The Soviet-Finnish War (1939-1940)

The Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940 was for many years an "uncomfortable" subject, which neither politicians nor the military were willing to talk about. The reason for this is that the war was an act of aggression by the Soviet Union against Finland and the Red Army sustained unjustifiably high losses. Since the late 1980s, new approaches in the historiography of the topic have been adopted, which have contributed to the expansion of the field of research on the Winter War. The monograph is a comprehensive analysis of the Soviet-Finnish war (1939-1940) historiography from the first historical works to the modern publications. The article includes a comprehensive analysis of scientific positions of the leading historians, examination of the process of formation and evolution of the scientific ideas about the content and nature of the Winter War, revealing stable trends, tendencies and peculiarities of the historiography development. The monograph criticizes subjectivistic opinions in the lightening of the topic, highlights its most debatable aspects, outlines the author's point of view concerning them. The publication is addressed to specialists in the field of national history and historiography, university professors, graduate and undergraduate students.