Libraries and reading in Finnish military hospitals during the Second World War
The ground for library work in Finnish military hospitals during World War II was prepared before the war by three different traditions of library activity. First, professional librarians and state library authorities tried to initiate hospital library work in Finnish hospitals as an extension of municipal library services. Impulses from abroad, mainly from Great Britain through the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), were important in this initiative. Second, nurses, especially in the Red Cross Hospital in Helsinki, started to give library services as a voluntary operation in late 1930s. The first full-time hospital librarian, a volunteer, was originally a nurse. Third, the Soldiers’ Homes Associations run by women volunteers organized libraries for conscript soldiers during peace time. This article describes how these traditions worked together during the Second World War. Professional librarians’ attitudes toward voluntary library work in military hospitals and the interaction between librarians and patients as readers are described. Library work in civilian hospitals grew out of wartime activities.
The demand for recreational reading for soldiers during the Second World War was organized in many ways in different armies. In times of peace, regular libraries were often found in garrisons or training centers, but the war so increased the demand for recreational books that special measures were needed. There were different solutions. One example was the special editions of books created for U.S. soldiers (see, e.g., Cole, 1984). Another was the book boxes that were circulated in the trenches of the Finnish army. A special case was the library activities in military hospitals situated outside the actual combat zones. Almost everywhere these activities were the result of an enthusiastic voluntary engagement of civilians, mostly women. The aim of this article is to describe these services, their historical and international background, the attitudes of the professional librarians toward voluntary work in hospitals, and what happened when men who had read little in civilian life came into contact with books in the military hospital environment. Library services in military hospitals reflect interesting mixes of peace and wartime practices, with professional librarians acting as volunteers and nonprofessional volunteers acting as librarians. Some of the questions that may arise in circumstances like this are: Who makes the selection of books? Who is entitled to choose freely what he or she reads? How do professional librarians react in a situation where they have to relax what they see as their high moral and aesthetic professional standards? It also is interesting to know how and by whom library services in military hospitals were organized, what was the historical and professional context of this activity, and what happened when the war was over.
By way of historical background, (1) after having been part of the kingdom of Sweden for seven hundred years, Finland was, in a side-show of the Napoleonic wars, invaded by Tsar Alexander I and made a Grand-Duchy in the Russian Empire in 1809. After a century of cultural and economic progress, Finland gained independence after the Russian October Revolution in 1917. The beginning of independence, however, was clouded by a bloody civil war in 1918. Between the world wars there was again a period of peaceful progress until 1939, when under the terms of the the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, Finland fell into the sphere of influence of the latter. After failed negotiations about land and other matters, the Soviet Union attacked Finland. The Winter War, as it was known, lasted from November 1939 until March 1940. The Finnish forces, with great sacrifices, halted the enemy, but it is assumed that Stalin aborted the attack mainly because he feared that the Western allied powers would send troops to help Finland. Although Finland maintained its freedom, it was forced to cede a large area of land and lease a naval base to the Soviet Union.
There followed an uneasy period of armistice from March 1940 until June 1941, during which the Soviet Union put pressure on Finland in many ways. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Finland became Germany’s ally, planning to take back what was lost in the Winter War. In addition to that the Finnish foces occupied large areas in Soviet Karelia. This second phase of the hostilities between Finland and the Soviet Union is called “the Continuation War” in Finland, and it lasted until September 1944, when Finland and Soviet Union again concluded an armistice. This time the area that had been ceded after the Winter War to the Soviet Union was permanently lost. In addition, Finland had to pay large war reparations to the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, Finland remained free, although its fate after the armistice was not at all certain; nor was the war completely over for Finland because there followed a campaign to drive its former German allies out of Lapland, the so-called Lapland War, that lasted until spring 1945.