Menneisyys ja historiakuva. Suomalainen kuusikymmentäluku muistelijoiden rakentamana ajanjaksona

Abstract

Tutkimuksen aiheena on historiakuva, jolla tarkoitetaan kokonaiskäsitystä siitä, millainen jokin menneisyyteen sijoittuva asia oli ja mikä on tuon asian merkitys nykyisyydessä. Lähtökohtana on ajatus, että historiakuvat ovat merkittäviä, koska ne muokkaavat ihmisten käsityksiä menneisyydestä ja sen merkityksestä ja se, miten ihminen käsittää menneisyyden, vaikuttaa siihen miten hän näkee nykyisyyden ja tulevaisuuden. Näin historiakuvat, muokatessaan käsityksiä menneisyydestä, vaikuttavat ihmisten ajatteluun kulloisessakin nykyisyydessä. Tutkimuksen toinen lähtökohta on, että historiakuvat eivät muotoudu sattumalta vaan niiden taustalla on aktiivisia toimijoita omine motiiveineen. Kolmantena lähtökohtana on näkemys siitä, että merkittävää ei ole vain se, mitä menneisyydessä oikeasti on tapahtunut vaan myös se, mitä uskotaan tapahtuneen. Peilatessaan nykyisyyttä menneisyyteen, ihminen ei peilaa nykyisyyttä menneisyyden todellisuuteen vaan siihen kuvaan, joka hänellä menneisyydestä on. Tämän vuoksi menneiden tapahtumien merkitys ei ole pelkästään noissa tapahtumissa vaan myös siinä, mitä merkityksiä niille kulloinkin annetaan.

Historiakuvia rakennetaan erilaisilla foorumeilla ja rakentamiseen osallistuvat sekä aikalaiset että historiantutkijat. Eräs keskeinen paikka, jossa historiakuva muotoutuu, ovat aikalaisten muistelut. Tutkimuksessa kohteena on aikalaisten muistelemalla rakentama historiakuva. Tutkimuksen käytännön kohteeksi on valittu suomalainen kuusikymmentäluku. Tutkimuksessa ei siis tutkita sitä, mitä 1960-luvulla tapahtui vaan tutkimuksen kohteena ovat kertomukset kuusikymmentäluvusta. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää suomalaisen kuusikymmentäluvun historiakuvan luonne, ja tehdä sitä kautta päätelmiä historiakuvan rakentumisesta yleensä. Tutkimuksen pääkysymys on, miten historiakuva rakentuu ja mikä on sen suhde menneisyyteen?

Suomalaisen kuusikymmentäluvun historiakuvaa rakentaneet muistelijat kuuluvat pääasiassa kolmeen ryhmään, joita tutkimuksessa nimitetään radikaaleiksi, poppareiksi ja kirjailijoiksi. Tutkimuksen lähdemateriaali koostuu näihin ryhmiin kuuluvien muistelijoiden kuusikymmentälukua koskevista julkisista muisteluista kuten muistelmista/omaelämäkerroista, omaelämäkerrallisista romaaneista ja heidän tiedostusvälineille sekä kuusikymmentälukua käsitteleviin teoksiin antamistaan haastatteluista. Tutkimuksen lähdemateriaali ulottuu vuodesta 1970 vuoteen 2008. Muistelijoita tutkimuksessa on 139.

Tutkimuksesta käy ilmi, että muistelijoiden rakentama historiakuva on usein näkökulmasidonnainen. Muistelija muistelee niitä asioita, jotka olivat merkityksellisiä hänelle itselleen menneisyydessä. Tämän valikoivuuden seurauksena muistelijoiden rakentaman historiakuvan ulkopuolelle jää asioita, jotka ehkä kuitenkin olivat merkittäviä menneisyyden todellisuudessa. Edelleen muistelussa asiat nivotaan yhteen kertomuksiksi ja näissä kertomuksissa ne saavat merkityksiä, joita niillä ei välttämättä ole alun perin ollut. Tutkimus osoittaakin, miten muistelijoiden kertomuksia ei määritä niinkään menneisyys jota ne koskevat kuin nykyisyys jossa ne esitetään.

Tutkimuksesta käy ilmi, että historiakuva ei avaa näkymää niinkään menneisyyteen kuin siihen, miten kertomukset menneisyydestä rakentuvat ja mikä on näiden kertomusten merkitys. Tutkimus osoittaa, että historiakuva on monimuotoinen kokonaisuus, jossa menneisyys, nykyisyys ja tulevaisuus kietoutuvat yhteen. Se on pelikenttä, jossa käydään kamppailuja erilaisten menneisyystulkintojen välillä. Lisäksi menneisyyskertomusten tuloksena rakentuu ryhmiä sillä muistelijoiden kertomukset menneisyydestä rakentavat identiteettiä sekä muistelijalle että niille ryhmille, joihin muistelija identifioi itsensä ja joiden menneisyyttä hän kertoo muistelevansa. Viime kädessä historiakuvan rakentamisessa on kyse pyrkimyksestä vaikuttaa kollektiiviseen muistiin luomalla omasta menneisyydestä tai sitä koskevasta kertomuksesta osa yhteiseksi ymmärrettyä historiaa.

The Past and the Image of the Past the Finnish Sixties as an Epoch Constructed by Reminiscences

Object and source material of the study

The subject of this study is the image of the past, which is here conceived as a general conception of what some past matter was like and what significance it may have for the present. The starting point of the study is that such images are important because they mold peoples' conceptions of the past and its significance, and because one's conception of the past has an impact on how one views the present and the future. In this way, by shaping the views of the past the images of the past exert an influence on how people think at each present. The other starting point for this study is that images of the past are not formed contingently but through the activity of actors with motives of their own. The third starting point is the view that it is not only what really happened in the past that is significant, but also what is believed to have happened. In seeing the past in the mirror of the present the person is not projecting the present on the real past but on the image of the past the person has conceived. Hence the significance of past events is not so much in those events themselves as in the meanings attached to them in different times. The meaning of the past is realized only in interaction with the present.

This study concerns the construction of the image of the past. Such images are constructed on different forums, and by the contemporaries as well as historians. Among the main locations where the image of the past is formed are the reminiscences of the contemporaries. The object of this study is the image of the past as it is formed in such reminiscences. In practice, the study is focused on the Finnish Sixties. This means that the study is not about what happened in the 1960's, but has as its object the narratives about the Sixties. The aim of the study is to reveal the characteristics of the image of the Sixties, and to gain a better understanding of the construction of images of the past in general. The main question of the study is, how is the image of the past formed and what is its relation to the real past?

Accounts of the Finnish Sixties are abundant; contemporary memoirs and interviews record what the sixties was all about. The narrators have not only described what actually took place during the 1960s, but have produced accounts of what the sixties as a whole was all about. When one sets out to show what, in general, the sixties means, one is no longer describing specific events, nor even producing a narrative of a decade, but creating a completely new Sixties; the Sixties as they are remembered or as one would like people to remember them. By reminiscing about the decade, for instance in their memoirs, the contemporaries have taken it upon themselves to build an image of the Sixties. On the other hand, they have also been assigned this role by those asking them questions about the sixties. It is mainly contemporaries who describe the decade, for instance, in various documentary series on the sixties.

Those who have participated in constructing the image of the Sixties through their reminiscences belong mainly to three groups, referred to here as radicals, popsters and writers. The radicals are those who took part in the movements that were considered radical in the sixties, and radicalism also plays a pivotal role in their recollections. The popsters are pop musicians of the sixties and other insiders of the pop scene, and their reminiscences are generally about pop culture. Writers make up the third group, which includes both writers and people working in the publishing industry in the sixties. The source material of the study consists of published memoirs, autobiographies and autobiographical novels written by those belonging to these groups, likewise of interviews published in the media and various works on the sixties. These memoirs show what the person wishes to tell others about the sixties, and since the aim of the study is not to compile credible information of the events of the decade, but only of what is recounted about it, the memoirs serve this purpose well. The source material of the study spans the years 1970 to 2008. In all, the material consists of the published reminiscences of 139 individuals.

The research shows that different groups of narrators look at the Sixties from their own perspectives. The main characteristic feature in the accounts of the radicals is that radicalism and the Sixties are so closely connected as to be virtually synonymous. The radicals recall the Sixties from the viewpoint of the radical movement; everything recounted is invariably connected with radicalism. The popsters, in turn, associate the Sixties with pop culture. Pop culture has an impact on many spheres of life and is said to have made the Sixties important. The third group of narrators, the writers, seems to differ from the radicals and the popsters in that each writer recalls the Sixties mostly from his or her own point of view. The decades themselves are not in the focus of the writers' reminiscing, but the events for which the decades provide only a temporal background. It is the common profession, being a writer, rather than the epoch described that is the common denominator of the writers' reminiscences.

An important device in building the image of the past is legitimizing one's role as a constructor of that image through personal experiences. The narrators claim that since they have experienced the Sixties, they are also the right ones to tell others about it. It seems, however, that having lived in the sixties is not the same as having experienced the Sixties, but one is required to have lived and experienced the sixties precisely as the Sixties, that is, to have felt it deep in the marrow of one's bones. Personal experiences are especially important for the narrators. The richness of the meaning of the Sixties seems indeed to stem from this experientiality. One important device used by the narrators in order to put emphasis on the experientiality of the Sixties is excluding others from it. According to this view, the decade cannot be understood unless one has oneself experienced it, and in the right way.

The research indicates that the narrators seem to conceive of experience as something that has really taken place in the past, and they seem to believe that the memory of it has survived unchanged in mind. The narrators link the concept of experience with the events in a straightforward manner, they claim to recount the real past when they describe their own experiences. Reminiscing is recounting experiences, and one reinterprets those experiences at the latest when reminiscing. The experience associated with the real past is thus, in fact, a result of many reinterpretations made of different times, not a chronicle of the events or the experience as they originally were.

In the end, the narrators build their narratives by weaving together their interpretations of what has happened to them in the real past or what they want others to think about it. The individual does not, however, describe the real past as it was, but picks out whatever appears to be worth telling and gives that meaning in order to show why these particular matters have earned their place in the narrative. The content of reminiscing varies according to the narrators' purposes. The content of reminiscing is influenced more by the present situation than by what actually happened to the person in the past.

The research shows that narratives about the Sixties are connected to life in present. While they are narratives about the Sixties, they are, nevertheless, even more narratives about each particular present because they shed light on what each present considers to be worth remembering, or with what and how each present builds itself a conception of its past. The narrator tells somebody about his or her past. One builds one's narrative assuming that others read it. In this way, the narrator becomes involved in different discussions with his or her narrative. Taken together, the reminiscences participate in the building of the image of the past, and do not therefore exist in isolation but as a part of a larger whole. The reminiscing of the Sixties cannot be understood unless it is viewed as a process in which each single text has its own particular role to play.

Method and structure of the study

The image of the past is a whole, which means that it must be studied by breaking it up; the picture must be broken down into its component parts in order to grasp it. The object of the study is the stories of those who have reminisced about the Sixties. Out of those stories, when combined, there emerges a narrative of the past. In this study the story is taken to refer to a description of a particular matter or to an account of a single individual. The word narrative is used to refer to entities formed by these stories. Narrative refers, therefore, to two kinds of entity. In the first place, it is taken to signify the narratives of the Sixties that are built by a group of narrators. Secondly, the narrative refers to that narrative of the Sixties which is constructed by all reminiscences taken together and includes the narratives of the groups as well as the stories of the narrators.

The breaking up of the image of the Finnish Sixties is begun in the study by looking at the narrative of the Sixties as created by the narrators. In the second place, the phenomena not included in the narrative, the margins of the image of the past, are taken into consideration. The image of the Sixties consists not only of the narrative but also of meaning-giving, which is studied after the exploration of the margins.

The narrative of the Sixties that forms the skeleton of the image of the past has to do with such questions as: When did the Sixties begin? How did it manifest? What were the significant moments? Where did it end and what did it signify? In the narrative, the Sixties are built of the stories told about them. These stories do not tell so much about what really happened in the sixties as about what interpretations and meanings the narrators attach to the things they associate with the Sixties.

The 1960s refers to the decade 1960 1969. The Sixties, on the other hand, is a product of the human mind, a kind of mental landscape which is not necessarily bound to the calendar. In the narrators' stories the Sixties begins and ends at different times for different people, and in the stories one finds events that took place in the 50's and the 70's. In the reminiscences, the knitting together of the events and phenomena, so that they become parts of the overarching picture, emerges, therefore, as more important than chronology. In the image of the past the reality may, thus, be arranged in other ways than chronologically.

In the narrative the beginning of the Sixties stands out as the onset of a very special epoch. The radicals' and the popsters' reminiscences of the birth of the Sixties differ from each other. Both, however, emphasize the importance of the young even for the early Sixties. In the radicals' narrative the young discover a sense of solidarity through radicalism; they band together behind radical banners such as pacifism and the question of the Third World, and start to act in order to change society. In the popsters' narrative, young people find themselves and each other in the 50's rock 'n' roll and rebellion. Even though the narratives are different, the groups nevertheless corroborate each other in what is important regarding the image of the past, that is, in representing the Sixties as the era of the young. By being the decade of the young the Sixties is also the narrators' own decade, the time of their youth.

A core element in the narrative is the phenomena, that is, those features which, according to the narrators, made the Sixties what it was. It is common to these different phenomena that they are accounted to have been something new in comparison to what went before. The narrative about phenomena is a narrative about novelties which appeared one after the other and changed Finland. Words such as novelty and change are, indeed, the keywords in the image of the Sixties. The different groups of narrators associate different phenomena with the image of the Sixties, and even the same phenomena can be described very differently. As is typical with reminiscences, the narrators tend to speak about those phenomena which have had some impact on their lives. Such perspectivism is typical of reminiscing.

In the radicals' narrative, the main phenomenon associated with the Sixties is radicalism, which is said to have manifested itself in everything that was important in the Sixties. The phenomena the radicals typically recall are related to the new social movements and the ideas they embodied according to the narrators. The ideas the radicals associate with the Sixties and radicalism include pacifism, tolerance of difference, solidarity with the Third World, and new leftism. The radicals' narrative consists of stories about how different ideas were adopted. The ideas are approached mainly by describing grassroots movements; new ideas inspired people to establish new movements. Prominent among these movements are the peace organization The Committee of 100 in Finland (Sadankomitea), the November Movement (Marraskuun liike), which concentrated on social problems, and the Tricont, which focused on questions related to the Third World.

The phenomenon all three groups of narrators associate with the Sixties is internationalization. The radicals and the popsters recall internationalization from their own points of view, producing different narratives. Both, however, claim that Finland was an isolated country, and present the phenomenon they themselves represent as an important factor in ending this isolation. In addition to internationalization, another phenomenon all those groups associate with the Sixties is cultural change. The groups agree that something cataclysmic happened in the culture, but disagree about what changed and why. As far as culture is concerned, this study concentrates on the fields of music, theatre, and literature, because it is precisely in these fields that the changes were apparent according to the narrators. The accounts of different groups focus on different fields of culture. The radicals talk about all fields of culture but concentrate mainly on theatre, especially on the Students' Theatre (Ylioppilasteatteri). The writers' talk is mostly about literature; they recall debates sparked by certain books and describe the changes that took place in the profession and role of the writer. The popsters create their own picture of the cultural change by reminiscing about pop culture. Music forms the core of the accounts of pop culture; the popsters reminisce about the different phases in the development of pop music. There are also other phenomena such as fashion, stardom, fan culture, and alcohol and drugs which were a part of pop culture. Since pop culture offers the popsters a perspective on the Sixties as a whole, they do not confine themselves to reminiscing only about the musical life or the youth culture of the Sixties but also mention such things as the contrast between urban and rural and media culture.

The Sixties of the image of the past consists of events as well as phenomena. The popsters and the writers describe the events of the Sixties precisely as events, that is, as incidents that happened to take place at that time. It is important to understand that what is studied here is the image of the past, and that not all that happened during the 1960s belongs to the Sixties of the image of the past. That comprises only those events that are later considered to be worth reminiscing about. The radicals' accounts differ from those of the other groups in that for them certain events have become moments. Certain events are constructed as special moments in the image of the past by imbuing them with meaning. A background and meaning is provided for these moments, and they are characterized as important turning points for both radicalism and the Sixties in general. What is essential for the moments is the experience that they are connected with. The moments are events which the narrators claim to have felt particularly strongly about. If a past event is to be included in the image of the past as a great moment, a strong experience must be associated with it. Thus the great moments in the image of the past are those events interpreted to be so significant that they ought to be unforgettable. The important moments the radicals recall are the première of the Lapualaisooppera (theatre production on Finnish extreme right organization, the Lapua Movement, 1929 1932 and pacifism), which was written for the 40th anniversary of the Students' Theatre (1966); the occupation of Czechoslovakia (1968); the occupation of the Old Student House (Vanha ylioppilastalo) in Helsinki (1968); and the demonstrations against the Shah of Persia in Helsinki (1970).

According to the calendar the sixties ended at the New Years Eve 1969, but the ending of the Sixties of the image of the past is a much more complicated matter. Of the narrators, the radicals have pondered the matter and have pointed out different turning points that mark or foreshadow the end of the Sixties. It is typical for the radicals that many of them seem to leave open the ending of their own Sixties.

Narrators who build the image of the past claim that the Sixties turned into the Seventies at some point. The Sixties therefore also end on the level of the narrative. However, the narrators imply that the Sixties are, in many ways, still alive, and this is an essential element in the building of the image of the past. One way to show that the Sixties will never die is to say that they brought with them changes that are still perceptible. The radicals and the popsters agree that the Sixties were important, but they have different opinions as to why this was so. According to the radicals, the Sixties reshaped values and modernized Finnish society. The popsters, on the other hand, put emphasis on what the Sixties meant to them personally. The writers, like the radicals, talk mainly about the changes in values and attitudes, but whereas the radicals stress the permanent nature of these changes, the writers often present them as transient.

After exploring the narrative of the Sixties, which forms the skeleton of the image of the past, the attention is focused next on the phenomena relegated to the margins of the narrative and thus also of the image of the past. Since the image of the past is an image, a constructed conception of the past, it is often more helpful to explore the limits of the image than the image itself if one wishes to expose the mechanisms used in its construction, or to point out the inevitable limitations of any image created by reminiscing. Among the phenomena relegated to the margins of the image are those associated with smaller groups that were active within the radical movement, such as the underground movement, anarchism, the hippie movement, and Maoism. The study of the mechanisms used in marginalizing these small groups brings into view how the Other, which is marginalized but nevertheless belongs essentially to the image of the past, is constructed. Along with small radical group! s, there are on the margins of the image of the past certain phenomena which are deemed significant by historians of the decade or are otherwise generally associated with the period. These are the structural change in Finnish society, the sexual revolution, the change in the position of women, and the liberalization of alcohol policy. The fact that these phenomena are left aside in the reminiscences indicates that the issues which emerge as important for the image of the past are those which narrators want to present as important, regardless of their real significance. This forgetfulness may also imply that a part of the phenomena of the decade are such that, even though they are commonly associated with the period, it may nevertheless be, that they have not been as significant for the contemporary experience as has subsequently been assumed. The study of such phenomena exposes the limitations of reconstructing the past by reminiscing. First and foremost among such limitations are the difficulty of perceiving long and complex periods of change and the border between public and private.

Along with narrative, the image of the Sixties consists of meaning-making, that is, of relating the Sixties to the individual and the collective present. On this level, the stories of narrators in all groups coalesce into a certain conception of the deeper essence of the Sixties, into a conception of what they ultimately were about. Here the differences between the groups of narrators become, periodically, indistinct, and their narratives start to resemble each other. Ultimately this indicates that the different groups converge with respect to the meaning they attach to the Sixties. Their narratives may be different, but taken together they all support the view that the era was a particularly significant period in the history of Finnish society.

An important way to give meaning to the Sixties is to compare them with later periods and conclude that they were better by all accounts. The narrators compare the Sixties especially to the Seventies, which are remembered as being dismal in all respects. The present time often appears to the narrators as miserable because it does not compare well with the Sixties. The fact that it is the Sixties that each particular present is compared with reveals how meaningful the Sixties are for the narrators. The Sixties have become a standard against which the present is evaluated.

One of the common themes in the reminiscences is the idea of the revival of an era. It is characteristic of the reminiscences of the radicals that the Sixties are seen to have returned after the Seventies or that there has at least been such an attempt. The radicals note that they have perceived certain features of the Sixties in later phenomena, for instance in various grassroots movements. The way the radicals find signs of the Sixties in later phenomena tells something about the importance of the epoch for them they entertain a longing for something similar to it. The fact that it is possible to hope that the Sixties would come back once again demonstrates how the object of reminiscing is above all a mental epoch. The real decade cannot return, but the Sixties of the image of the past can.

In building the image of the past, the Sixties are also imbued with meaning by taking a nostalgic stance toward it. The narrators' attitudes towards the Sixties are nostalgic even if they also seem to be disappointed with everything and everybody. Nostalgia functions on all levels of the image of the Sixties, and has many faces. It sets the tone for the whole image of the past, the defining feature of which is that the Sixties are seen as a very special decade. Nostalgia is present when the narrator puts the essence of the Sixties in a nutshell, as in the expression The Golden Sixties (the Finnish equivalent to The Swinging Sixties ), or entertains hopes that they will return or will never die. Nostalgia is also apparent when contemporaries get together to reminisce about the Sixties.

In addition to presenting the Sixties as better than other decades or looking at them with nostalgia, there is also a third way to give meaning to the Sixties to claim that they were something that touched everyone. The narrators claim that the Sixties were significant not only for themselves but for everybody else as well. The conception of the Sixties as a period that touched everybody is underlined by narratives in the first person plural; everything seems to have happened to us . The narrators characterize this we group in different ways. They talk, for instance, about those of the 60's, about the 60's generation, or about the baby boomers. They use these concepts fairly loosely. The narrator may, for instance, claim to belong to the baby boomers whether or not he or she was born during the post World War II baby boom (in Finland ca. 1945 1950).

What the we group happens to be in each case varies across narrators, and the same individual may refer to different groups as we . The construction of we-ness and otherness is, indeed, one of the most important elements of the image of the past. The definition of we-ness has to do with the self-determination of one's personal and group identity, not only with giving meaning to the Sixties. One aligns oneself with a group of people when describing that group. Through their narratives the narrators are not only presenting their own views about the group but also create an identity for the group and its members.

The fact that the narrators tend to remember the Sixties from the groups' point of view raises the question as to how far reminiscing is in fact something common or shared. It is clear that those reminiscing about the Sixties strive with their reminiscences to create a common history out of their own past. A common history is created first for the narrator's own group, as when the radicals talk about the radicals and the popsters about the pop scene. However, when the narrators refer to groups such as those of the 60's , the 60's generation , or the baby boomers , one can say that a common history is now being created for a much larger group. The narrators extend their sphere of influence further when they say that reminiscing is their duty towards the younger generations, and when they aspire to play down the significance of historical research as opposed to the reminiscing of contemporaries. Ultimately, the image of the past is built in order to create a common history for all those who belong within its sphere of influence. The image of the Finnish Sixties is built for all Finns; it is meant to be a part of a whole which is conceived to be common to all and is often also called collective memory.

Image of the past and constructed memory

The image of the past shows, more than anything else, how people talk about the past. It shows how important the past is for the narrators; they are even ready to argue for their interpretations of the past. Reminiscing, that is, talking about the past in the present moment, is fundamental for the building of the image of the past. Reminiscing, however, is at the same time also talk about the present. The narrators do not simply reminisce, but take a stance on each present by comparing it with the past. Reminiscing is, furthermore, talk about the future as well, since many narrators also say how things should be. The narratives of the past also construct groups; we , you and the others. Narrators create a picture of themselves by reminiscing about their past, about what they used to be and what they are now. Some of the narrators also argue that they are still the same person they were when they were young.

The research shows that the image of the past is a complex entity in which past, present, and future meet. It is an arena where different interpretations of the past clash. Along with the narrators, the game is influenced by the media, which are allowed to select narrators at will.

But why is it so important who is allowed to take part in the building of the image of the past? It is ultimately the significance of the past that is in question here. The significance of the past is realized in each present. The present gives the past meanings from its own standpoint. It decides what is important, worth remembering, in each past. The two entities through which the meaning of the past partly becomes manifest identity and collective memory are also constructed in the present. The dialogue between the findings of this research and theories concerning identity and collective memory is taken up towards the end of this study.

As already discussed above, reminiscing creates identities for both narrator and listener. The narrators not only tell about themselves, but about others as well; and often about those others who, according to the narrators, belong to us . In these narratives identity also becomes an attribute of the group; reminiscing forms and strengthens the identity of those who see themselves as belonging to the same group, whether real or imagined, as the narrator. What is essential, however, is that this influence may also reach those contemporaries who in the 1960's felt no affinity towards the groups described by the narrators. In some cases the experience of belonging to a group whose identity stems from the Sixties, may emerge only after coming into contact with the reminiscences. In such cases the identity is not created so much by the past itself than by the narrative of the past. One can sense in the reminiscences about the Finnish Sixties an aspiration to get other people than contemporaries to adopt the Sixties as a part of their identity; the Sixties are also being made important for those who were born then or later.

Collective memory is understood as a conception of the past that is common to a certain community and shared by all its members. It includes in itself not only the narrative of the past, but also a certain view concerning the current meaning of that past for the community. The narrators can be said to have accepted the idea that collective memory exists and is useful and meaningful, because it is the latter that they, ultimately, strive to create by reminiscing. The narrators refer to the existence of collective memory, for instance, by implying that the common past and the shared memories currently hold together the we-group they have constructed.

It is important to note, that according to the results of this research, the contemporaries of each past time participate actively in the building of collective memory. After all, when an image of a bygone age is constructed, it is important also to take future generations into account. The exploration of the image of the Sixties shows how the different reminiscing groups or individuals strive to create a picture of the decade that suits them by selecting the items that are to be remembered. The actual decade has given rise to many Sixties. The narrator either supports one of these existing Sixties or tries to create a wholly new picture. The narrators' various ways to contribute to the building of the image of the past can also be taken as attempts at manipulating collective memory. They, of course, have the right to account the past as they wish, and to contribute to the building of the image of the past from their own standpoint. Others, however, would do well to remember that the image of the past the narrators are constructing is just one way to describe the past.

Translation: Mika Renvall and Virginia Mattila