Is our selective memory of the liberation in 1944 becoming a security policy vulnerability in the face of today's Russia?
Article by: Charles Petterson, Municipal Director, Nesseby Municipality, Finnmark, Norway
Soldiers from the Red Army and locals in Kirkenes during the liberation in the fall of 1944 Photo: Norways National Archives
In Finnmark, Norway, 1944 stands strong. 1937 is almost absent. The liberation has shaped the relationship with Russia in the north, while what happened on the Kola Peninsula before the war has largely disappeared from our common memory. It is still important today.
We have erected memorials to what we survived. There is hardly a trace of what we learned to keep quiet about. My great-grandmother set out from Kirkenes on foot in 1929 to find her daughter on the other side of the border. She never arrived.
In Sami tradition, the robbers who came from the east are called tsjuder. They plundered, killed and took people with them.
The legend carries a living memory of outside powers that redefined the local population's belonging from resource to threat. That pattern is older than Stalin's terror, and it has not ended.
Finnmark is often highlighted as an exception in the Norwegian Russia debate. The proximity to the border and memories of the liberation are used to explain a more reserved attitude in the north.
But the picture is incomplete, and partly misleading. The tension between 1937 and 1944 still characterizes the understanding of Russia.
The forgotten experience
In 1937 and 1938, during Stalin's Great Terror, the Soviet authorities carried out the so-called national operations. Norwegians, Finns and Sami on the Kola Peninsula were affected. Many were arrested, deported or executed on the basis of language, kinship or contact across the border.
VICTIM: Maria Regina, b. 1905, arrested in February 1938, executed in October of the same year. Rehabilitated twenty years later. Photo: Private
The Swedish-based historian Andrej Kotljarchuk has documented the extent: 694 Finns, 68 Sami, 23 Norwegians, and 6 Swedes arrested in the Murmansk area alone. The figures are considered minimum estimates. This was not war, but targeted state violence against its own inhabitants.
Yet the experience is almost absent from the Norwegian public. Why do most people know who liberated Eastern Finnmark, but hardly anyone knows what happened to the families on the other side of the border in the same decade?
A narrative that did not fit
That 1944 has been given a central place in Norwegian history is natural. It was part of our own war experience. That is precisely why we must look at what falls outside. The liberation fits into a clear narrative of occupation, resistance and liberation.
The terror of 1937 and 1938 did not. It challenged the image of the Soviet Union as a liberator and was difficult to reconcile with the post-war narrative. The story lacked markings and a language that could keep it alive.
In my own family, my grandfather grew up in Litsafjorden with relatives on both sides of the border. His mother and two siblings moved to Vardø in time. Others were not so lucky. A cousin was executed. A sister, Armida, disappeared. A mother, Johanna, disappeared while looking for her daughter.
She was never found. It was never talked about, not out of indifference, but out of caution. Many learned that certain questions were dangerous. The silence was continued. 1937 is missing not only from history books, but also from conversations.
When experience shapes understanding
Eastern Finnmark was liberated by the Red Army in 1944. For many, the encounter with Soviet soldiers was the very experience of liberation. When such experiences are inherited, they become an interpretative filter that is difficult to see past.
This helps to explain why reactions in some border municipalities were more restrained after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and why support for cooperation remained strong for a long time.
The Barents cooperation created connections, trust and an infrastructure that took decades to build. At the same time, the Russian authorities actively used the neighborhood, through symbolism, visibility and interpersonal relationships. The neighbor and the state developed into two separate entities.
One dampened reactions to the other. Trust became not only a resource, it also became what made the state invisible behind the neighbor.
The invasion of Ukraine in 2022 made it more difficult to distinguish between the Russian neighbors and the state of Russia. For many, the break came abruptly. Not because of ignorance, but because of trust built on real experiences that made it more difficult to see the state behind the neighbor.
This is necessary to understand how assessments of Russia could be so wrong. This is no longer just a question of local memory, but of national security.
History as a security policy weapon
Memory politics is about how states use the past to shape identity and loyalty. This practice has gained an increasingly prominent role in Russian state ideology since the 2000s, especially through the narrative of World War II.
The liberation of 1944 is included in Russian official commemorations, not only as a historical memory, but as part of a narrative about Russia as a protector and liberator.
Such narratives are not neutral. They can create expectations of loyalty and make it politically demanding to challenge Russian policy in areas where history is strong. This is happening in a region that is also heavily militarized.
The Northern Fleet is located between Murmansk and the Norwegian border. The establishment of the Finnmark Brigade in 2025 shows that Norway must deal with this reality. Using history is also a security policy tool.
The void that must be filled
Bringing up 1937 and 1938 is not about relativizing the liberation in 1944, but about making history holistic and less vulnerable to selective use. An incomplete narrative about Russia is not just a historical problem. It can become a political vulnerability.
If we do not fill the voids ourselves, others will fill them for us. For years, Russian authorities have marked the liberation of Finnmark with ceremonies, monuments and veteran visits, not as a matter of remembrance, but as a matter of foreign policy. The void after 1937 was filled by the narrative of 1944. It still remains open.
More from 2ww:
The Ukrainian hero of war who fought for Norway's freedom
Comments powered by CComment