“Finland Is Dead, Dead, Dead”: Ethics and National Identity in Kristian Smeds's The Unknown Soldier

Demythologizing Finland's role in World War II, Finnish director Kristian Smeds's Unknown Soldier opens a theatrical inquiry into the ideological structure of national identification, a critique of Finnishness that ironizes ethical humanism and the humanitarianism it proposes. Smeds's production foregrounds the performance of wartime and postwar nationalism as an ethical negotiation, framing the cost of politicized alterity and belonging in contemporary Europe.