Abstract
This article examines the literary representations of Germans in recent Finnishlanguage novels from an imagological angle.1 The examination is divided into three thematic sections: (1) novels that deal with the Lapland War (1944–45); (2) novels that satirize Finnish contemporary society and extremist political movements by referring to Nazi Germany; and (3) finally, in brief, novels that show a more neutral attitude towards Germany or that acknowledge present-day Germany as Europe's economic power. The idea is first to show that images of Germans and of Germany are startlingly present in contemporary Finnish novels and, secondly, to try to understand why this is the case. In other words, I will consider whether the phenomenon is related to broader issues in Finnish society today—issues that the novels' authors criticize, such as rising xenophobia and the problems that arise from economic inequality. The conclusion is that the German image reflected in these Finnish novels is created by contemporary Finnish novelists in order to discuss delicate issues concerning Finnish society. This means, in imagological terms, that the image of Germans and Germany in these novels strongly reflects the Finnish self-image.