ABSTRACT
This chapter has examined how progress and emotions are intertwined in the autobiographies written by Lappish people. The autobiographies reveal the lives of the people of Lapland lives that are often troubled and filled with anxiety. In the chapter, the Second World War is not analysed as such, but it had a profound effect on post-war life, and, accordingly, on the autobiographies covering that period. The war was a turning point in Finnish and Lapland history; the people of Lapland had to be evacuated twice during the war, and Finland's former allies 'the German troops' destroyed much of Lapland during their withdrawal in 1945. The ethnic and cultural contradictions present in Lapland and to an extent in all of northern Finland are often the subject of discussion in the national media and research institutions. The modernization of Lapland resulted in an increased interdependence between Lapland and the rest of Finland.
