Consolidation, Historiography and the Challenge of Populism in Finland

Finnish political culture is known for its peacefulness and is characterized widely as consensual. This does not, however, mean that Finnish history and Finnish historiography are less burdened with conflicts and controversies than the general European pattern. At the same time, the rising populist discourse questions the fundaments of the consensus, and its nationalism poses a challenge to the mainstream political language. The analysis of the electoral programme of the populist True Finn party shows that this populist nationalism relies on the terminology of the mainstream political discourse to a remarkable extent, while it does not lay a heavy emphasis on memory politics.