The Soviet-Finnish conflict and the exclusion of the USSR from the League of Nations in the French press (1939)

The Soviet-Finnish conflict of 1939–1940 outlined the existing trends in the coverage of Soviet international politics, while the exclusion of the USSR from the League of Nations increased media interest in the USSR and Finland, giving rise to a new round of condemnation of Soviet policy. However, no research has been made in modern science on the coverage of these events by French periodicals. The purpose of this article is to analyze the features of coverage of the exclusion of the USSR from the League of Nations in December 1939, as well as the dynamics of publications on the Soviet-Finnish conflict in the preceding and subsequent months. The research is based on the analysis of the digitized array of French-language periodicals posted on the Retronews.fr portal created by the French National Library. The exclusion of the USSR from the League of Nations was the reason for the intensification of rhetoric related to the image of the USSR as an aggressor harboring aggressive intentions towards European countries, on the one hand, and Finland as a small heroic country ready to defend its freedom, on the other. Rudolf Holsti, the representative of Finland in the League of Nations, became a symbol of this event, and the analysis of the illustrative material demonstrates the implicit emphasis on Finland’s support from the leaders of the League of Nations – Great Britain and France. The article contributes to the study of the history of the development of the French periodical press during the Second World War, as well as to the field of imagology, demonstrating the features of the images of both opposing sides in the French press. The paper shows the stability of a number of cliches in depicting the Soviet Union and characterizing its policy in the history of European (and, more widely, Western) journalism, which are still relevant regarding Russia in post-bipolar epoch. The results of the research can be used not only by historians, but also by political scientists, journalists, and international relations specialists.