Ulla Savolainen (PhD, title of Docent) works as a university lecturer and a researcher at the University of Helsinki, Department of Cultures. She is a folklorist specializing in memory studies, oral history, and narrative research, with an interest in experiences and expressions related to (forced) migration, transnationality, and materiality.
Savolainen's current research project focuses on memories and experiences of Stalinist repression and displacement of Ingrian Finns. She has analyzed the mnemonic capacities of e.g. memoirs, fiction, museum exhibitions, and photographs and explored the political and aesthetic values and ideologies related to memory in culture more broadly. Previously,Savolainen has researched oral histories of internments of German and Hungarian citizens in Finland in 1944–1946 as well as the reception of compensation for past injustice. Savolainen's doctoral dissertation (2015) focused on the life writings of former Karelian child evacuees in Finland and the poetics of life writing and reminiscing.
Savolainen is the chair of the Finnish Oral History Network (FOHN) and a co-chair of MSA Nordic. She has published her research in e.g. Memory Studies, Narrative Inquiry, Journal of American Folklore, Oral History, Ethnologia Europaea, and Poetics Today.
Savolainen's current research project focuses on memories and experiences of Stalinist repression and displacement of Ingrian Finns. She has analyzed the mnemonic capacities of e.g. memoirs, fiction, museum exhibitions, and photographs and explored the political and aesthetic values and ideologies related to memory in culture more broadly. Previously,Savolainen has researched oral histories of internments of German and Hungarian citizens in Finland in 1944–1946 as well as the reception of compensation for past injustice. Savolainen's doctoral dissertation (2015) focused on the life writings of former Karelian child evacuees in Finland and the poetics of life writing and reminiscing.
Savolainen is the chair of the Finnish Oral History Network (FOHN) and a co-chair of MSA Nordic. She has published her research in e.g. Memory Studies, Narrative Inquiry, Journal of American Folklore, Oral History, Ethnologia Europaea, and Poetics Today.
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Articles by Ulla Savolainen
In this article, I examine the intertextuality of reminiscence writings of Karelian evacuees in Finland. The main topics of these writings are the two journeys of evacuation from the ceded Karelia to Finland, which writers experienced as children during and after the Second World War, and journeys back to the region of their childhood, which became possible after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the case of negotiations surrounding spatiotemporal distance and the creation of bridges between the past and the present, I argue that intertextuality plays a crucial but somewhat underanalyzed role in reminiscing. In this article, I examine the intertextuality of reminiscence writings of Kare-lian evacuees who experienced forced displacement within their own country. These reminiscences were written by elderly persons evacuated from Karelia as children and produced in the context of a thematic collection campaign organized by the Finn-ish Karelian League in collaboration with the Finnish Literature Society's Folklore Archive in 2004. The reminiscences of Karelian evacuees deal with questions of place and belonging; they are about home, losing home, and returning home. The main topics of these writings concern the two evacuation journeys from the ceded Karelia to Finland, which writers experienced during the Second World War. In addition to memories of childhood evacuation journeys, these writings include descriptions of brief visits back to Russian Karelia following the collapse of the Soviet Union decades after the evacuations. In this article, I primarily concentrate my discussion on the topic of returning to the place of the childhood home decades later. Despite a broad range of research connecting migration and diaspora, 1 the linguistic and poetic dimensions of migrant narratives have not yet gained enough analytical attention (see BenEzer 2004:30). In this article, I offer a complementary perspective on migration and diaspora by turning the focus on the intertextual dimensions of diasporic reminiscing. I ask what kinds of poetic and narrative conventions illustrate
Many meanings of the childhood evacuation journey:
Narrative strategies in reminiscence writings
This article focuses on the reminiscence writings of Finnish Karelian child evacuees about the evacuation journey that they experienced in their childhood. The methodological framework of this article is based on Mikhail Bakhtin’s ideas of the dialogicality of the language and the genre’s twofold nature. The research method is based on narratology and it consists of the analysis of the temporal levels of narration and writers’
positions. The evacuation journey is described in the writings as a concrete transition between places, an ongoing personal process, a metaphor for eternal homelessness and
a central borderline that divides life into times before and after the evacuation. The reminiscences of the evacuation journey manifest three recurrent narrative strategies, which are 1) the fact and event oriented narrative strategy, 2) the self-reflective narrative strategy, and 3) the literary narrative strategy. Narrative strategies constitute the practice of the writers, which they use in order to compile their writings. The concept of narrative strategies enables us to understand the reminiscence writings without simplifying their complex character too much.
Book Reviews by Ulla Savolainen
Seminar Reports by Ulla Savolainen
In this article, I examine the intertextuality of reminiscence writings of Karelian evacuees in Finland. The main topics of these writings are the two journeys of evacuation from the ceded Karelia to Finland, which writers experienced as children during and after the Second World War, and journeys back to the region of their childhood, which became possible after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the case of negotiations surrounding spatiotemporal distance and the creation of bridges between the past and the present, I argue that intertextuality plays a crucial but somewhat underanalyzed role in reminiscing. In this article, I examine the intertextuality of reminiscence writings of Kare-lian evacuees who experienced forced displacement within their own country. These reminiscences were written by elderly persons evacuated from Karelia as children and produced in the context of a thematic collection campaign organized by the Finn-ish Karelian League in collaboration with the Finnish Literature Society's Folklore Archive in 2004. The reminiscences of Karelian evacuees deal with questions of place and belonging; they are about home, losing home, and returning home. The main topics of these writings concern the two evacuation journeys from the ceded Karelia to Finland, which writers experienced during the Second World War. In addition to memories of childhood evacuation journeys, these writings include descriptions of brief visits back to Russian Karelia following the collapse of the Soviet Union decades after the evacuations. In this article, I primarily concentrate my discussion on the topic of returning to the place of the childhood home decades later. Despite a broad range of research connecting migration and diaspora, 1 the linguistic and poetic dimensions of migrant narratives have not yet gained enough analytical attention (see BenEzer 2004:30). In this article, I offer a complementary perspective on migration and diaspora by turning the focus on the intertextual dimensions of diasporic reminiscing. I ask what kinds of poetic and narrative conventions illustrate
Many meanings of the childhood evacuation journey:
Narrative strategies in reminiscence writings
This article focuses on the reminiscence writings of Finnish Karelian child evacuees about the evacuation journey that they experienced in their childhood. The methodological framework of this article is based on Mikhail Bakhtin’s ideas of the dialogicality of the language and the genre’s twofold nature. The research method is based on narratology and it consists of the analysis of the temporal levels of narration and writers’
positions. The evacuation journey is described in the writings as a concrete transition between places, an ongoing personal process, a metaphor for eternal homelessness and
a central borderline that divides life into times before and after the evacuation. The reminiscences of the evacuation journey manifest three recurrent narrative strategies, which are 1) the fact and event oriented narrative strategy, 2) the self-reflective narrative strategy, and 3) the literary narrative strategy. Narrative strategies constitute the practice of the writers, which they use in order to compile their writings. The concept of narrative strategies enables us to understand the reminiscence writings without simplifying their complex character too much.
The research of the present thesis explores the poetics and rhetorical techniques of reminiscence writings about childhood evacuation journeys. The methodological foundation of the research combines theories of folkloristics, oral history research and narrative research. Memories and reminiscences are a fascinating area to explore because they are, according to the approach used here, the contemporary, personal and also narrative interpretations given to the past as well as rendering the significance the individuals assigned to it. Accordingly, the topic of this research is not so much childhood as it was in the past but childhood as it is formulated in writings at the moment of reminiscing. In the case of former Karelian child evacuees, both childhood and the childhood home are remote in time and in space. Narrative reminiscing operates as a tool for handling and crossing this distance. It is a means of creating and analyzing the relationship between the past, the present and the future.
The research reveals three narrative strategies: 1. Truth and history oriented narrative strategy 2. Reflexive narrative strategy 3. Literary narrative strategy
These strategies are illustrated through three different ways of how writers describe the evacuation journey. Strategies are also characterized by certain kinds of intertextual connections on the one hand and the writer s different ways of handling time in narration on the other. These narrative strategies are emblematic of the goals and intentions of the individual writers, and their investigation produces an outline of the genre of reminiscence writings.
In evacuation journey writings, memories tend to interconnect with concrete points of reference, such as objects, documents, places, bodily experiences or crystallized narratives. In this research, these points are defined as sites of memory. Sites of memory testify, authenticate and reassert the link between the past, the present and the future. The research indicates that in reminiscence writings, sites of memory appear as points for the condensation of memories from different times, which in narration are manifested as temporal leaps and expansions of the plot into several overlapping levels of chronology.
In addition, the research explores the significance attached to food and social relations in the writings. Central topics are children s reliance on their parents, their role within the family and peer group, and the dependence of the evacuees on other people s help and benevolence. The research shows that negotiations relating to social and power relations interconnect with more general ethical discourses understandings of right and wrong, good and bad which illustrate a writer s comprehensive experiences of losing his or her home and being an evacuee.
Talvi- ja jatkosotien myötä Suomi luovutti alueita Viipurin läänistä Neuvostoliitolle. Alueluovutukset johtivat yli 400 000 asukkaan evakuoimiseen Suomen puolelle uutta rajaa sekä evakkomatkakertomusten syntymiseen. Sittemmin evakkomatka on alkanut määrittää siirtokarjalaisten muistelua kenties enemmän kuin mikään muu yksittäinen aihe.
Tässä kirjassa tarkastellaan siirtokarjalaisten lapsievakkojen evakkomatkaa käsitteleviä muistelukirjoituksia. Tutkimuksen aineiston muodostavat Lasten evakkomatkat -muistelukirjoituskeruun tekstit. Muistelukirjoitusten evakkolapsuus on kerronnassa ilmaistua lapsuutta. Sen rakennusaineita ovat menneisyyden muistot, eletty elämä sekä nykyhetken kokemus ja tavoitteet.
Tutkimuksessa hahmotetaan kolme kerrontastrategiaa, jotka luonnehtivat lapsuuden evakkomatkakirjoituksia ja yleisemminkin muistelukerrontaa. Kerrontastrategiat ilmenevät kirjoittajan erilaisina tapoina käsitellä aikaa ja luoda intertekstuaalisia yhteyksiä kerronnassa sekä liittyvät kirjoittajien yksilöllisiin kirjoittamisen ja muistelun pyrkimyksiin. Muistelukerronnan moninaisuuden hahmottaminen avaa näkökulmia muistelijoiden tavoitteiden ja ilmaisukeinojen rikkauteen sekä monipuolistaa kuvaa menneisyyden muistelun merkityksistä.
Karjalan entisille lapsievakoille lapsuuden koti on sekä aikana että paikkana kaukana. Muistelukerronnassa tätä välimatkaa käsitellään ja ylitetään luomalla ja pohtimalla menneen, nykyisen sekä tulevaisuuden suhdetta. Evakkomatkakirjoituksissa muistot kytkeytyvät konkreettisiin kiinnekohtiin, kuten esineisiin, dokumentteihin, paikkoihin, kehollisiin muistoihin ja merkityksellisiin kertomuksiin. Tutkimuksessa esitetään, että muistelussa konkreettiset kiinnekohdat osoittavat ja vahvistavat menneiden, nykyisten sekä tulevien aikojen välistä sidettä. Kerronnassa ne ilmenevät eriaikaisten muistojen kimppuina ja tiivistyminä - aikahyppyinä ja juonen laajentumisina monille aikatasoille.
Lapsuuden evakkomatkakirjoituksissa käsitellään myös ruokaan ja sosiaalisiin suhteisiin nivoutuvia merkityksiä. Keskeisiä aiheita ovat lasten riippuvuus aikuisista, heidän roolinsa perheessä ja ikäryhmässä sekä evakkojen riippuvuus toisten ihmisten hyvän- ja pahantahtoisuudesta. Tutkimuksessa osoitetaan, että nämä sosiaaliset ja valtaneuvottelut kytkeytyvät laajempiin eettisiin diskursseihin käsityksiin oikeasta ja väärästä, hyvästä ja pahasta, sekä kuvastavat kirjoittajien elämänkokemusta evakkona.
The reader is guided into the discussion surrounding this key concept and its history through a general introduction, followed by eighteen chapters that represent a variety of discursive practices as well as analytic methods from several scholarly traditions.
This volume will have wide appeal to several academic audiences within the humanities, both in Finland and abroad, and will especially be of interest to scholars of folklore, language and cultural expression.