The representation of Jews in the Finnish press before the second world war

Abstract

This article focuses on the representation of Jews in the Finnish general press before the Second World War. The data comprise of 313 texts gathered from newspapers and magazines that were targeted at general audiences and that appeared between the years 1821–1936. The texts were examined on three levels: First, the upfront topics pertaining to Jews were identified and grouped under 12 themes. Second, the tone of the mentions was evaluated as positive, neutral, or negative. Third, underlying assumptions, opinions and attitudes expressed aside the upfront topics were identified from the texts. Until recent decades, the idea in Finland has been that there was hardly any antisemitism in the country before or during the Second World War. As new research has emerged, this view has repeatedly been challenged. However, research on the general media’s representation of Jews has remained scarce. This article aims at filling this gap. In doing so, it offers a view on how Jews were seen and discussed in the Finnish society at large. So far, the studies on pre-WWII media have concluded that antisemitism was limited to far-right or ultranationalist papers. This article ends up with the opposite conclusion.

From a young Jewish model to a Salvation Army Officer

“…(Torvinen 1989). A recent study by Sanna Ryynänen on the representation of Jews in the Finnish press before the Second World War (Ryynänen 2023) points out that in several periodicals of the time, the conversion of Jews to Christianity was often discussed as something that was 'expected' and as the only 'help' that could be provided to Jews. At the same time, conversion to Judaism was deemed bizarre and unlikely.…”