The exchange was beyond Kate’s Finnish language abilities, even though they’ve improved over time. “What was that about?” she asks.
I explain in such a way that Mary and John can understand as well. “Mike’s mother tongue is English, so like yours, his accent is soft when he speaks Finnish. When Russians speak Finnish they also have a soft accent. Most Finns have never heard a person with English as a mother tongue speak Finnish, so the drunk made a natural assumption and called Mike a goddamned fucking Russian. A bad mistake. Mike, not a Russian and displeased to be called one, got pissed off and said, ‘Yeah, I’m a goddamned fucking Russian, and I hope my grandfather killed your grandfather during the Winter War.’ That’s the point when the drunk knew he was in serious trouble and left while he could.”
“Isn’t Finland somehow related to Russia?” Mary asks.
Now I wince. “No, it’s not.”
John sighs, drinks his second kossu in one go. “Mary, Finland is neither part of Russia, nor is it part of Scandinavia proper. It’s classified as a Nordic country and is an entity of its own.”
“I take it Finns don’t care for Russians,” Mary says.
“No,” I say, “in general, we don’t.”
“Why?”
Kate has told me John is a Ph. D. candidate in history and a graduate teaching assistant. An educated man. He explains. “Finland was a long-standing Swedish possession, but twice during the eighteenth century, Russia invaded. Thousands of Finns were killed or forced into slavery. In 1809, Sweden ceded Finland to the Russian Empire. In 1899, the czar embarked on a policy called the Russification of Finland. Russian was made the official language, Finnish legislative bodies were rendered powerless, its army was incorporated into Russia’s. The czar tried to destroy their culture and Finland resisted.”
John’s knowledge surprises me. It speaks to me that, historian or not, he spent the time to acquire it.
I take up the story. “We declared independence in 1917, but had a civil war the following year-Bolshevik Reds backed by Socialist Russia versus anti-Socialist Whites, as they were called, backed by Imperialist Germany. Like your own American Civil War, it was sometimes brother against brother. The Whites won, but the result was tens of thousands dead, poverty and starvation.”
“You sound passionate about it,” John says.
“You would be surprised, even after nearly a century, what strong emotions the Civil War still dredges up in us.”
“What was the Winter War?” Mary asks.
“Kari,” John asks, “would you allow me to pontificate?”
“Be my guest.”
“During the Second World War, Finland fought three separate wars,” he says. “In the Winter War, Finland fought alone and it kicked Russian ass, but in fact lost, because it ceded territory in the peace agreement. The Soviets invaded Finland on November 30, 1939. The Soviets had thousands of tanks, Finland had thirty-two. The USSR attacked with upwards of a million men. Finns slaughtered them, killed five Russians for every Finn and beat them back. Finland signed a peace treaty with the USSR in March, but was at war with them again in 1941.”
“I’m impressed,” I say.