Finland has not really featured in my background awareness of Europe, aside from a general idea of anti-Soviet snipers. On my recent travels to Finland I've been excited to learn a bit more about the country, particularly about its role in WWII.
In Finland there were three different wars in the 1938–1945 period:
First, in the Winter War, the Soviets invaded Finland, which had previously been a Russian client state (the Grand Duchy of Finland), gaining independence during the Russian revolution in 1917. The Soviets tried to reclaim the territory but failed. Then, allied with the Germans, Finland re-invaded the Soviets in the Continuation War, but again failed to make much progress. As a condition of the peace treaty with the USSR in 1944, Finland was required to evict the German soldiers stationed all across the north half of the country, leading to the Lapland War.
This lead to the Finns fighting against both the Nazis and the Soviets during WWII, and the war museum I visited wasn't obviously casting either side as the clear villains. The Finns broadly refused to engage in anti-semitism, at least towards native Finnish Jews, although there was an incident in 1942 where some Jewish refugees from Austria were handed over to the German allies.
Finnish sisu
culture seems to me to be characterized by a gratitude for what you have, and a determination to do what you need to do to defend it. I've heard sisu translated as stamina
, courage
, and determination
.