Rapport från Finland

Hellman, Carin Matilda Emelie

doi:10.1177/145507250402100111

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“…109 None of the men were punished. 110 The Swedish Brigade specifically was also put in charge of guarding prisoners in Tampere after the victory, where they witnessed, 111 and several volunteers participated in, the extensive mass executions that followed the White takeover. 112 Avoiding the executions was impossible, as they were so numerous and continued over such a long time, even civilians were constantly confronted by them.…”

Section: IVmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Swedish Brigade: From National Romantic Heroes to European Counter-Revolutionaries?

Kunkeler

2023

European History Quarterly

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This article analyzes the character and development of the Swedish Brigade, a small military volunteer unit in the Finnish Civil War of 1918, in the context of the European counter-revolution. Volunteers in the various civil wars following the Russian Revolution have been studied extensively before, but have largely focused on countries that participated in the First World War. This case study of the ‘White’ Swedish Brigade aims to highlight the importance of volunteers from neutral countries, and their specific role in the transnational counter-revolutionary movement. The Brigade was an ostensibly politically neutral unit, with a socially heterogeneous make-up. Heavily supported by the Swedish right-wing media, it was widely romanticized as a heroic effort to restore Sweden's honour by supporting the Finnish fight against the old Russian enemy, and defending the former Swedish province as a bulwark of Swedish culture, law and order against barbarism. While its political culture was steeped in a romanticized Finno-Swedish history and culture, shared by many of the volunteers, the brigadiers were quickly confronted by the realities of poor equipment and organization, political division, and above all an exceptionally brutal civil war and the morally degrading violence it entailed. Brigade archive documents and memoirs show that this quickly changed the character of the actual volunteer unit to contrast heavily with the right-wing press's romantic imagination. Additionally, through contacts with the Finnish and German military, and in the face of a Left Swedish critique of the Brigade as reactionary butchers, many of the volunteers reconceptualized their role in the civil war, not as one of heroic and historical significance for Sweden, but as part of a vicious European struggle against Bolshevism. This seems to some extent confirmed by their post-war history, which raises interesting questions about these volunteers’ roles among the new Right of interwar Europe.

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Section: IVmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Swedish Brigade: From National Romantic Heroes to European Counter-Revolutionaries?

Kunkeler

2023

European History Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Rapport från Finland

Cited by 1 publication

References 0 publications

The Swedish Brigade: From National Romantic Heroes to European Counter-Revolutionaries?

The Swedish Brigade: From National Romantic Heroes to European Counter-Revolutionaries?

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