Review of LAND OF SNOW AND ASHES by Petra Rautiainen

 3.5 Stars

This is the third book I’ve read this year about the Sámi people.  Earlier I read Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2023/02/review-of-stolen-by-ann-helen.html) and The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylväinen (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2023/08/review-of-end-of-drum-time-by-hanna.html).  This novel focuses on the crimes committed against the Sámi people by both the Nazis and the Finnish government in the 1940s.

There are two timelines.  One is 1944 when Finland was aligned with Nazi Germany and allowed Hitler’s forces to fight against Stalin in the north of the country, though it was about to sign a peace treaty with Russia that required Finland to eject all German troops from its territory.  During this period, Väinö Remes, a Finnish interpreter/guard in a Nazi-run detention camp in the Lapland town of Inari, keeps a diary in which he records what he witnesses.

The second timeline begins in 1947.  Inkeri Lindqvist, a photographer and journalist, comes to northern Finland to write about the reconstruction, but she is also there to determine what happened to her husband Kaarlo who was a prisoner-of-war held by the Nazis.  Inkeri ends up with a tenant named Olavi Heiskanen who is mentioned in Remes’s journal.  Is there a connection?  Does he know what happened to Kaarlo? 

The treatment of the Sámi is a focus.  The Nazis “had been taught that these primitive northern hunter-gatherer peoples were a relic, the genetic dregs left behind by human civilization, that they were defined as an evolutionary anomaly caused by the prevailing environmental circumstances.”  So the Sámi are treated as subhuman:  Remes writes that “the Nazis have forcibly expropriated most of the herding cooperatives’ reindeer, which is presumably one reason why relations between the Nazis and the local communities here have begun to fray.”  When the Germans retreated from Lapland, they sought to destroy as much infrastructure as possible, burning down entire villages; Inkeri is told about women and children killed and villages “pillaged, burnt, destroyed . . . Ash hovered above the bodies.”

The Finnish government also exploited the Sámi.  For instance, they aided expropriation of the reindeer.  When Remes arrives at Inari, the commander of the camp asks him if he believes in a Greater Finland and the primacy of the Finnish race, and the translator answers, “’It is imperative that we eradicate all foreign elements from among our Finnish brethren across the border so that our peoples may be properly educated and become upstanding citizens of a Greater Finland.’” 

Inkeri comes across a group of men in the school taking measurements and photographs of children.  Piera, a Sámi elder, tells her, “’It’s happened before, back in 1920.  Kajava [a Finnish doctor and racial researcher] sent his quacks up here to measure our skulls.  Stripped us all naked, they did, and took pictures from the front and the back.  They even photographed our eyeballs, dug up the graves on Inarinsaari and took the skulls away. . . . Seems the bastards are back.’”  Some cursory research led me to some of Yrjö Kajava’s writings: "Only by comparing all these many different characteristics (proportions of the head and body, the color of the hair and eyes) can one form an idea of the ideal type that is characteristic of a certain race or ideal type."  This certainly sounds like eugenics to me.

Much of what is described about the treatment of the Sámi reminded me of Canada’s treatment of its indigenous peoples.  The housing of Sámi children certainly made me think of residential schools in Canada.  Inkeri learns that “the children only see their parents twice a year . . . [so] the bonds between the children and their families and traditions become weaker over time.”  A new church is being built for Laplanders but Piera has issues with it:  “’you can’t sing hymns in Sámi in Finnish churches neither.  And I know for a fact it’ll be forbidden in this church too.  One word of Sámi is one too many.’”  Piera is upset about the loss of Sámi culture:  “’We used to be able to teach our children about our own way of life, how to live in the fells and hunt for food, to take only what you need and no more; how to see where the fowl have made their nests if you wanted to hunt them.’”  Obviously the Finnish government’s attempts to assimilate the Sámi continued after World War II. 

The book also provides an interesting perspective:  that of people who did not always agree with what was happening but had little choice.  Remes supports the Greater Finland agenda but he is uncomfortable with some of what he sees, especially prisoners going missing at night.  He is not the only one who later has to come to terms with what he did.  Inkeri is warned not to judge people too harshly for their actions during the war:  “’None of us knows the limits of our endurance, we don’t know when or how we will break.  But everybody breaks eventually.  It’s just a question of time.’” 

The mystery as to what happened to Kaarlo is not solved quickly.  Only towards the end do the revelations come.  The reader actually knows what happened because of the diary entries; Inkeri learns only some of what happened to her husband.  I was pleased that my guess as to Olavi’s involvement was confirmed; of course there are clues in his behaviour and interests. 

I know little of Finland’s history and so wish that I had read the Translator’s Afterword first.  It explains that for the Finns the war had three separate components.  I wish I had known about these separate conflicts before I read the novel.  I would have been less confused at times.  A map would also have been helpful. 

Though I found it difficult to like and connect to the main characters, I liked the book for its history lesson.  I learned about World War II events from the Finnish context, especially the destruction and subsequent reconstruction of Lapland.  Because of its subject matter, the novel is not an easy read, but it is certainly a worthwhile one.