Ideology and nationalism: The Finnish move to independence, 1809–1918

Abstract

Sociologists often dismiss the emergence of unique nationalist identities as reflections of changing structural elements, namely the political and economic. In this article I view nationalism as a socially created and sustained ideological discourse. From this orientation, the importance of attending to cultural or symbolic constructions within nationalist movements becomes more pronounced. Thompson's (1987) re‐orien‐tational conceptions of ideology are used as an interpretative frame to analyse the construction of nineteenth‐century Finnish nationalism. Through this theoretical focus on language, the Kalevala, a book of Finnish folk poems, can be seen as a socio‐historical phenomenon amidst human conflict. This collection of poems provided the necessary discourse used to disrupt the previous Swedish cultural and emergent Russian political dominance. Symbolizing the invented culture, the Kalevala served as the basis for popular Finnishness, as well as politically mobilizing critical ideological assertions. The creation, transmission, and contestation of social meaning, through the use of language and material culture, specifically embodied in the Kalevala, is traced throughout the Finnish struggle for independence.

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