A Study of Lithuanian and Finnish wartime correspondence 1939-1945

ENThis article deals with the comparison of letters from the Second World War, focusing on letters written by Finnish and Lithuanian soldiers and their relatives between 1939 and 1945. The commentary examines the letters sent by the soldiers and their relatives to each other, compares how the content and themes of the letters written in Finnish and Lithuanian differ and highlights what similarities can be found in the letters’ themes. Through the examination of these themes, the aim is to find out whether Lithuanians and Finns have a common history of wartime experience. For the article, qualitative content analysis has been utilized in examining the content of the letters. The primary source material used was wartime letter collections, which consist of wartime correspondence between two Lithuanian families and one Finnish family. The letters were sent between 1939 and 1945, when most of Europe was dominated by the battles of World War II, as was the case in Lithuania and Finland. During World War II, both Lithuania and Finland were part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which divided Europe. As a result of the agreement’s secret additional protocol, Lithuania and Finland had to fight against both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. [Extract, p. 131]