Stalin’s Rubbish

The Ingrian Finnish History of Suffering and the Processing of the Past in Jalo Rowéus’ Life Narration

Authors

• Nika Potinkara Helsingin yliopisto

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30666/elore.132007

Keywords:

Ingrians, reminiscing, autobiographical approach, discourse research, therapeutic discourse

Abstract

The article examines the life narration by Jalo Rowéus, born into an Ingrian Finnish family in the Soviet Union, who migrated to Sweden as a refugee in the 1940s. In Rowéus’ writings and oral records, his early childhood in Ingria as well as the collective history of Ingrian Finns as a persecuted ethnic group in the Soviet Union are presented as factors that played a crucial role in shaping his later life and self. Rowéus’ narration reflects a culturally shared narrative of suffering, while it can also be viewed as part of the more widespread therapeutic discourse. Processing the difficult past is portrayed as a form of mental work, aiming at rediscovering the authentic self, becoming complete as a person and freeing oneself from the burden of the inter-generational history of suffering.