Bücher veröffentlicht von Helsinki University Press

What does it mean to identify oneself as pagan or Christian in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages? How are religious identities constructed, negotiated, and represented in oral and written discourse? How is identity performed in rituals, how is it visible in material remains?Antiquity and the Middle Ages are usually regarded as two separate fields of scholarship. However, the period between the fourth and tenth centuries remains a time of transformations in which the process of religious change and identity building reached beyond the chronological boundary and the Roman, the Christian and 'the barbarian' traditions were merged in multiple ways.Being Pagan, Being Christian in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages brings together researchers from various fields, including archaeology, history, classical studies, and theology, to enhance discussion of this period of change as one continuum across the artificial borders of the different scholarly disciplines. With new archaeological data and contributions from scholars specializing on both textual and material remains, these different fields of study shed light on how religious identities of the people of the past are defined and identified.The contributions reassess the interplay of diversity and homogenising tendencies in a shifting religious landscape. Beyond the diversity of traditions, this book highlights the growing capacity of Christianity to hold together, under its control, the different dimensions - identity, cultural, ethical and emotional - of individual and collective religious experience.

"Slava Ukraini!" Strategy and the Spirit of Ukrainian Resistance tells the story of the volunteers lauded to have saved Ukraine twice. The volunteers first emerged in the spring of 2014 after the onset of the war in Donbas in a context characterized by ambiguity, state weakness, political uncertainty, and threat. They re-emerged again in February 2022 after the large-scale Russian invasion. Aimed at an interdisciplinary audience, this volume makes significant contributions to our understanding of events in Ukraine over the past decade. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with volunteer battalion fighters, the volume focuses on strategy, or the creation, control, and use of force. This framework is first applied to the volunteer militias to further the understanding of militia strategy conducted after 2014, and then to the first year and a half that followed the Russian invasion in 2022. "Slava Ukraini!" also discusses the long-term sociological impact of volunteer battalions and the war they fought in Ukraine. The Ukrainian spirit of resistance emerged first on the Maidan in November 2013, ignited the volunteer Spirit of 2014 after the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea, and ultimately flared-up on a national scale in a manner which surprised the invading Russian forces in 2022. Yet initially the volunteers may also have exacerbated internal divisions in Ukraine. The Spirit of 2014 was also better suited to a war of movement than immobile trench warfare that left little room for heroism and aggressive soldiering. Unrealistic expectations about modern warfare led to disillusionment, and many volunteers leaving the war in 2015. The perceived stalemate and lack of Ukrainian soldiers by late 2023 raised the question of a similar dynamic witnessed in 2014 and 1914 alike.

Military Revolution and the Thirty Years War 1618-1648 investigates change and decline in military institutions during a period of protracted and destructive European warfare. Conceptual background is provided by the Military Revolution thesis, which argues that changes in military technology and tactics drove revolutionary transformation in the way states organised and waged war in the early modern era. This transformation of military institutions became evident during the long and destructive Thirty Years War in 1618-1648. The outcome of the Military Revolution was the centralised fiscal-military state that possessed a strong claim to the monopoly of violence within its territorial boundaries. The book examines how the Thirty Years War accelerated and even initiated transformation in four military institutions that defined land warfare: feudal cavalry services, militias, regular armies, and war commissariats. The regional scope of the investigation covers the Holy Roman Empire, France, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, and the Dutch Republic. The book combines military-historical inquiry with ancillary sciences of sociology and economics. It argues that the Military Revolution of the Thirty Years War stimulated institutions capable of increased complexification and specialisation while curtailing those that were locked in stasis and immutability. The institutional legacy of the Thirty Years War was the emergence of complex military organisations that are characteristic to the modern society and its self-renewing social subsystems. Previous scholarship on the Military Revolution has concentrated on military technicalities and the wider process of early modern state formation. This book proposes an alternative way of viewing early modern military transformations from the perspectives of institutions and systems. System-analytical survey of change and decline in the military institutions of the Thirty Years War introduces qualifications to the Military Revolution theory and offers a novel way of conceptualising early modern military history.Olli Bäckström (PhD) holds the title of docent in General History at the University of Eastern Finland. His research focuses on early modern warfare and the Thirty Years War.

This volume presents theoretical ideas, case studies, and reflective insights on community archaeology across the Middle East, with contributions by scholars working in and from Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, and Syria. The chapters represent a multitude of insights from contemporary public archaeology practice-drawing on theoretical frameworks and discussing the realities of challenges and opportunities presented by opening up archaeological experiences to wider publics in different social and political settings. In particular, the volume focuses on the following three themes: (1) defining and reflecting on 'community' in community archaeology; (2) which archaeologies to employ in community archaeology; and (3) measuring the success and failure of community archaeology. In addressing these issues, the chapters reflect different historical trajectories and cultures that enable us to find similarities and differences in the theory and practice of community archaeology. In more recent decades a shift has been noticed among both national authorities and foreign archaeological expeditions, with more emphasis on local heritage experiences. However, this frequently took the form of guiding and introducing communities to 'their heritage'. Only more recently local voices have become more heard in definitions of heritage and decisions on preservation matters, with more projects tying these voices into their research objectives. This volume presents several projects that combine postcolonial approaches, citizen participation, and community work across the Middle East. By focusing especially on this geographical area, the volume also reflects upon the current state of public and community archaeology in this unique and complex region, adding to the already rich literature from the rest of the world. The Middle East has a long, fascinating, but also complicated history of archaeological investigation, deeply entrenched in colonization, and more recently in the decolonization process. The involvement and social values of the associated communities have often been overlooked in academic discussions. This book aims to redress that imbalance and present original research that reflects on the work of current scholars and practitioners and draws similarities and differences from diverse cultures.

Finnish Settler Colonialism in North America reinterprets Finnish experiences in North America by connecting them to the transnational processes of settler colonial conquest, far-settlement, elimination of natives, and capture of terrestrial spaces. Rather than merely exploring whether the idea of Finns as a different kind of immigrant is a myth, this book challenges it in many ways. It offers an analysis of the ways in which this myth manifests itself, why it has been upheld to this day, and most importantly how it contributes to settler colonialism in North America and beyond.The authors in this volume apply multidisciplinary perspectives in revealing the various levels of Finnish involvement in settler colonialism. In their chapters, authors seek to understand the experiences and representations of Finns in North American spatial projects, in territorial expansion and integration, and visions of power. They do so by analyzing how Finns reinvented their identities and acted as settlers, participated in the production of settler colonial narratives, as well as benefitted and took advantage of settler colonial structures.Finnish Settler Colonialism in North America aims to challenge traditional histories of Finnish migration, in which Finns have typically been viewed almost in isolation from the broader American context, not to mention colonialism. The book examines the diversity of roles, experiences, and narrations of and by Finns in the histories of North America by employing the settler colonial analytical framework.Rani-Henrik Andersson (PhD) is senior university lecturer of North American Studies at the University of Helsinki and the principal investigator of HUMANA-Human Migration and Network Analysis: Developing New Research Methods for the Study of Human Migration and Social Change.Janne Lahti (PhD) is a historian who works at the University of Helsinki as an Academy of Finland research fellow. His research focuses on global and transnational histories of settler colonialism, borderlands, the American West, and Nordic colonialism. Lahti is also the editor-in-chief of the journal Settler Colonial Studies.

Nokia became a global player in mobile communications in the 1990s. This book illustrates how Nokia organised trips to journalists and paid direct campaign funding to politicians to establish its role at the core of Finnish decision-making.