by Pavel Anisimov
[REGNUM]
On October 10, it became known that the head of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky was invited to commemorative events on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the northernmost Norwegian province, Eastern Finnmark, from Nazi occupation.From October 7 to October 29, 1944, the Karelian Front, with the participation of the Northern Fleet, carried out the Petsamo-Kirkenes operation, as a result of which the territories of Northern Finland, the Soviet Arctic and Northern Norway were liberated. Thanks to the heroism of the Soviet troops, 854 Soviet prisoners of war and 772 civilians, whom the occupiers took from the Leningrad region, received freedom. In addition, thanks to the Soviet troops, about 3 thousand Norwegians who were hiding from the bombing in a tunnel in Bjornevatn were released.
Since then, at the end of October, Eastern Finnmark celebrates the liberation of its land from the German occupiers; representatives of the USSR and then Russia, as the legal successor of the Soviet Union, have traditionally been invited to commemorative events.
The last round date, the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Eastern Finnmark, was celebrated in 2019 with the participation of an official delegation from Russia. On the occasion of the anniversary, Russian Foreign Minister S.V. Lavrov and Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Fleet A.A. Moiseev arrived in Kirkenes. The Norwegian side was represented by King Harald V of Norway, Prime Minister of Norway E. Solberg, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway I. M. Eriksen-Søraide, Minister of Defense of Norway F. Bakke-Jensen.
King Harald V gave a speech of gratitude in memory of the Soviet soldiers who liberated Kirkenes, in turn, Russian Foreign Minister S.V. Lavrov, in his speech, thanked the people of Norway for the careful memory of the fallen Soviet soldiers and the exemplary maintenance of military graves and memorials, as well as work to establish the names of those killed in concentration camps.
However, the worsening Ukrainian crisis metastasized into the memory of the liberation of Eastern Finnmark.
In 2022, Ukrainian flags appeared at a commemorative event attended by members of the local community, and many demonstrators took the opportunity to condemn the Russian special operation and express support for Kyiv.
In this regard, it is curious that, according to Norwegian historians, during the war, the only people who used the yellow-blue flag and trident in Eastern Finnmark were members of the auxiliary police battalion, which consisted of ethnic Ukrainians and fought on the side of the Nazis.
Many, apparently, began to forget that the Ukrainians who liberated Finnmark from German occupation fought under the red flag.
And so the newly elected head of the Finnmark county council, Hans-Jakob Böno, in his first speech to the council of this administrative unit, explained the decision to send an invitation to Ukraine as “Russian aggression against a neighboring country.” “ Let me emphasize: it is Russia’s fault that invitations to commemorative events are impossible ,” Böno said.
Böno believes that with their decision they will also express gratitude to the Ukrainian soldiers who shed blood for the liberation of Eastern Finnmark, their descendants and their homeland - Ukraine, since, in his opinion, the first Soviet units that arrived in Kirkenes in October 1944 were led by a Ukrainian Officer.
“Today we are united with our brothers and sisters in Ukraine in their fight for what we ourselves have: a separate country where the people decide their own future. This is important for us. It has not been many years since we ourselves were under the yoke of a foreign power. This feeling lives in us to this day,” said Byno.
It is noteworthy that Hans-Jakob Bøno is the first head of the county council from the right-wing conservative party Høyre. Since elections to the county council were introduced, the head of the council has been a representative of the social democratic Arbeiderpartiet, which suffered a crushing defeat in the elections in Finnmark in September this year.
The rhetoric regarding the events of the autumn of 1944 began to change in the Norwegian press even before the start of the special operation.
If previously it was generally accepted that Eastern Finnmark was liberated by the Russians, now it has become emphasized that in the ranks of the Red Army there were not only ethnic Russians, but also representatives of other peoples of the USSR and Soviet republics, in particular Ukrainians. In this regard, proposals to invite Ukrainians to commemorative events were put forward earlier, but things did not go further than proposals.
Norway, however, should be given its due: unlike many European countries, monuments to Soviet soldiers and military graves are kept in order. Although attempts are being made to rethink the events of 80 years ago, albeit often at the level of polemical notes in the press.
Thus, on the eve of May 8, 2023, one of the freelance authors of the Nordnorsk debatt publication stated that the Petsamo-Kirkenes operation was not a liberation operation - Soviet troops simply pursued the Germans because they failed to encircle and defeat them earlier.
The author also emphasizes that only a little more than 50% of the soldiers of the “multi-ethnic” Red Army in 1944 were Russians or immigrants from the RSFSR. But the most categorical thesis is that the USSR allegedly had plans to “annex” the territories of Northern Norway, and the occupation of Norway continued until Soviet troops were withdrawn from its territory on September 25 of the same year.
Of course, in Norway professional historians can only laugh at some of these theses. But even in the Norwegian scientific community, the efforts of the Russian authorities to preserve the memory of the events of the autumn of 1944 are perceived controversially.
Recently, Aftenposten published an article by scientists from the University of Tromsø, in which the authors - professor Kari Aga Myklebust and postdoctoral researcher Joakim Olmen Markussen - among other things, argue that the history of World War II is increasingly being used by the Russian authorities in foreign policy and serves as a justification for a special operation in Ukraine. and the memory of Soviet soldiers who liberated Northern Norway is allegedly used for the purpose of political pressure on Norway. A clear expression of this is the organized “patriotic trips” of Russian citizens to memorable places in Norway and events dedicated to them.
According to scholars, the purpose of this policy is to promote a “dogmatic” narrative about World War II using nostalgic Soviet military-patriotic symbols.
However, so far no one in Norway is going to remove these symbols from the monuments, unlike the Kyiv authorities, who recently replaced the Soviet coat of arms with a trident on the statue of the Motherland, which has now become “Mother Ukraine.” The question arises how the Ukrainian authorities, who are actively engaged in “de-Sovietization” and the destruction of monuments to Soviet soldiers, having received an invitation from the Norwegian side, will perceive this invitation.
The official reaction of the Ukrainian authorities regarding participation in the events in 2023 has not yet been reported.