The recruitment of identity: the sources of Karelian Fever

Abstrakti

Readers of Siirtolaisuus-Migration will have followed my disagreements with Mr. Hudelson and Mrs. Sevander regarding explanations for the phenomena known collectively as Karelian fever. Sources, as much as interpretation, divide us. In this essay I will offer new material from sources that I have previously cited. I will also expand on those that I used and explain why such sources are critical for understanding Karelian fever. It remains to note my continued amazement at Hudelson and Sevander’s criticism of those sources and my use of them. Mrs. Sevander, who has seen Karelian archival material on Karelian fever, has overlooked the most important archival sources on the subject. Mr. Hudelson, who by his own admission cannot read Russian, has nonetheless joined her in criticizing the Russian sources that I cite.