80 years old | It would have been strange if Finland had not decided to join NATO, says Jukka Tarkka, who has been openly pushing for membership for a long time

You on the evening of last May, when Finland sent a message to Brussels about its desire to enter the NATO membership negotiations, a celebratory drink popped up at the kitchen table in Tapiola.

“Yes, I enjoyed a small bottle of sparkling wine with myself in honor of that decision”, who has published thirty non-fiction books in the field of political history Jukka Tarkka remembers.

He is one of the few who openly supported joining the Western Defense Alliance even when the view was against the customs of the country.

Many still wonder how fast and surprising the decision to join NATO was. In Tarka’s view, however, it is a completely consistent consequence of everything that has happened in Finland since 1990.

“It would have been strange if Finland had not decided to join NATO but remained a freak in Europe, which is still trying to maneuver with military non-alignment,” he sums up.

exactly the latest book A time of revival of independence. Contemporary chronicle from 1990–2020 could not have appeared at a more opportune moment: Russia had just invaded Ukraine.

Suddenly, every Finn had to find out what kind of foundations their own country’s independence practically stands on.

In his book on post-Cold War security policy, Tarkka points to September 1990 as a turning point. Then the president Mauno Koivisto unexpectedly announced that the provisions of the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, which limited our country’s defense capabilities, have lost their meaning.

“Koivisto freed Finland from the herding of its eastern neighbor, for example in arms procurement,” says Tarkka. “He also considered the articles of the YYA agreement with the Soviet Union to be null and void, which violated Finland’s right to self-determination.”

Another big one and, as Tarkka puts it, the “significant change for the psyche of the people” was joining the European Union.

In his eyes, Russia seems to have noticed the change that happened here only in the early 2010s, when Finland bought attack missiles with a range of several hundreds of kilometers for Hornet fighters.

“Ah, it must have been said in the Kremlin, now Finland is gone”, Tarkka outlines. “But there was nothing more to do there than to state that the train had already left.”

“This clears up the wonderful fact that when NATO membership is now being realized, Russia’s reaction has been very formal and quiet. There has been no such ruckus as it threatened.”

Tarkka concludes that Russia has already adapted in advance to the fact that Finland will in any case become a member of NATO at some point.

To become a doctor Tarkka argued in 1977 about the war crimes trial that took place in 1945 and 1946. J. K. Paasikiven often used the word “horrible” due to the pressure of the Soviet Union – and let’s use the same word here to characterize the amount of Tarka’s own literary production, since it has also been created a lot in addition to the management tasks of different companies, in evening jobs.

“I wrote a couple of books while sitting in Otava”, he elaborates.

He is talking about the content of life. And for liking to sit at home and write.

“Especially now that I live alone, I’d be a damn orphan if I didn’t have anything sensible to do.”

Then the voice gets thicker and tears can’t be avoided:

“The writing frenzy also meant quite a bit of family terrorizing, when in addition to working hours, I wrote my stories at home in the evenings. I was present at home, but not mentally there. It meant to Mari a terrible burden, especially when the children had difficult phases.”

Managing household affairs remained the responsibility of the spouse.

“Later, many evenings when we sat at the kitchen table with evening wine, I told him my shame and embarrassment when I left him alone in his predicament. Mari once said that it was hard and that she was pushed to the limits of her endurance, but she wanted to do it because she thought that the work I was doing and where she wanted to help me was socially significant.”

“And that is the second most beautiful thing a woman can say to a man.”

Accurate have been together for a little over 60 years, of which 55 years married.

For decades, especially classical music was their common passion, which took them not only to concerts in the capital region and Lahti, but also to music festivals in Kuhmo, Naantali and Uudenkaupunki in the summer.

In recent years, the wife has been in a nursing home, where the husband visits almost every day. Before that, Jukka worked as Mari’s caregiver for a couple of years.

“I still love that woman.”