This article focuses on the use of terms and concepts related to the nationalist movements by the Finnish security police during the Cold War. The key objective of the security police was to protect the legal order of the state and monitor the groups and phenomena potentially harmful to that cause. The previous experience regarding the rise of the radical nationalism and fascism in Finland in the 1930s and the 1947 Paris peace treaties were the historical and legal contexts within which the interpretations were made. As the article shows, interpretation made by the security police, however, relied occasionally on a limited understanding about the evolving far-right scene, thus producing terminological confusions, and in some cases even evidently biased interpretative patterns may be observed. The article also studies how terms and concepts produce differing evaluations and differing understandings regarding the phenomena at hand. The analysis is supplemented by a short excursion on the other side exploring how the far-right used the terms in order to avoid police scrutiny.
Culture and community building are an essential part of the appeal of the far-right and fascist movements. Studying their cultural products is therefore important for a deeper understanding of the movement and their modus operandi. One elemental part of their culture are the so-called
zines, small-scale do-it-yourself magazines intended for scene members. In certain respects, the far-right zines, skinzines, follow the forms and trends of other underground publications, especially punk-zines, with which they also share the resistance identity as stigmatized and marginalized
actors. However, the political visions in skinzines are more or less opposite to ‘democratic zines’, creating certain tension between their political goals and the general media logic. In this article, I will explore a Finnish skinzine Ukonvasama and their community, analysing
the efforts to build a nationalist movement and to mobilize support in relation to a retreat to nostalgic counter-culture they also promote. Ukonvasama is both a nostalgic project of former skinheads and a political project of far-right activists.
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