The Town as a Landscape in the Mind - Spatial and Social Dimensions in Childhood Remembrances from Helsinki in the 1950s
Keywords:
urban environment, placeness, childhood memoriesAbstract
ln the years 1995-1996 I collected stories written by older and middle-aged citizens of Helsinki. The aim was to gather first-hand remembrances as a source for the ethnological part of the History of Helsinki since 1945. The stories were written as responses to my questions.
My reading of the collected material, for the most part childhood remembrances from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s of almost 250 people in Helsinki makes it clear how time becomes crystallised into a location, a place. As such, it was no surprise that the answers to my questionnaires focused on places, because both in 1995 and in 1996, correspondents were asked about housing, homes, town blocks, the neighbourhood, the distance from the centre, social networks and seasonal variations. The questionnaire explicitly dealt with the history of the town. The time span was to cover the period from after the war to the present day. The answers constitute a rich full-coverage series of childhood remembrances from various parts of Helsinki (see map below). The bulk of the material, more than 100 descriptions, refers to the core area of the town.
