The collection of articles focuses on Finland as modernising society between the East and the West. Strong and comprehensive agrarian heritage and delayed modernisation in the sense of structural change, industrialisation and urbanisation are the central features of the Finnish society during the 20th century. The special characteristics in this transformation were manifold influences from both Western Europe and Russia. Although Finnish consumers adopted television and private cars, they also kept their saunas, summer houses and fishing as the favourite hobby.

Preface

This collection of articles focuses on Finland as modernising society between the East and the West. Strong and comprehensive agrarian heritage and delayed modernisation in the sense of structural change, industrialisation and urbanisation are the central features of the Finnish society during the 20th century. The special characteristics in this transformation were manifold influences from both Western Europe and Russia. Although Finnish consumers adopted television and private cars, they also kept their saunas, summer houses and fishing as the favourite hobby. This volume proceeds as follows. The first part of the volume analyses the making of the frugal consumer during the post-Second World War decades. This part of our collection stresses the influence of older aspects of the Finnish mentality towards the role of consumption in everyday-life. Visa Heinonen and Minna Autio examine the Finnish consumer mentality and ethos. They also make comparisons between Finland and the neighbouring countries Russia and Sweden. Matti Peltonen analyses the Finnish everyday life in the 1950s from the point of view of alcohol consumption and attitudes towards drinking. He points out that strict restrictions and their broad acceptancy by both the political elite and the majority of the population mainly determined the development of the drinking culture in Finland. Minna Lammi and Päivi Timonen investigate newsreels presented in cinemas during the 1950s as representations of the economy. They emphasise that these short films demonstrated the central role played by President Urho Kekkonen as a strong leader of the nation. The first part of the book ends with Janne Poikolainen's scrutiny of the Finnish scene of popular music and its interesting division into two quite different sub-cultures in the beginning of the 1960s and the influences coming from abroad.

The second part of the book concentrates on consumption as spectacle in the Finnish context. First, Jukka Kortti analyses the breakthrough of the television in the Finnish society of the 1960s and its influence on the Finnish consumer mentality. He gives a versatile general view of television as a new media and important part of developing consumer culture. Second, Riitta Matilainen offers a cross-section to developing gambling culture and legalisation of roulette in Finland. She examines the introduction of other forms of gambling, such as Lotto, as well. Third, Finnish tourism to the Soviet Union is studied by Hanna Kuusi in her article by using oral history material. An interesting finding in her study is the extent of illegal trading that occurred during the travels in spite of quite severe sanctions. In the final article Kaarina Kilpiö examines the styles and development of background music in the marketing context in Finland.