ABSTRACT
The border between Finland and Russia has formed an exceptionally deep mental dividing line between "us" and "them". For centuries it was the wa tershed between eastern and western Christianity. During the first wave of European state-making it became the battleground between the Russian and Swedish empires. Since the late 19th century the popular images of "us" and "them" acquired a special political content deriving from Finnish nation building and Russian revolutionary turmoil on both side of the border.
