White death: finnish world war two narrative and alternative heritage work in social media

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper discusses Finnish war commemoration in social media where the public connects with their history through wartime photography. The focus is on one Finnish social media site that chooses images out of the official Finnish military photography collection for posting. Through social media, the public can participate in heritage work themselves and these sites are becoming increasingly important in creating views of the nation’s past. The pages tend to repeat nationalistic narratives and recreate national myths. One important symbol in Finnish cultural imaginings is the colour white. In the imagery of World War Two, with Finnish soldiers dressed in white snow camouflage, it is used to emphasise the moral purity, innocence and victimhood of the nation. Such symbolism can distort understandings of the war, and the social media pages have become venues where ethnonationalism is maintained and even racist discourse accepted. I argue that more attention should be paid to photography in the construction of heritage narratives, and professionals should react to the kind of heritage invoked by the public in social media.