Search results for "henkinen maanpuolustus"

Kun ryssä löi vyötärön alapuolelle : urheilu ja maanpuolustus talvisodan aikana

2014

This article analyses how the role of sportsmen as defenders of the country was seen during the Winter War (1939–1940) and how their performance as soldiers was evaluated by sports experts. The image of the Finnish sportsman (cf. Paavo Nurmi) as physically and mentally particularly fit type of soldier was disseminated by the Finnish sports journal Suomen Urheilulehti and the characteristics of the Finnish sportsmen as soldiers were compared with the ‘average’ soldiers and the attacking Russians, ‘Ruskies’, the Red Army soldiers. ‘Ruskie’, in Finnish ryssä, is a term of abuse to designate Alterity that could never be domesticated, hateful and fearful Otherness beyond history for the Finn. On…