Swedish neutrality? : A historiographical study of Sweden during the Winter War 1939-1940

When Maria-Pia Boëthius book Heder och samvete was published in 1991, it came to shake the notion that Sweden had been fully neutral during the Second World War. Boëthius was the first to argue that this was not at all the case, which opened up for this study. Using a historiographical frame of reference, this study examined how research between the years 1958 and 1991 described and portrayed Sweden during the Second World War in general and the Winter War in particular. Had those descriptions of Sweden during the Finnish Winter War changed over time? The investigation revealed that the five researchers in this study tended to show tracks of contemporary History Research. The investigation also showed that many descriptions were reused without change over time. The Neutrality issue was constantly occurring in those research works, but not always precise in concrete actions where Sweden behaved in one way or the other. The Foreign Minister of that time, Rickard Sandler, came to symbolize both the Finnish-friendly and the failed policy. Swedish public opinion was described as generally positive towards Finland, although passive at first. Why the opinion swung to a Finnish benefit was not in any research works justified