Vyborg Castle as a Symbol of Power Institutions

In this article we focus on a remembered and imagined border: the changed border between Finland and Russia. We take as a case study the formerly Finnish now Russian town of Vyborg and its castle. The centuries-old castle has marked the limits of power in the Karelia region of the Swedish and Russia...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of power institutions in post-soviet societies
Main Authors: Karhu, Jani, Wells, Chloe
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Centre d'études et de recherche sur les sociétés et les institutions post-soviétiques 2018
Subjects:
Borders
Sites of Memory
Urban History
Generations
Postmemory
World War II
Finnish History
demo
litt
karelia*
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.4000/pipss.4339
http://journals.openedition.org/pipss/4339
Description
Summary:In this article we focus on a remembered and imagined border: the changed border between Finland and Russia. We take as a case study the formerly Finnish now Russian town of Vyborg and its castle. The centuries-old castle has marked the limits of power in the Karelia region of the Swedish and Russian empires, the Finnish state, the Soviet Union and now Russia. We argue, based on our empirical studies that, for older generations of Finns, the castle can be the “symbol of everything”, whereas for today's Finnish teens the castle is a meaningless image. Thus this article also looks at the boundaries between social generations in their understandings of Finnish history and territory.

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