Yesterday Finns celebrated their 88th independence day. Finland gained independence and ceased to be a part of Russia on December 6th 1917. To commemorate the day Finns lit two blue and white candles on their window sills on the evening of December 6th and some even join the independence day marches in cities across Finland. Finland declared it’s independence soon after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Since Finland’s independence was approved by Bolshevist Russia there was no armed conflict between the now two countries. However, in 1918, Finland experienced a brief but rather bitter civil war. The war was fought between ‘the whites’, who were supported by the Imperial Germany (in Germany they have even already chosen the new Finnish king as the whites decided that Finland should be a kingdom), and ‘the reds’, who were supported by the Bolshevist Russia.

Another integral part of Finnish independence day celebration is the showing of the movie The Unknown Soldier (Tuntamaton Sotilas) - a three-plus hour movie based on a historical novel by Väinö Linna about the winter war between Russia and Finland in the winter of 1939. The winter war was an extremely important moment in the history of Finland when despite being greatly outnumbered, the comparatively small Finnish army beat the Russians. Without a doubt the winter war was an important moment in Finnish history, but it seems like showing The Unknown Soldier is also a good way to remind the nation of their national pride without touching the still rather raw wounds and memories of more distant civil war that followed the proclamation of independence. The civil war beginning in 1918 left an enormous wound in the Finnish nation as just in recent years has their been the beginning of public debates about the war and accompanying events that resulted in tens of thousands dead and hundreds thousands displaced people.

Nevertheless it seems that the most important event celebrating the independence is a large party held in the presidential palace in Helsinki by the president of Finland, currently Tarja Halonen. And in the mind of the Finnish people this party has become synonymous with the independence day itself as it is probably the single most important event for most Finns on that day. Of course there are other events, like the itsenäisyyspäivän juhlajumalanpalvelus (the independence day celebration mass) - the mass in the Helsinki cathedral which was attended by the Finnish president Tarja Halonen although she is not even a member of any church - but everything the people seem to really care about is the itsenäisyyspäivä linnanjuhlat (independence day party in the presidential palace).

For at least a month before the actual party takes place, the yellow press is preoccupied with speculations about who is going to be invited to the party and, of all possible banalities, they are discussing who is going to wear what dress (some celebrities even go so far as casting public polls asking people which dress suits them better literally asking them what they should wear). One can only imagine how long they are going to be writing about what happened at the party itself - who wore what, who came with whom and plethora of other gossip nonsense. As in the today’s papers one could already read that the extreme right-wing member of the Finnish parliament Tony Halme drank a bit too much of the secret punch. Secret what?

Yep, the secret punch: the punch that is served at the itsenäisyyspäivä linnanjuhlat and the recipe for which is a closely guarded secret. One could easily call this the Finnish Coca-Cola recipe as the only thing that is actually known about it is that the beverage is of course alcoholic (come on people, this is Finland after all) and that it contains no more, no less but exactly 12% of alcohol (which again is a very important fact). I wonder if they have the same regime for the only two people who know the recipe as the infamous Coca-Cola company does that these two lucky people who have the privilege of mixing the secret punch at their home parties are not allowed to board the same plane.

Of course, it goes without saying that people spend enormous amounts of money for their clothes, makeup and hairdos all of which are really harshly criticized by Finns. Last year, for instance, the post-party talk of the event was the ‘nipple scandal’ (which the press labeled nothing less then ‘nipplegate’) when a pop singer Jonna Tervomaa wore such a dress that clearly her nipples were visible. The press grabbed it, not really realizing that it might have been a clever albeit stale marketing stunt and that the young chick just wants to sell more CDs. Duh!

Happy belated independence day, Finland!

Mladen

PS: Make sure to visit the gallery for the images from the front and linnanjuhlat.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 7th, 2005 at 8:09 pm and is filed under Culture, Finland, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.