Abstract

In this article we examine a popularly-oriented Finnish wartime photographic book, Suomi kuvina. Das ist Suomi. Finnland in Bild und Wort, from 1943, which introduced Finland — its landscapes, culture and people — for a German target audience. We analyze the choices of images and captions and explore how the familiar visual tendencies were both changed and maintained during the war, for instance, through the representation of landscapes and gender. Although the book appears to be a coherent description of an idealized nation, a minute detail in one photograph reveals underlying tensions that challenge the discourse of a nation unified by war.