During the 1970s, there was an enormous American roots music boom in Finland, spawning hundreds of Fin-A-Billy (Finnish rockabilly, country, bluegrass, blues, and related genres) bands with thousands of fans. UW-Madison folklorist and ethnomusicologist Nathan Gibson shares his research and musical samples of the ways many Finns have connected with American culture through American roots music over the last 60 years.

Why, after years of neutrality, would Finland suddenly want to join NATO? This dramatic reorientation in Finnish security policy emerged in polls and political debates in late 2021, culminating in the May, 2022 formal decision to apply for NATO membership. Prof. Kaarle Nordenstreng explores the contemporary atmosphere and arguments regarding Finland’s forthcoming NATO membership. To assist us to understand Finland’s present geopolitical situation, he will also guide us through the series of wars and peace treaties dating back to Finland’s identity as an Eastern part of the Kingdom of Sweden, followed by a century as an autonomous Grand Duchy of Czarist Russia, leading to Finland’s ultimate independence in the middle of the Russian revolution in 1917. Kaarle Nordenstreng, born in 1941, with a Ph.D. from the University of Helsinki, is a Professor Emeritus of Journalism and Mass Communication at Tampere University in Finland.

This presentation by Saijaleena Rantanen will focus on working-class women of Finnish background and their musical activities in early 20th century North America. Women played an active role in organizing the cultural life of immigrants. They also wrote songs, sang in choirs and participated in demonstrations in defense of women’s rights and better working conditions. Who were these women and what do we know about them? The songs by and about Finnish immigrant women offer an interesting perspective on the activities and goals of working-class women at the grassroots level.

Saijaleena Rantanen works as a university lecturer at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki. She is a music historian, and her research interests are in social, political, and cultural history of music. She is particularly interested in people and phenomena that have been marginalized in history. Her research interests include migration, labor history and the role of women as musical and cultural influencers. In her current research project, she is studying the music culture of the ”Red Finns” in North America and Soviet Karelia from the late 19th century until the late 1930s.

In 2014, Lisa Wiitala began an in-depth exploration of her Finnish American roots. Part of that journey involved rescuing her grandmother’s carpet loom from the abandoned family farm, learning to weave rag rugs with it as her grandmother once had. She’ll share the story of that rewarding experience, including how it led to the discovery of other family treasures and an additional form of traditional Finnish weaving known as ryijy.

Lisa Wiitala is a science teacher, writer and weaver living in her 117-year-old restored childhood home in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula, where she thankfully looks forward to the long winters so she can cross country ski. A collector of family stories, artifacts and heirlooms, Lisa houses her grandmother’s Union-36 rug loom in her former bedroom, weaving rag rugs with materials salvaged from her grandmother’s supplies. In warmer months, she enjoys gardening, berry picking, and hunting for agates on Lake Superior, the greatest lake of them all.

Jan-Ola Östman | Past, Present, and Future of Swedish in Finland

Johanna Laakso | Everything You Ever Heard about the Finnish Language Might Be Wrong: A Quick Introduction into a Perfectly Ordinary European Language

In the second part of the FinnFest February webinar series, we continue the theme of “Multilingual Finland.” The organizers of this webinar, Lotta Weckström (University of California—Berkeley) and Helena Halmari (Sam Houston State University) bring together a panel of four international experts, whose collective specialties cover the following languages, all spoken in today’s Finland: Sami, Romani, Russian, Karelian, Estonian, and African languages.