Australian states it has been least afraid of active government. And it attracts fond images to set beside the Scandinavian stereotypes of Norwegians (alcoholic puritans), Finns (alcoholic fighters), Danes (pornographic dairyfarmers) and Swedes (sex, welfare and bureaucracy from the cradle to the grave).

What should chiefly interest Australians just now is probably Scandinavian economic policy: how small, affluent national economies survive best in an unstable world. That is not Tony Griffiths' main subject. Instead he offers an heroically compressed history of the politics and diplomacy by which the four nations have own and held their independence, and a witty and affectionate account of their leading writers, artists, and (for Sweden) businessmen. Griffiths claims to impartial between the four cultures, but nobody steeped in the lesser three can entirely avoid their feelings about the over-achieving Swedes.

While Norway's major literary figure, Ibsen gained an ill-deserved reputation as a champion of women's rights, his young Swedish neighbour and rival, Strindberg, was intent on sticking his knife into what he described as the old troll's back ... Strindberg set out to tear down Ibsen's hero women, and point out how the Darwinian laws of evolution and natural selection inevitably meant that men would triumph over women. Sweden in the nineteenth century was a man's country. It provided immense natural resources and a block-busting determination to exploit them.

Having lost their former imperial power,

the Swedes turned to economic development, and their German thoroughness and the protestant work ethic soon made their economic miracle unique in the north, then in Europe, and finally, in the twentieth century, in the world.

But it did not necessarily make them likeable.

Griffiths sketches the economic miracle and the welfare developments, but most of the book lacks obvious lessons for Australia (but may be more interesting to Australian readers) because it focuses on the Scandinavian problems which Australians don't have rather than those they do have. We were spared the struggles for national existence. Our literary and cultural problems as small fish in the vast English-speaking ocean differ for better and worse from the problems which their unique, interrelated, "small" languages create for Scandinavians. Snow and sunshine offer different seductions, and alcohol can be a different friend or enemy in daylight and arctic darkness.

Such a short book hasn't room for much social history. From the 1930s the pursuit of welfare gets attention, but still chiefly as a political story. Griffiths keeps the narrative lively by dramatizing it where he can. If a small percentage swing puts the Social Democrats out of office for a term, headlines announce a national U-turn and the end of the welfare state - but the SDs are usually back before long, alone or in coalition, and the conservative interludes stay well to the Left of Hawke and Keating and do very little to dismantle or re-direct the progressive machine. Though Griffiths keeps his story eventful, and gives a proper impression of the continuing division and controversy about tax and welfare policies, he is well aware of the underlying stability and success of the Scandinavian achievement:

the creation of a tolerant and good society, one that shows a welcome to foreigners and strangers, a respect for democratic institutions and a willingness to undertake difficult social engineering projects, based on a solid economic foundation of abundant natural resources, proven technological excellence and innovation, and a willingness from all to share the profits.

* * * * * * * * * *

The Scandinavian Journal of History

Review by Professor Sune Jungar

There are not many overall or general surveys of Scandinavian history available in English, i.e. books that within the same covers deal with the history of all Scandinavian (incl. Finland) countries. There is, of course, T.K. Derry's book published in 1973 and F.O. Scott's book Scandinavia (1975) ‑ the latter one providing a presentation of modern Scandinavia, albeit with a competent analysis of the historical background. An essential piece of work is also A Historical Geography of Scandinavia (1981) by the distinguished British scholar W.R. Mead. Thus, there is evidently a need for general surveys which account for all the Nordic Countries.

What distinguishes this book, written by the Australian professor of history Tony Griffiths, from most of the previous ones, is above all its ambition to give an account for the cultural history as well, in addition to the political and economic developments. This is done ‑ as Griffiths himself puts it ‑ "by looking at the works of imaginative artists as touchstones of their societies". Griffiths deals mainly with the history of the past two centuries. The first chapter presents the geographical and climatological circumstances, as well as some relevant and basic historic facts prior to the turn of the 19th century. Nearly a third of the book is devoted to the post-WW II-period. It is therefore also an informative introduction to the present-day Scandinavian societies, which Griffith, referring to a book by his compatriot Colin Simpson (1967) calls "the Civilised Circle".

The ambition by Griffiths, to give an account for the cultural history as well in a general historical survey, is praiseworthy and worth following. I wish that similar surveys in Scandinavian languages also had this ambition. The task is not an easy one. One is faced with the problematic task of sketching the general cultural development within a necessarily limited amount of space. Griffiths has chosen to highlight some central, and internationally well-known characters within literature, art music etc. He has in this way been able to pursue his arguments by referring to certain facts and phenomena which are ‑ at least to some extent ‑ familiar to some of his readers.

Griffiths' method works excellently as regards for example, a figure like Grundtvig. Grundtvig is indeed, a helpful character if one wishes to shed some light on societal development in the 19th century Denmark. However, the task becomes considerably more complicated and difficult with figures like, for instance, Kierkegaard. In Keirkegaard's case, Griffiths certainly runs the risk of trivializing the Danish philosopher.

The selection of issues that are raised and the way in which major problems within the field of historical research are presented can, of course, always be subject to discussion when one deals with a general survey-type work like this. Naturally it requires some time before the latest revaluation and new interpretations in modern research are included into overall surveys. There is, for example, hardly any account of the intensive research of the last few years concerning Finland's status within the Russian empire. Here the traditional picture is still predominant.

Griffiths rightly emphasizes the extent to which the Scandinavian countries with their highly developed economies are dependent upon the development of the rest of the world. However, according to my view his presentation of the oil crisis of 1973 as a turning point in history is a bit of an exaggeration. The oil crisis is hardly comparable to the consequences of Alexanders and Napoleons meeting in Tilsit. Considering how little space Griffiths has been able to devote to Iceland, one might question his reasons for dealing with the British-Icelandic "cod-war" so thoroughly. Having said this I must admit that issues regarding fishing business are main features of modern Icelandic history (especially apparent in the recent talks concerning European integration).

This book is not a problem oriented survey centered on the main issues of historical research, but rather a narrative history based on an "easy to read"-ambition. Griffiths refers, with apparent enthusiasm, to the statement made by the French historian Marc Bloc, that "understanding the living is the master quality of the historian". Griffiths has done both research and travelling in Scandinavia and thus experienced various milieus. And it is quite clear that he has enjoyed the experience, something which is reflected upon his writing. The reader will certainly not get bored in his company. His narrative style offers quite a few witty ideas and humorous remarks. In his depiction of the language battle in Norway, for example, he points out that the official policy makers were told by the Norwegian translator of My Fair Lady that it was Eliza Doolittle and not Henry Higgins who set the linguistic norms in Norway.

The book is concluded with a bibliography (about 130 books in English) and an index. The selection of the bibliography seems a bit random. Examples of books that I feel ought to have been included are the above-mentioned book by Mead, Finland in the XXth Century (1979) by the outstanding Finland expert David Kirby and the Dictionary of Scandinavian History Ed. Byron J. Nordstrom (1986).

The editing and technical design (uneven right margin, at places uncomplete lines, a few misspellings) is not of the highest quality. The cover of the book is apparently meant to give associations to themes presented in the book: trolls and doll's house (Ibsen), dynamite (Nobel), matches (Kreuger), cars (Volvo & Saab) etc. The idea in itself is a splendid one, although the artistic design hardly does justice to Griffiths' entertaining presentation.

********

Australian Society

Reviewed by Tom Morton

A couple of years ago the Finnish film maker Aki Kaurismaki (known in Australia for films like Leningrad Cowboys Go America) was asked in an interview with a German magazine what qualities he considered vital for contemporary film makers.

'To make good films', he replied, `you have to drink a lot'.

In these days of continence, abstinence and increasingly bland global culture, it's good to know that the Scandinavians aren't deserting their cultural traditions.

Alcohol an creativity seem to have gone hand in hand for many of the great Nordic artists; as Tony Griffiths tells us early on in Scandinavia, one of the tourist attractions for Scandinavians in Rome in the 1860s was 'the familiar sight of Ibsen drunk'. The great Finnish composer Sibelius was also not averse to a drop. Depressed by Russian suppression of Finnish national sentiment, he overdid the absinthe the night before the premiere of his First Symphony in Stockholm, and arrived with a hangover to find the concert taking place in a concert tent still sweetly redolent of hay and horse manure.

One of the great attractions of Tony Griffiths' book is its wealth of pithy and often amusing anecdotes, which often give the lie to popular stereotypes of Scandinavians as dour and silent people made introspective by the long northern winters. He's attempted to unfurl a very broad canvas indeed: to show the emergence of Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden as modern nation-states, in their cultural diversity and national uniqueness, and in the common qualities which allow us to speak of `Scandinavia'. This could have been a very dry and ponderous undertaking, but Griffiths' obvious relish for a good story or a bit of biographical gossip gives the book verve and vivid colour. He skips back and forth between history, literature, popular culture and biography; the result is occasionally a little glib, but almost always illuminating.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the earlier chapters, which deal with the decline of imperial power and the emergence of movements for national independence in Scandinavia in the nineteenth century, a kind of pan-Scandinavianism prevailed, under the aegis of Sweden and Denmark, the two major imperial powers in Northern Europe. But, as elsewhere in Europe, struggles for democracy and social justice became linked with cultural nationalism. Norway, handed over to Sweden in 1814 after a 400-year union with Denmark, soon began to struggle against its new masters. Linked with this struggle was the growth of a radical peasants' movement in the 1830s, which never came to the point of actual revolution but won representation in the parliament in 1844.

For the people of the new Eastern European democracies, emerging from forty years or more of imperial domination, the right to national self-determination and the right to individual liberty are two sides of the same coin. If we want to understand the darker and more disturbing aspects of nationalism in Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia, there are some useful lessons we could learn from the history of the Finns and Norwegians, fighting to assert their own sovereignty against the Russian and Swedish empires in the nineteenth century.

Griffiths shows us the great cultural figures of Scandinavia surrounded and often torn by questions of national identity and social reform. The lives of Hans Christian Andersen, Grieg, Ibsen, Strindberg, Sibelius and Edvard Munch all weave in and out of the narrative, as do their works. I hope I'm not having a cheap shot when I wonder why the only woman who gets a look-in in the cultural parade is Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomintroll books. Given that the leaders of all three major political parties in Norway are now women, it's hard to believe that women haven't played a more central role in Scandinavian politics and culture than they do in this book.

I have to admit to two more misgivings, one analytic, the other stylistic. Sometimes the common thread which Griffiths attempts to trace from the early 1800s through to the present becomes twisted or obscured in thickets of excessive detail. Elsewhere, the weave of his historical generalisations is too loose to be convincing. This book is an essay in cultural criticism, not just a history; it's precisely this quality which makes it so fascinating, but also frustrating in its occasional lack of coherence.

Perhaps because of this, Griffiths never seems to get round to answering the really intriguing question about `Scandinavia' ‑ namely, why this loose group of cultures, which began last century more socially conservative and less modernised than many of their neighbours, came to give birth to an enduring and successful form of social democracy. The fact that Scandinavian social democracy is currently undergoing something of a crisis makes this question all the more important.

Certainly, the book describes very comprehensively how social democracy and the compact of labour, capital and the states emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. And perhaps it gives a hint as to why, in stressing how consistently workers' movements and intellectuals chose the path of reform rather then revolution at crucial moments of political conflict. But there's no underlying hypothesis about why social democracy should have emerged as a cultural phenomenon throughout Scandinavia. In some ways, I found the chapter on Sweden in Hans Magnus Enzensberger's Europe, Europe (recently released in paperback by Picador), more illuminating on this point, especially for the link Enzensberger makes between paternalistic capitalism in Sweden in the nineteenth century, and state paternalism in the twentieth.

Nevertheless, Scandinavia is an important and rewarding book, and certainly a very good read for a cold winter's night. It manages, finally, to show a group of nations come full circle to kind of modern pan-Scandinavianism, exemplified by the work of the Nordic Council which, Griffiths writes, `expected to wipe out through education the view ... that Finns were quarrelsome and unintelligible knife-fighters, that Swedes were swaggering boastful, introspective materialists, that Norwegians were a scattered group of puritan and bovine alcoholics, and that Danes were bicycling pornography enthusiasts'.

The Nordic Council may not have been entirely successful in this endeavour, but late twentieth century Scandinavia can surely claim a common achievement of human and sophisticated societies open to the outside world. As the Scandinavian nations prepare to take the plunge into the bracing waters of European competition by joining the EC, let's hope they lose none of the uniqueness and diversity this book evokes. Some disturbing signs have appeared, though; Finland has recently appointed its first Minister of Alcoholic Affairs, a stern teetotaller with a mission to dry out his compatriates. If I were you, I'd settle down with this book and a bottle of akvavit and drink up while you can.

**********

Dagens Industri

Jan Wäingelin

Australiensisk professor skildrar modern nordisk historia:

Bjuder pa roande detaljer och aha-upplevelser

Mycket här i livet är som bekant en slump. Att den australiensiske historieprofessorn Tony Griffiths skriviten en bok om de nordiska länd ernas moderna historia är ett exempel. Ett mycket trevligt sådant. Bokens titel är kort och gott "Scandinavia" (Wakefield Press).

Tony Griffiths professor i historia vid flinders University of South Australia i Adelaide blev under sin tid vid universitet i Cambridge, Engalnd, bekant med ett antal finländere. De väckte hans intresse för de nordiska länderna.

Intresset ökade för Adelaide-professorn när Kockums fick den stora orden på u-batar till Australiens' flotta. Dessa u-båtar byggs som bekant i just Adelaide.

Det finns fram till idag inga bocker pa engelska skrivna av icke nordiska historiker/författare om den moderna nordiska historien.

Mordet pa Palme

Professor Tony Griffiths bok omfattar tiden fran 1800-talets början fram till 1990, dvs bl a i avsnittet om Sverige mordet pa Olof Palme (professor Griffiths befann sig i Stockholm den 28 februari 1986 och har alltså en personlig upplevelse av hur svenska folket reagerade pa nyheten om mordet samt effekterna pa de nordiska länderna till följd av utvecklingen i Sovjet under Michael Gorbartjov.

Tony Griffiths är en modern historiker som malar de breda utvecklingsdragen men ger ocksa sina läsare flera intressanta och roande detaljer. Det är inte utan att man da och da tvingas dra på smilbandet eller noterar en och annan aha-upplevelse i detaljbeskrivningar kring personer och händelse.

Välkänt begrepp

Att Tony Griffiths valt att ge sin bok titeln "Scandinavia" trots att den handlar om Danmark, Norge, Sverige och Finland föklarar han med att "Scandinavia" (Skandinavien) är ett mer välkänt begrepp ute i världen än Norden, som varit dem mer korrekta titeln pa boken.

Den är i första hand avsedd för historie-studerande vid de australiensiska universiteten i ämnet Europas historia.

Men boken är värd en bredare läsekrets.

Tony Griffiths bok är som jag ser det en utmärkt och nyttig presentbok till affärsbekanta. "Scandinavia" förenar nytta med nöje, för visst är det bra om man runt om i världen lär sig mer fakta, bade om den politiska, sociala, kulturella, ekonomiska och industriella utvecklingen, i de sam och välmaende länderna i högan nord...

Historieprofessorn Tony Griffiths kommer till Stockholm den 12 juni för att pa Australiens ambassad presentera sin nyutgivna bok. En modern nordisk historia av en australensare, pa engelska - inspirerad av finländare.

**********

Australian Book Review

Marjatta Forward

History without parochialism

South Australian historian Tony Griffiths follows Scandinavia's transformation from peasant societies to wealthy industrialised states, using the works of artists to illustrate his story.

This is how the former long-time Finnish ambassador to the United Nations, Mac Jakobson, has described the atmosphere in Scandinavia between the two World Wars: `Denmark feared Germany, Finland feared Russia, Norway feared nobody and Sweden was never able to decide who to fear most.'

While these stark images of threat may have since faded, Jakobson's remark aptly reflects the geopolitical realities that have shaped the history of Scandinavia. Tony Griffiths Scandinavia gives us an excellent opportunity to increase our understanding of these Nordic countries.

It is fairly rare to find a book that strives to cover parallel developments in the Scandinavian countries. It is even rarer to find an author who does this without the stodginess often found in textbooks. Indeed, Griffiths' book is eminently readable. There is an astonishing amount of information in its 200-odd pages, and yet the lively style makes page after page read like a good story.

Griffiths, a South Australian historian, outlines the earlier history of the Scandinavian countries: the Viking times, the Kalmar Union in 1397 when the region was united under one ruler, and the formation of Denmark-Norway and Sweden-Finland in the sixteenth century.

The main focus, however, is on the past two centuries, from the turbulent Napoleonic era, when Denmark lost Norway to Sweden and Finland became a grand duchy of Tsarist Russia, to the present. The book leaves us with the problems of the four sovereign and prosperous Scandinavian states, their reputation as `model welfare societies' now slightly tarnished, each attempting to deal in its own way with the economic and political uncertainties of Europe in the 1900s.

Griffiths' stated intentions are to analyse the relationship between cultural and political change by looking at Scandinavian artists and their works, and to provide an `outsider's view' of the history of the area without the all too common parochialism and regional bias of local historians. He has succeeded remarkably well on both counts. Launching into the nineteenth century, he weaves into his story the lives and works of many internationally known Scandinavian artists and intellectuals, with a few industrialists for good measure.

`What happened then?', the reader is inclined to ask after each brief encounter with Kierkegaard, Anderson, Ibsen, Munch, Grieg, Sibelius, Nobel, Bergman and other cultural identities. Through art and literature, Griffiths gives us insights into the Scandinavian society, its nationalism, religion, education and politics, but leaves enough unsaid to whet the reader's appetite.

Griffiths follows Scandinavia's transformation from peasant societies into wealthy, industrialised states of predominantly social democratic orientation, where the citizens are looked after `from cradle to grave', albeit at a great cost to those who can afford taxes. Indeed, many feel that they cannot, and leave their countries for tax haven abroad. In Sweden, the world-famous children's author Astrid (Pippi Longstocking) Lindgren had cause to cry out when she was misinformed by the tax authorities that she would have to pay 102 percent tax on her income. Film director Ingmar Bergman complained that `social democracy had created a rigidly conformist society administered by heavy-handed tax-collectors'.

The prosperity of Scandinavia, particularly that of Sweden, has been helped by the countries' strenuous efforts to remain outside international conflicts. Sweden, behind the buffer zone of other Scandinavia countries, has managed this best, enjoying uninterrupted peace since the early 1800s.

Sweden's neighbours haven't fared quite so well. Russia, not surprisingly, has always influenced Finland's foreign policy considerations. After her defeat by Russia in the second World War, Finland has pursued a policy of neutrality that takes into account the special relationship with her great neighbour. Norway's and Denmark's hopes of remaining neutral were finally demolished by Hitler's armies in 1940. Since 1949 both countries had belonged to NATO.

Neutrality in the First and Second World Wars did not prevent the Swedes from trading with the warring nations, a fact that gave them an opportunity to continue building their country's economy and to implement the policies of social reform ahead of their neighbours.

Prosperity, however, didn't come cheaply. Griffiths reserves his most barbed comments for Swedes who found their neutrality compromised by their concessions to Hitler in the quest for national survival. He writes that, after the war:

The collective weight of Swedish shame built up slowly ‑ shame for not helping the Finns was replaced by shame for turning their backs on the Norwegians, for not standing up against the Germans, for sending some Balts to certain death ‑ until shame and guilt seemed to be the natural state of the Swedish conscience. As the problem increased and sin became the national preoccupation, the social democratic state chose to expunge it by declaring old sins no longer sinful, and permissiveness blossomed into a form of pornographic expressiveness that achieved its apotheosis in Stockholm and Copenhagen, but not in Oslo and Helsinki, where the peasant puritanism of the Norwegians and the alcoholic athleticism of the Finns sublimated the guilty fixations of their neutral and collaborating neighbours.

In the tradition of Nordic cooperation, books on Scandinavia tend to concentrate on the many common values and goals shared by these nations. One would be hard-pressed to find a comment as poignant as this in any of them!

Griffiths doesn't forget, however, to rightly emphasise the willingness to work together of the Scandinavian monarchies, Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and the republic of Finland (and Iceland, which rates only a brief mention). Geopolitical realities of the Cold War made it impossible to form a Nordic defence alliance. Instead, Scandinavians have enjoyed relatively streamlined economic and social legislation, open borders and labour-markets, and cooperation in the Nordic Council for years.

It is ironic that, once again, Scandinavia is being swept into a new era by forces outside their borders. In the east, the Soviet Union is in turmoil, and it seem inevitable that other Scandinavian countries will follow Denmark's example and join the European Community by the end of this decade.

To what extent will Scandinavia retain its current identity when economic decisions are made in Brussels? How will Sweden and Finland reconcile the question of neutrality and non-alignment with their future membership? What effects will the changes in the Soviet Union have? These questions will provide Griffiths with ample material for a new chapter in the next edition of his book.

Only minor inaccuracies caught my eye: for example The Old Finns won fifty-nine seats in the 1907 election, not fifty-one; the 1938 industrial peace agreement in Sweden was made in Saltsjöbaden; the Nordic Council was established in 1952, not ten years later. While relatively insignificant, the errors are irritating. This entertaining and informative book, deserving more careful editing, is nevertheless highly recommended.

**********

Suomi

Craig Cormick

As anybody knows who has ever gone through book shops looking for something up-to-date on Scandinavia ‑ there are very few good and affordable books available in Australia. That is ‑ until this year. A new book, simply titled, `Scandinavia', by Tony Griffiths of Flinders University of South Australia, gives a concise and highly readable account of modern Scandinavia over the past few centuries, providing the political background for the shaping of the modern nations of Norway, Sweden, Denmark and, of course, Finland.

On a recent edition of the ABC Radio National's `Books and Writing' program, Tony Griffiths said the book outlined the historical context of the major changes that shaped the Nordic countries' modern characters.

He said, "If you take a Finnish peasant for example, in the 17th Century, he'd been under a Swedish King in the 19th Century, as a result of these great upheavals he was put under a Russian Tsar ‑ but he still spoke Finnish.

"But to make it even more complicated, Finnish wasn't even the language of Government in Finland, and so you had a situation where the indigenous people had to try and use, through a romantic national movement, I suppose, the language as a form of asserting nationality. "It was a search for nationality through language that really was behind both the Norwegian and Finnish independence struggles that coincidentally both went into the early years of the 20th Century."

Throughout the book, Griffiths uses the artists of the time to show how the art they were expressing was also an expression of political activism.

In his ABC interview, he said, "Sibelius was born in Finland in the 19th Century when Finland was a part of Russia, his father and mother were determined to bring him up knowing something about the constitutional position of Finland within the Russian empire, but also being aware of the Finnish independence movement. Sibelius belonged to the Swedish speaking Finnish `ruling class' ‑ if you like ‑ and so they sent him to a Finnish speaking grammar school. So he was unusual in his milieu ‑ he could speak Finnish and Swedish. He understood about the Finnish constitutional position, but he understood the Finnish independence movement.

And in his most famous works, Finlandia, the whole nation used this as a means of protesting against the Russian Tsar when there was no other means available them."

Tony Griffiths also said the great Norwegian playwright Ibsen was similarly inspired by the Norwegian independence movement, and devotes most of a chapter in the book to dealing with Ibsen, entitled `Out of the Doll's house' ‑ named after Ibsen's famous play.

But the book is also about modern Scandinavia. "Nowadays one in eight Swedes is born to parents who weren't themselves born in Sweden ‑ which is astonishing statistic. The Australian Democratic Party ‑ if you can laughingly describe Hawke and the ALP as that ‑ are looking to Swedish models", Griffiths added.

'They are also becoming more enmeshed in the Scandinavian defence structure. The defence forces are being re-equipped with Swedish submarines for example, and the telephone network is an Ericsson network.'

They are aware, I think that the Swedes are far more positive and contribute more ‑ and the other Scandinavians ‑ that the Japanese, who are great investors, but very rapacious. They invest in commercial real estate, rip the guts out of the country ‑ but the Swedes, with their social democratic ethos, and the rest of the Scandinavians, try to put back as much as they take out."

The book contains material relating to the latest political upheavals affecting Scandinavia ‑ namely the monumental changes within the Soviet Union and the Baltic States. I quote events as recent as last year, making it both a highly readable and timely book for anyone who has spent too many hours searching bookshops and come away only with 1960 Time-Life books on Scandinavia.

A short example of the very readable style of Tony Griffiths:

"From 1968 until 1981, Kekkonen was a symbol of national identity, having a vast number of personal qualities that appealed to the Finnish collective subconscious. There were by then many Kekkonen jokes, some said to have been minted by the president. His diplomatic encounters with foreign heads of state in the coffee tent on the harbour front quay of Helsinki and his daily jog were irresistibly charming and deeply reassuring. Born in 1900, his extraordinary vigorous longevity provided a problem for political scientists trying to foresee Finland after Kekkonen, although some were reassured after searching the constitution to find that the president of Finland need not be alive. Kekkonen did not try to unravel the mystery; on the contrary, he bought a turtle and, having been told that turtles live for two hundred years, remarked: To a Finn, to see is to believe".

**********

Nordic Business News

Pekka Sörensen

Tiiviitä, yhtenäisiä, suurilla maailmankielillä kirjoitettuja esityksiä Pohjoismaiden nykyhistoriasta ei hevin löydy. Ja ne yksi tai kaksi, jotka on kirjoitettu, ovat jo yli 10- vuotta vanhoja. Australialaisen Adelaiden yliopiston ja Cambridgen Trinity Hallin kasvatti, professroi Tony Griffiths, on paikannut tämän ammottavan aukon.

Kun toimittajat kirjoittavat nykyhistoriaa, on tulos usein lyhyen naseva ja tylsä. Kun professorit kirjoittavat nykyhistoriaa, on tulos uesein pitkäpiimäisen analyytteinen ja tylsä. tony Griffiths on ollut erinomaisen tietoinen näistä sudenkuopista. Ensiksikin hän on ymmärtänyt, että faktojen esittely on vain yksi historian tehtävistä. Vähintään yhtä tärkeää on esitellä ne sujuvalla ja nautittavalla kielellä. Lisäksi hän on oivaltanut, että lukunautinto kasvaa, jos esityksen perusnäkökulmaa täydennetään toisell. Nyt puheena olevan teoksen kohdalla tämä tarkoittaa, että iloisesti polveilevat, kulttuurihistorialliset sivujoet koko ajan syöttävät raikasta vettä yleishistorialliseen valtavirtaan. Esipuheessa kirjoittaja korostaa myös objektiivista riippumattomuuttaan ja "jääviyttään" suhteissaan kaikkiin Pohjoismaihin. Ainoa asia, jolle kirjoittaja vaikuttaa puolueellisesti menettäneensä sydämensä, onkin Kluuvikadun fazer Helsingissä.

Griffiths ei myöskään ole langennut houkutukseen kulea kirjoittajalle helpointa, mutta lukijalle ikävintä, tietä kertoa kustakin Pohjoismaasta erikseen. Esitys on jaksoteltu kronologisesti ja käsittelee Skandinaviaa ‑ tai Pohjolaa, mikä olisi tiukasti ottaen oikeampi ilmaisu ‑ sen eri maiden muodostamana kokonaisuutena Napoleonin sodista 1990-luvun alkuun.

Viiden maan ‑ kyllä, Islantikin on mukana ‑ 200 vuoden historian puristaminen 190 tekstisivunm raameihin ei ole ollut helppo tehtävä. Mutta kirjoittaja on selvinnyt urakastaan kunnialla ja selvästikin hänellä on ollut hauskaa löytöretkellään.

Pienet epätarkkuudet on helppo antaa anteeksi. ruotsin kuningas piti helmikuussa 1940 meidän talvisotaamme käsittelevän puheen. Puheen todellisesta sisällöstä ulkomainen lukija saattaa saada Griffithsin tekstin pohjalta väärän käsityksen. Suomen Neuvostoliitolle suorittamamien sotakorvausten dollarimäärä on otettu reippaasti yläkanttiin. Tosin suomalaiset tätä virhettä tuskin kauheasti paheksuvat. Tai sitä, ett kirjoittaja itsepäisesti viljelee suomalaisten mainetta kovina ryyppääjinä. Ehkäpä tämä on otettava kunnianosoituksena, koska kirjoittaja edustaa maata ja kansakuntaa, joka myöskään ei sylje lasiin.

Kaikille, jotka haluavat nopeasti tutustua Suomeen pohjoismaisena maana, kirja on erinomainen lähtökohta. Kun on lukenut Griffithsin ja käynyt suomessa muutaman kerran voikin jo siirtyä Matti Klingen ja Max Jakobsonin teoksiin.

**********

Migration

Arto Latvakangas

Suomalainen historian harrastaja tarttuu epäluuloisen uteliaana Australiass julkaistuun teokseen, jonka kansikuvaan on ahdettu Skandianavian parin viime vuosisadan historiaa symboloivia suttuisia piirustuksia. Tony Griffiths on kuitenkin tunnustettu modernin Australian historian tuntija ja lajissaan ammattimies. Osin brittiläinen koulutus ja mm. Irlannin taloushistoriaan liittyvä tutkimustyö ovat antaneet perspektiiviä myös Pohjois-Euroopan historian tarkasteluun.

Suomalaisen on ehkä aihetta olla tyytyväinen siihen, ettei Skandinavian käsitettä kummenmmin teoksessa perustella. Historialliselta pohjalta tarkastelun rajat ulottuvat Grönlannista Huippuvuorille ja Suomen itärajalta Tanskan etelärajalle.

Teoksen englanninkielisen kirjallisuuden luettellokin imartelee suomalaista lukijaa. Suomeen littyvää kirjallisuutta on moninkertainen määrä Tankskaan littyvään verrattuna. Myös Ruotsia ja Norjaa koskevia nimikkeitä on vähemmän kuin suomeen historiaan vittaavia.

Griffiths sanoo testanneensa kirjallisia lähteitään kentällä mahdollisimman paljon. Vaikka pääläheitä epäilemättä ovatkin englanninkieliset tutkimukset, kirjoittaj on onnistunut hankkimaan myös melkoisen kontaktiverkon ja ennättänyt tutustua omakohtaisesti Skandinaviaan. Ote näkyy tekstin eloisuutena.

Keskeiset henkilöhistoriat Griffiths sulattaa keventäviksi, mutta kokonaisuutta selittäviksi osiksi. Kierkegaard, Ibsen, Nobel, Mannerheim ja Sibelius kuuluvat asiaan, mutta koulukirjat lukeneelle on virkistävää huomata, minkälaisia näköaloja historiaan tarjoaa Fazerin tunnettu nimi, johon hakemistossa viitataan kaksitoista kertaa. Luultavasti suomalaista kulttuuria kuvataankin teoksessa totuttua enemmän satavuotiaan helsinkiläis-konditorian näkökulmasta. Nälkävuodet, suo, kuokka ja Jussi jäävät vähemmälle.

Skandinavian kaksi viimeistä vuosisataa pyritään esittämään suppeassa teoksessa totaalisesti eurooppalaisissa ja globaaleissa yhteyuksissään. Tavoite on melkoinen, kun ajatellaan jo valtiollisen järjestelmän muutoksia tuona aikana: Norja irrotettiin Tankskan alaisuudesta Ruotsin yhteyteen ja itsenäistyi, Suomi liitettliin Venäjään ja itsenäistyi. Maailmanpolitiikan kentäalle Skandinavia sovitetaan Napoleonin sodista 1990-luvun epävarmoihin näköaloihin.

Kuvittamaton teos elää sujuvan ja tiiviin tekstinsä varassa. Keskeiset linjat on vedetty varmasti, joskin paikoin pinnallisesti. Käsikirjoituksen luetuttaminen paikallisilla asiantuntijoilla olisi karsinut yksityiskohtien nautittavuutta häiritseviä lukuisia epätarkkuuksia. Varsinaista tutkimuksellista merkitystä teoksella tuskin on. Tasapoulisuutensa, oivallustensa ja kokonaisvaltaisen otteensa vuoksi kirja on kuitenkin miellyttävää luettavaa perusasiat hallitsevillekin. Yhteisestä taustasta kiinnostuneelle Pohjolan ulkopuolella elävälle skandinaaville ja Skandinaviasta kiinnostuneille ajanmukainen teos on varmasti tervetullut.

**********

Hufstadbladet; Nordenbilden i Australien

Ulf-Erik Slotte, Finnish Ambassador to Australia

Kunskaperna om de nordiska länderna är av lättforstaeliga skäl relativt minimala i Australien. Det väldiga avstandet samt det faktum att undervisningen i australiensiska skolor lägger vikt vid det egna omradet och den brittiska världen gör att vara länder forblir relativt okända. Det finns visserligen en allmänt positiv känsla for Norden och den växande turismen har gjort att allt fler australienser ända besökt nagra av de nordiska länderna.

Tony Griffiths, en australienser av irländsk härstamning som undervisar i nordisk historia i Flinders universitet i södra Australien, har nu forsatt sig att bota kunskapsbristerna. I en nyligen utkommen bok Scandinavia har han pa ett initierat och underhallande sätt behandlat de nordiska länderna. Rubriken till trots ges ocksa finland lika mycket utrymme som de tre andra länderna, medan Island tyvär blott helt kortfattat omnämnes pa ett par sidor. Griffiths behandlar ett land i taget, men med manga hänvisningar till forhallandena till grannländerna och ocksa till utvecklingen i Europa och i världen överhuvud.

Författeran har plöjt igenom ett väldigt material och pa ett lyckat sätt komprimerat det till en bade lättläst och innehallsrik bok, ehuru vissa forenklingar kanske maste accepteras som oundvikliga. Han blandar pa ett fascinerance sätt samman historia, politick och kulture, och ger dessutom ett antal vinjetter av de nordiska poertalfigurerna fran dessa omraden. Författarens balanserade presentation är värd beröm, ehuru det forefaller som om han nagot skulle nedvärdera det svenska samhället och ironisera över det i onödan. Troligen har Roland Huntfords inflytande gjort sig märkbart.

En del misstag kan dock papekas. Stauning i Danmark var inte ar 1924 den forsta nordiska socialdemokratiska statsministern utan det var Hjalmar Branting i Sverige ar 1920. Den ryska tsaren blev inte storfurste av Finland pa 1890-talet utan i böran av den ryska tiden. Antalet senatorer i Finland var inte tjugo utan ca hälften. Immanuel Nobel flyttade inte till Ryssland ar 1842 utan fem ar tidigare. Lantdagen i Helsingfors hade ar 1906 inte 190 utan 200 representanter, Griffiths ahr tappat bort 8 gammalfinnar och 2 kristliga. Mängden beslagtagen alkohol i Finland ar 1921 kan ine pa nagot sätt ha uppgatt till 72 miljoner tier utan bör ha varit betydligt mindre. Paasikivi blev president 1946 och inte aret innan.

Det ger en skev bild att säga att Mannerheim avgick som president i protest mot krigsansvarighetsdomarna. Finska och svenskan jämställdes tidigare än 1902.

Nagot fragande ställer man sig infor uppgifterna att spetälskan var vanlig i Norge i början av 1800-talet och att de anställda vid Carlsbergs bryggeri har 3 1/2 liter öl om dagen i löneforman. Karan över Norden är onödigt spartansk och trots att Griffiths nämner att Vänern är Nordens största sjö, sa är blott inritad. Att Runeberg verkade vid Porvoo lyceum'ser ocksa litet underligt ut. Nordiska radet nämns men däremot inte Nordiska ministerradet. Den ojämnt satta marginalen ser märkvärdig ut i dessa datorernas dagar. Mobergs emigrant-epos är i fyra och inte i tre delar.

Förmodligen finns det andra felaktigheter ocksa, men denne anmälare vill i varje fall hellre se till de positiva sidorna och uttrycka sin glädje över att boken kommit till och fel av ovanämnd karaktär spelar en ganska liten roll for den australiensiske läsaren och kan säkert lätt rättas till i foljand upplaga. Man läser boken med intresse och behallning och Griffiths är att gratulera till sin bok, som gärna kan sättas i handen pa vilken som helst engelskkunnig besökare i Norden.

**********

West Australian

Review by Peter Morgan

A timely study of Scandinavian History. In the context of the changes in central Europe and the Soviet Union, the appearance of a popular history of Scandinavia is timely. This work was supported by various government bodies, as well as universities and businesses dealing with the Scandinavian countries. The idea behind the book is a good one. Australian academic Tony Griffiths presents a "package" of Scandinavian history and culture from the Napoleonic period onwards. Scandinavia exists as a geographical and perhaps cultural concept for many of us. Scandinavia shows us how Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland have developed both internally and in their relationships to each other. Since the Napoleonic era the Scandinavian countries have played an important role in the politics and culture of northern Europe. The question of national identity dominates the history of the Scandinavian lands in the 19th century. Pan-Scandinavianism was soon replaced by the romantic nationalism which swept through Europe at the time of the 1848 revolutions. Territorial disputes broke out between Denmark and Prussia over Schleswig and Holstein, and Finnish nationals fought against Russian imperialism. Sweden and Norway developed the love-hate relationship that has lasted into our own time. Particularly interesting for me, in view of the present problems in the Soviet Union, was Griffiths' description of the struggle of the Finns against Russian dominance during the 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to mapping political developments, Griffiths ties in social and cultural movements and shows how figures such as Ibsen, Strindberg, Kierkegaard, Munch, Grieg, Sibelius and Nielsen influenced and were influenced by the history of their lands.

Many histories go into the writing of "history" ‑ and simplification proceeds at the expense of accuracy. Griffiths provides a great deal of information. But the reduction of a complex history into 200 pages is a daunting task.

Occasionally coherence is stretched when the author tries to bring too broad a sweep of history into one or two sentences. Nevertheless, Griffiths manages to write history which is informative, interesting and readable.

**********