ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to examine the different ways the most traumatic event in the history of independent Finland, the 1918 Finnish Civil War, has been dealt with at different times in public and private forums. 1 The Civil War affected Finnish society at every level in a variety of deep and long-lasting ways, some of which can still be seen today. 2 In this chapter we will investigate the politics of memory in relation to the war. Our aim is to show that recollected narration, which includes folklore genres such as atrocity tales and belief legends, has played a major role in the social memory of the Civil War.
