An established view on the issue of Swedish volunteers participating in the Finnish civil war in 1918 has been that they mostly distanced themselves from the fierce level of violence of the conflict. Later research has contested this view and instead suggests that the Swedes involved in general took part in the executions and cleansing actions going on during the civil war and its aftermath. In the memories and testimonies of the Swedish volunteers there is a conspicuous contrast between the lofty ideals and emotional expressions of pride and idealism and the emotions, or lack of emotions, towards the enemy and in the handling of prisoners of war in general. This article focuses on how the Swedes related emotionally to the higher goals of their contribution and the general degree of violence in the conflict.This angle can shed some light not only on how the notions of Grand Swedishness developed but also on the issue of how emotional numbness and distancing in dealing with victims and enemies develops in a war situation. The result of the study is that processes of legitimization made it possible to keep an emotional distance towards the defeated party in the conflict, and that the view that the Reds were the moral losers in an unjust war made this possible. However, while the legitimacy of this stance svenskar i österled 1918 · 225 was a matter of course in Finland, in 1918 dominated by the White army, the interaction with Swedish society was more complicated. Hence there is a more noticeable tendency towards arguing one’s case in the Swedish volunteer testimonies and narratives as compared to the dominant white narrative in Finland; this points to the possibilities of further analysis.
