I ELD, I BLOD, I FROST, I SVÄLT” - Doria

Despite the fact that all of the interviewees had engaged in work that was
directly connected to the war, not all of them—especially the women—seemed
to experience that they had something to tell me concerning that war. By
studying this, I have realized that there is a difference between a war narrative
and war narration. A war narrative is something other than a story about the
war: a war narrative is just one kind of story about the war. War narratives are a
part of the larger war narration. The marginalized position of women has
brought them different experiences and remembrances from those of the men,
and other vantage points from which to tell about their experiences. What
women know is not an expected component of the genre of the war story. This
is a reason why they have not talked about their experiences and not been asked
about them before. The male genre of the war story is what people think of—
regardless of their own gender—when someone is asked to tell about the war.
This says a great deal about established and gender-specific definitions of what
is and what is not viewed as history, who is and who is not a part of history.
Oral history studies groups of people that, for various reasons, such as
gender, ethnicity or social class, have been marginalized by society and
correspondingly neglected by research. Oral history seeks to conduct inquiries
into the lives of groups or individuals who have not been accepted by
prevailing discourses at a specific point in time. Today, however, my
interviewees do not view themselves and are not regarded by others as ever
having been excluded from societal discourse, even though it could be argued
that they have variously experienced marginalization. I argue that, nonetheless,
the structure of oral history can be applied to my own and to similar material.
Striving to listen to another’s history is one of the most important components
of oral history. By listening empathically to the narratives of those connected to
war, other images than those transmitted by the official history come to light,
despite the self-professed patriotism of most of my interviewees. My point of
view is that personal experience narratives about war give “another” image of
war and of history.
The mythologizing narration about war has a strong symbolic meaning. It
paints a picture of a small, innocent country, attacked by a much larger
neighbor country, which fought fiercely against this enemy that threatened
belief, home and fatherland—the image of the biblical David and Goliath lies
close at hand. If one thinks about the kind of war narration that is often
verbalized today as a mythologizing grand narrative about the united nation in
its struggle against the enemy, a narrative considered crucial to transmit to
future generations, one begins to understand the role of such narratives in
cultural heritage. The antagonisms that exist in a society are subsumed by a
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