Johanna Lemola

Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load. The Cold War term for a kind of stifled sovereignty has gained attention as a possible solution to the standoff with Russia. But the nation it’s named for would rather forget about it. The Finland of today is a member of the European Union that uses the euro and deals with the United States and Europe on its own terms. Credit...Kimmo Brandt/EPA, via Shutterstock HELSINKI For decades, Finland survived as an independent and unoccupied democracy in the shadow of the Soviet Union by handing the Kremlin outsized influence over its politics and hewing to a delicate neutrality during the Cold War. That model — known in diplomatic circles as Finlandization — is now being invoked as a possible solution to the standoff over Ukraine, an idea that would effectively neutralize its sovereignty and possibly allow Russia a new sphere of influence for a new era. But for Finns, let alone Ukrainians, it is not an idea to be tossed lightly on the negotiating table, smacking of the kind of imperial, Old World politics that once reduced the Continent’s smaller nations to pawns in a game over which they had no control. Ask Finns around Helsinki’s snowy squares, frigid ports, Nordic design cafes and modern libraries what they think about ‘Finlandization’ and the older generation may look at you askance, and the younger one blankly about a notion that to many belongs in the past. ‘It has for Finns a negative ring to it,’ said Mika Aaltola, the director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. ‘It has to do with a very difficult period in Finnish history.’ While the policy helped this nation at the fringe of the Arctic avoid the fate of Central and Eastern European countries to the south, which were occupied as part of the Soviet bloc, Finland’s independence came at the cost of swallowing no small dose of self-censorship and foreign sway. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.