In the Eye of the Storm - Life in Helsinki During the Interim Peace 1940-1941

After the Winter War, Helsinki entered a strange interlude: the rest of Europe was burning, yet Finland spoke of reconstruction. What did that mean in everyday life? What did the city look like, how did life recover - and what was it like to survive under rationing, wood-gas buses, and an ever-expanding war?

The lecture series spans two evenings:
6.10. From War to Peace - Helsinki 1940
20.10. From Peace to War - Helsinki 1941

The lecturer is docent Samu Nyström from the University of Helsinki, specializing in Finland's exceptional times and author of non-fiction books, radio documentaries, and podcasts on the subject.

Nyström also highlights how exceptional times - the corona era, the return of war to Europe - make the experiences of interim-period Helsinkians perhaps more familiar to us than one might initially think.