Lunch Seminar 31.1.2017 – Kenneth Gustavsson: The Åland Islands 1944-46 – Reunification with the Motherland?
The first seminar of the year will be held at Hotell Arkipelag in Mariehamn on 31 January at 11.30 am. It will be held in Swedish by associate professor and antiquarian Kenneth Gustavsson. The topic of the seminar is ”The Åland Islands 1944-46 – reunification with the Motherland?”. In the shadow of the Finnish-Soviet armistice in 1944, the leadership of the Åland Islands pursued a reunification with Sweden. The other alternative they had in mind, was some kind of independence of the Åland Islands. The leadership of the Åland Islands was therefore secretly in touch with representatives of Sweden. The outcome, however, was a disappointment. Both Sweden and Finland dismissed any ideas of the kind. In addition, the Soviet Union unequivocally declared that the Åland Islands should be subordinated to Finnish authority. Gustavsson lectures on this extraordinary history based on new material discovered in archives in Helsinki, Stockholm and Mariehamn. Kenneth Gustavsson. Antiquarian, PhD in archeology and associate professor of history. He has been working for many years at the Åland Museum, previously primarily with archaeological questions surrounding the medieval and late time, but currently mainly with recent history. His focus is the strategical and political importance of Åland in […]