Russo-Finnish War Research Topic

[gudmunih]

Hello,

I am researching the Russo-Finnish War for a history class and need help narrowing down my topic. I recently came across Simo Häyhä and find him very fascinating but I can not seem to find enough sources/information to aid me in my 30 page paper. With that being said any suggestion would be helpful! I am interested in not only the Finnish side but also the Russian!

Thanks!!

[Stiltzkin]

It is unkown how many people Häyhä (aka White Death) actually killed, his numbers (of 505 so called "confirmed") are actually mostly non-confirmed and probably high exaggerations for propagandistic reasons (similar to Hartmann or Wittmann). Most of his "kills" were also achieved with the SMG (he was also more of a Marksman and not a Sniper, he preferred Iron Sights). He would probably get closer to something like Hetzenauers or Allenbergers figures, though this is just speculation.
If you want to know more about the "Talvisota"/ Winter War use the search function in the forums or http://www.winterwar.com/mainpage.htm

There is a thread with recommended literature on the Winter War here: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 9&t=130079

Theres a book from Sarrelainen , "The Sniper Simo Häyhä"
also::
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1 ... 9708430282
https://books.google.de/books?id=t_OODA ... &q&f=false

Best regards

[antwony]

You're Uni? 30 pages... dissertation? Change your subject. Häyhä was Karelian and Suojeluskunta, which makes pages. But, 30 pages, good luck.

[Teemu S]

I would recommend you write on something else than Häyhä. 30 pages on Häyhä might be a rather difficult task.

Maybe Lauri Törni (aka. Larry Thorne)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauri_T%C3%B6rni

Or perhaps Summer 1944? Bunch of defensive victories were achieved during that time which eventually led to Stalin dropping the 'unconditional surrender' prerequisite for peace talks?

[JTV]

I am also suggesting change of subject. 30 pages is about Simo Häyhä is would not be easy even if you would have perfect Finnish language skills and all materials written in Finnish about the subject available. If you don't speak the language, then it is just mission impossible.

There probably were not that much propaganda reasons for exaggerating Häyhä's sniper kills, but since even in best of situations only way to verify kills was single guy with binoculars and he was not around all the time, quite a few of the kills may have survived. BTW: He had supposedly been among the small number of soldiers to receiver sniper training in Civil War before the war, so he was a sniper, but decided to prefer his own rifle and its iron sights plus rifle scopes were not exactly easily available.

Jarkko

[Juha Tompuri]

Some English language books dealing Häyhä:


https://www.amazon.com/SIMO-H%C3%84YH%C ... 3MGMNBH5NX


http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-gre ... 1121088712

Regards, Juha

[gudmunih]

Thank you all for your responses! Yes I quickly found out that I needed a broader topic. With that being said, I changed to what being a Finn really meant during this time and what the term sisu means to Finns especially during the Winter War.