One hundred years of reconciliation

Four generations ago Finland experienced one of the most violent civil wars in modern European history. Labelled ‘Europe's most clear-cut class war in the twentieth century,’ the Finnish Civil War of 1918 left this newly independent country divided to its core, and its fault lines remain visible to this day.¹ The war was characterised by—and is remembered for—the use of terror tactics and atrocity crimes. According to current estimates, there were over 36,000 war-related deaths during the year 1918.² This amounted to roughly one per cent of the population in a country of just over three million people. A vast majority of the casualties occurred outside combat, as the result of extra- and quasi-judicial executions, malnutrition and disease. The main division of the conflict was socio-economic and reflected the class and ideological lines of industrialising Finland.³ Due to its divisive and brutal character, the war of 1918 has never become a seamless part of the Finnish national myth and it lacks a distinct culture of public remembrance in an otherwise cohesive society.⁴ At various times during the past century, this conflict has been subject to partisan commemoration, folklore, collective amnesia, reparation policies and truth-seeking.