The history of the Soviet-Finnish 1939-1940 War has got rather thorough and diversified analysis in the research literature. Different narrative sources were used, but mainly official. But the reconstruction of historical event, it's scale and significance propose also the maximal possible use of unofficial information, which is held by the people, contemporary to the event. Retrospective of any war, including the Winter War, are the facts of the historical memory of the nation. The "folk" representation of the wartime life if most fully presented in "verbal" history. With a time, of cause, the eventual and emotional memory weakens, yet the use of several methodological approaches shows broad possibilities to gather valuable individual information.

We have studied the verbal stories of the inhabitants of Karelia who was born in 20s and early 30s of XX century about the live of the civilians during the "Winter War". Those were mostly undocumented events of private lives.

The use of such unofficial informational sources about the war winter of 1939-1940 will allow us to compare individual reminiscences of the alive participants of the events of the time and official memories, produced by the society and the state and reproduce the integral picture of the life of the frontier region, to understand the influence of the war on the everyday life of civilian population, on it's destiny and to measure the dept of the influence of that events on the human memory. Still it should be noted that the living witnesses of the "Winter War" were at their teens in the end of the 30's. That means that we have to do with the individual and collective memory of the youth of the Soviet Karelia. During the interviews we get accordingly modified history of the Soviet-Finnish war - we get the reminiscences of the teens age with all the advantages of the purely emotional reactions on the events and all the drawbacks of the lack of the knowledge of life necessary to judge the events. The responders can be divided into three main groups: town inhabitants, villagers and Finnish youth. Such a division is based on the difference of the wartime information gathered by them, though the reminiscences have also much in common.

The differences and alikeness found in the reminiscences are based on the differences in the culture-historical basis of that period - the differences in the life in the cities and villages, differences in the range from the region of war theatre, social environment and the historical experience of the interaction with the ruling structures. It is necessary to note that the 1930's were the time of mass repression and created a specific public atmosphere that was rather traumatic to the bigger part of responders.

In this work we did not set the aim of full reconstruction of the events of the 1939-1940 winter trough their reflection in the private life of civilians. Our interests were focused on the finding and systematization of the associative images of the historical memory that spontaneously define the vector of human reminiscences. We tried to define, what was first noticed by the eyes on contemporary people that became the road-signs of that time and is still kept in the historical memory of respondents after over half of the century.

Thematically formalized approach during the interviewing allowed to define the brightest reminiscences about the "Winter War" period. They became a kind of a reference system that allowed to remember the episodes seemed to be forgotten due to the age of the respondents and different life circumstances.

T.Nikulina

INTERVIEW
of Spyaschiy Sergey Petrovitch, born 1926
in Povenets settelment, Medvazhyegorsk region

The Spyaschiy family were Povenets natives. The family consisted of five people. The father worked at the water supply on Belomoro-Baltic Channel. The mother was a housewife, bringing up Sergey and his two sisters. By the beginning of the Winter war 13 years old Sergey was going to the 7th form of Povenets School.

The main sources of political information for the family were the radio and local press (i.g. "Belomorkanal" newspaper). They were the sources of the first information about the "Winter War". Later they saw the mobilization of young people in the settlement.

Sergey Petrovitch marks the active propaganda on radio, newspapers and in school against Finland and about the struggle between socialism and capitalism. There was a distinct division - we are Reds, they are White Finns. There was also one more cause - the Finnish border was too close to Leningrad and that was were dangerous for the city (this cause was also explained to the children at school).

The respondent said that there was no the feeling of the war. The settlement was far enough from the war theatre. So people do their routine work - job, school, housekeeping. Also it was the same in the family (there was no demands "to help the front"). There were no problems with food. And the main thing - there were no people of Finnish nationality in the settlement.

To the question about the attitude to the Finns, Sergey Petrovitch answered that if the man is a real man, then one might be in friendly relation with anyone - Ukrainian, Belorussian or Finnish ...

About the war itself he said that everyone understood its uselessness, unreadiness of our troops, that were listed from different nations. Most of the soldiers had never seen the skies and serious frosts before. Especially to note that 1940 winter was extremely cold. The settlement was not so affected by the frosts - there were warm clothing and the in every house and in the school there were stoves that gave warmth. But the family often heard by radio about the people frozen at the front, about big losses from our side.

Sergey Petrovitch remembers the New Year evening at school as usual, without any difference from other New Year holidays. All children wear New Year masquerade cloths and got theirs New Year presents.

The failures of our army was known, but the talks about them were only inside the family because it was too dangerous topic at that time, same as the military and managing leaders.

By the end of the ware a regiment was set nearby the settlement, but there were no close contacts with soldiers. So he has not talked with those who were at the front and at that time it was not a topic of interest between settlement's boy

No relatives participated in that war.

INTERVIEW
of Chekalova Anna Petrovna, born 1928
in Ladva Village of Prionezhsky region,
during the war lived in Petrozavodsk

There were nine people in the family. The father was a worker, the mother - a housewife. Only father was interested in politics. The family subscribed to only one newspaper seemed to be "Leninskaya Pravda". There was a radio (big black loudspeaker) and they listened to it. Often on Saturdays she with her brother and sister went to the Deaf-and-dumb Society (one of their sisters worked and lived there) to see the films with subtitles. Very seldom they went to the "Zvezdochka" cinema theatre. At that time there were no special politics information before to film.

Interest to politics at that time was mach less the now. Only sometime the parents discussed at home the events in the country.

I knew that the Finnish border was close to Leningrad and that Finland became independent due to V. Lenin. Had no information that the Northern Karelia was proposed to Finland in exchange.

I learned about the beginning of the "Winter War" from parents at home. As I did not understand what is the war, I had no fear. Though the parent and neighbors were worried.

As far as I know the war was started by the Soviet Union, but does not remember how they explained the cause.

The weather was not supporting the war. The frosts were 40°C and lower. At such frosts we did not went to school.

The town lived its usual life. But there appeared many military people and queues for the products. Also appeared few stands with the war information.

Most schools and some other public plases were used as hospitals. We regurarly wisited the hospital that was opened in the school N 13 on Krupskaya street. The were lot of injured, mainly frost-bitten and many burnt tanksman.

It seemed that many of them die. The impressions from those visits were very oppressive. We play concerts to the injured. They were treated very well - the linen was very clear, there were enough medicines and bandages. They were fed very well.

We did not get "Fallen in battle" letters as no one of the family participated in the war, but some of our acquaintance got them.

The food supply had changed. One had to stay in the queues for everything. The mother had to go to work - she washed the working robes of the shop-girls and that made family life somewhat easier.

Cannot say anything about any public works. Had not heard anything about evacuation and had not met anyone evacuated.

We learned about the events at the front mainly from radio, sometimes at school and during visits to the hospital.

The losses in our army were very big and I got the impression that the Finns were mach better prepared to the war.

The soldiers said that Finnish snipers (also called "Cuckoos") were very well equipped and were very neat. Some of them were women and that was very unexpected.

Before the war in our yard lived people of different nationalities, including Finns that came from America. Everybody lived very friendly; we play different games (lapta, hide-n-seek, billiard, etc.) in which both children and grown-ups participated. I do not remember any conflicts among grown-ups and the children were all equal.

Finns were treated as equal. Everybody counted that there were no their guilt in the war.