There has been a persistent idea in Finland that antisemitism hardly existed in the country before or during WWII. In the last two decades this idea has been refuted by numerous studies which have brought attention to, for example, the deportations of Jews during the war, cases of discrimination, or antisemitic narratives in political discussions, literature, and journalistic texts.

This article looked at the presentation of Jews in the general press within a broad time frame (1819–1936), hence, it aims at obtaining a view on how Jews were seen in the Finnish society at large. Earlier research has concluded that antisemitism was limited to far‐right or ultranationalist papers; this study ends up with the opposite conclusion.

In this study, 313 texts from newspapers and magazines were examined, identifying 555 topic units altogether. The topic units were grouped under 12 themes, and the tone of each topic unit was assessed as positive, negative, or neutral toward Jews/Judaism. The overall tone of the texts was negative: 40.0% of the topic units were negative in tone, whereas only 16.2% were positive (43.8% were neutral). Most discussed themes were characteristics, current affairs, civil rights, and persecution.

An interesting finding was that some themes were not discussed at the upfront level at all. They seemed to be considered self evident and were, thus, only referred to at the background level. Such themes were the idea of Jews as a separate nation living within other nations, and the idea that whatever hardships, discrimination, or persecution Jews might have endured or be enduring, those endurances were—at least to some extent—their own fault.

For an oppressed minority like Jews, the background level messages are especially treacherous: Whereas the upfront level topics can be questioned, confronted, or negated, the background level is often expressed in a nonchalant manner, as common knowledge. Thus, the background level claims are more prone to be accepted without questioning; it is hard to challenge or confront them, or even to notice that they are there.

In the data, Jews were depicted as being dirty, smelly, ugly, backward, fundamentalist, and unable to adapt to the lifestyle and culture of the countries in which they lived. They were represented as being cunning, selfish, and greedy, having too much influence on several branches of business and planning to eventually take over the entire world. It is worth noting that even features and behaviour that would otherwise be deemed positive were seen as negative when associated with Jews.

Religiosity was a virtue in a Christian but a sign of hypocrisy or pretence in a Jew. Wealth or high status were generally valued, but for a Jew they were signs of greed or unwillingness to undertake physical labour. Poverty or misery, in case of Jews, was not a pitiful misfortune but a sign of an angered God, or a divine lesson. Innovative business methods became suspicious and unchristian when practiced by Jews. Skillfulness and productivity were not necessarily merits, because they only made Jews more dangerous: more able to take over industries, countries, or the whole world.

Finland has been accustomed to seeing itself as an exception when it comes to racism. The fact that Finland never had colonies has been thought to implicate that the country can not be racist the same way as, for example, Great‐Britain or France. I would argue that there is another, equally or even more potent self‐narrative which has made it practically impossible to bring up racism in Finland: the story of a virtuous country void of antisemitism.

This study covered media texts published within a broad time span, 118 years (1819–1936), which meant that the data could not be exhaustive; from the years 1866–1936 only 1 year per decennium was examined. From each of these sample years, however, an average of 50 newspaper issues and 120 magazine issues were examined. Thus, this article provides a good overall view to the more than hundred years of pre‐WWII writing of Jews in the Finnish general press.

(Emphasis added.)

While Finland was not, strictly speaking, a fascist régime, factors such as this one facilitated its alliance with the Fascists.