2017

Halmesvirta, Anssi

Winter sports has been a prime source of national pride and fame – occasionally of shame – for the Finns ever since it became a vehicle of national mass movement and one of the building-blocks of the nation since the end of the nineteenth century. Cultured echelons of the Finnish society, representatives of science and arts in particular, were called to the service of nation-building and they made Finland internationally recognized whereas the winter sports remained quite self-contained until its outbreak of into the wider world in the winter Olympics after the First World War. Consequently, I have deemed it not altogether amiss to inquire what meaning the winter sports had for the Finnish sports elite in their inward-looking stance towards their hobbyhorse.