”Den frivillige soldaten.” : Manlighetsideal och legitimitet bland svenska frivilliga soldater samt det omgivande samhället under finska inbördeskriget 1918

Sammanfattning: This paper examines how the ideal of manhood is portrayed and constructed and how the participation of Swedish soldier volunteers are motivated and legitimatized. The purpose of this examination is to gain understanding and knowledge about the Swedish soldiers in the Swedish brigade, how they legitimatize and motivate their participation and how the ideal of manhood is portrayed and constructed. The study is based on material from the war archive in Stockholm. The empirical material is composed by letters and propaganda material. In the analysis of the empirical study, there have been two theories used which are Eric Hobsbawms historical method and theory about invented traditions and Peter Aronssons historical method and theory about ‘historiebruk’ and legitimacy. The method I used for analyzing my empirical material is the genetic-biography method which aims the interest to the text, language in the text, the words and the sentences. The field of research about the finish civil war in 1918 is very large and that is why I made a selection in order to choose which research should represent the rest of the field. The selection is based on the reasoning about the class conflict, eye witnesses and the picture of the finish civil war, the freedom war and the participation of the Swedish soldier volunteers. The result in this study and examination shows how the ideal of manhood is constructed usually by a soldier who often sacrifices his own life and becomes a hero, a freedom fighter that stands up against the violence from the east, the so called bolsjevikempire. The participation of the Swedish soldier volunteers is legitimatized through several ways. The legitimization is often connected to the past and the Swedish nation in order to accept the actions and the participation of the Swedish soldiers.