'vyborg Is Ours': Tracing the Postmemory of a Lost Finnish City

This paper presents the first results from the author's doctoral research project. The object of study is the ways in which the formerly Finnish borderland city of Viipuri (today Vyborg, Russia) is collectively remembered in Finland. In popular Finnish media representations Vyborg's Finnish era (1917-1939, 1941-1944) is often conceptualized in terms of nostalgic longing. An idealized, mythic, 'golden Finnish Vyborg' is presented in stark contrast to its sudden, traumatic, loss during World War II and its current Russian identity. Memories of Vyborg in Finland are informed and shaped by the loss of the city and by understanding Vyborg as, historically, a Swedish / Finnish place, an 'outpost of the West against the East.'

The paper also offers the first results from focus groups held with Finnish high school students to discover their knowledge and opinions about Finland in World War II and about Vyborg: What postmemories do they claim and express? Do they feel that 'Vyborg is ours'? The paper draws on Marianne Hirsch's concept of postmemory as well as other theories about collective and cultural memory. As the author works within the discipline of Human Geography, theories of bordering, othering and Anssi Paasi's theory of spatial socialization are also employed in the analysis.