Columns If we don’t remember, we are nothing

Author Kjell Westön novel – based and Claes Olsson directing Sulfur yellow sky In the film, one of the characters speaks wisdom:

If we don’t remember, we are nothing.

The film came to theaters on Friday, the eve of Holy Day. The importance of remembering fits this weekend when we remember – not only the dead, but through them this history of our own, living.

Remembering there are many kinds. My own way of remembering the past is to dig up archives, sniff out crumbs of information from the dead of time ago and then imagine their lives and the reasons for their solutions.

Digitization has brought a new dimension to information retrieval. One such service is HS’s Time Machine, where you can browse old Hesareans.

A similar but larger archive treasure hunt has been digitized by the National Library newspaper and magazine material. From the beginning of the year, the free service expanded to cover magazines that appeared in Finland before 1939. If you are interested in the family’s forgotten fates, you should start there.

On a holy day often visited by graves. My family and I visit a grave where a distant relative I have never met rests. I don’t know much about him.

Haudan Mary was the daughter of a manufacturer born in St. Petersburg in 1890, who also moved to the Tsar’s court and dances at a young age. At one point he married an Orthodox priest, and they had a son. When a coup broke out in Russia, the family fled to Finland.

The next big turning point in Mary’s life was the Winter War. SakariThe boy went to the front and fell, at the age of 24. The following year, Mary’s spouse also died. The emigrant aunt lived for the rest of her life as a widow in Helsinki until she died in 1973.

Mary was my mother-in-law’s godmother and her story with all its gaps is one of those told in the family. It is said that a person will be remembered for two generations, but the stories of people who have gone to the pages of newspapers will last forever. From there, destinies like Mary can be traced.

Mary’s tomb is apt to remember both aunt herself and other deceased whose resting places are far away. By remembering, we are connected to what was, and at the same time we are moving crumbs from the past to what is coming.

In the chain of life, death is one of the loops, the others are memories.

The author is an HS film editor.