Due “M” al Nord: Montanelli e Malaparte in Finlandia

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) and Curzio Malaparte (1898–1957) were in Finland during World War II, the former as a witness (and envoy) of the “winter war” fought against the Soviet Union by Finland (which had won independence from Russia in 1917), the latter in the years of the “war of continuation”, when hostilities between the two countries continued in the more complex picture of the second phase of the conflict, that is, after Germany had attacked the Soviet Union. Most of their correspondence and annotations, collected in volume, immediately became, for many readers, the representation of an unequal clash between the small but well-prepared army of Finland (David) and the populous ranks of the Red Army (Goliath). In this article, Antonio Sciacovelli highlights, on the basis of his analysis of their writings, how their images of the Finns, the environment and the particular situation of those years were conveyed to Italian readers, in the “story” of the war events.