Snapshots from the decades of deportation

At the opening, Anni Reuter talked about her latest popular science publication, Inkeri Sava opened up the problem of remembering, and singer and songwriter Eila Pöllänen from Sweden performed songs based on the photographs on display.

The photo exhibition focuses on the mass repression of the Ingrian Roma in the Stalin-era Soviet Union. Some of the photos come from the family albums of the interviewees and from the archives of the NGO Nouse Inkeri, while others are from Anni Reuter’s (Jääskeläinen) recent monograph ‘Suomalaiset Stalinin puhdistuksissa’ (‘Finns in Stalin’s repression’, SKS 2023). Most of the illustrative material in this work, in turn, comes from the Jääskeläinen family archives.

The authors’ perspective is both scholarly and subjective, as both of their close relatives have been sent to prison camps or deported. Among them were several who never returned…