Reconstructing Minds and Landscapes

Mental and material reconstruction was an ongoing process after World War II, and it still is. This volume combines a detailed treatment of post-war cultural reconstruction in Finnish Lapland - a region on the geographical and historical margins of its nation-state - with comparative case studies of silent post-war memory from other European countries The contributors shed light on key aspects of cultural reconstruction generally: disruptions of national narratives, difficulties of post-war cultural demobilisation, sites of memory, visual narratives of post-war reconstruction, and manifestations of trans-generational experiences of cultural reconstruction.
Exploration of the less conspicuous aspects of mental reconstruction reveals various forms of post-war silence and silencing which have halted or hindered different groups of people in their mental return to peace. Rather than focusing on the "executive level" of material reconstruction, the volume turns its gaze towards those who experienced the return to peace in the mental, societal, and historical margins: members of ethnic, religious, and cultural minorities, women, and children.
The chapters draw on archival and other original sources, personal memories, autobiographical interpretations, and academic debate. The volume is relevant for scholars and advanced students in the fields of cultural history, art history, and cultural studies.

Marja Tuominen is a professor of cultural history at the University of Lapland. T. G. Ashplant is a visiting professor at the Centre for Life-Writing Research, King's College London. Tiina Harjumaa is a doctoral candidate and part-time teacher in cultural history at the University of Lapland.

Introduction Part 1: Reconstructing Hopes, Memories and Narratives 1. Post-War Cultural Reconstruction and the Nation: Some Comparative Considerations 2. Reconstructing Saami Culture in Post-War Finland 3. The Politics of Silences: Women's War Experiences and the Discourses of Reconstruction in Poland (1945-1948) 4. "This Is My Past": War, Memory, and Forgiveness in Rosa Liksom's Novel The Colonel's Wife 5. Petsamo: A Region Lost, a People Ignored 6. Less Holy?: Reconstructing Eastern Orthodoxy in Post-War Finnish Lapland 7. Reconstructed Landscapes of Northern Youth: Reading the Autobiographies of Finnish Youth, 1945-1960 8. Reconstructing Haunted Places: Postmemory and Ancestral Homelands Part II: Reconstructing Landscapes and Mindscapes 9. Prison Island: Place of Remembrance or Place of Parley? 10. The Artist's Gaze Turns to the Landscape and Wilderness 11. "On the Border Between Past and Future": Two Male Artists of Lapland and Their Relationship to Nature 12. Reviving the Legacy of Reconstruction-Period Type-Planned Houses