FINNISH AMERICAN IDENTITY AND STRATEGIES FOR ITS DETERMINATION IN FINNISH AMERICAN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

Abstract

The article focuses on one of the pressing problems of modern humanitarian knowledge - the problem of self-identification of hybrid cultures, in particular, the culture of the Finnish Americans. The ethnic diversity of the United States leads to a constant intersection of various cultures, giving rise to the uniqueness of contemporary American literary life. National, cultural, personal identity associated with the revision of the traditions that were assimilated in their diaspora acts as the main problem of multiculturalism - the ideology of plurality and diversity. Self-identification strategies may include the definition of one's religious, ethnic, gender determination. Very often, the community's collective trauma and collective memory of the historical past can act as a strategy. The main strategies of ethnic and cultural self-identification of Finnish American literature are represented by the collective memory, collective trauma, “Finnishness”, and the national Finnish epic “Kalevala”, which is used as a source of archetypal images and poetic imagination. Basing on a number of works by Finnish American writers of the second half of the 20 and 21 centuries in different genres (science fiction, historical novel, short stories), the article examines the creative application of the Finnish epic “Kalevala”, integrated into the experience of American existence as one of the main strategies for self-identification of its own culture, which is built on the dialogical interaction of the Anglo-Saxon and Finnish cultures. The article actualizes the problems of the interrelations of the two cultures, the transformation of archetypal images, the reflection of collective memory in the works of contemporary Finnish American writers.