THUNDER BAY — Lakehead University has appointed Aappo Kahonen of Helsinki to the post of Chair in Finnish Studies.
Kahonen will be in Thunder Bay until the end of April.
The chair is an interdisciplinary appointment for one or two terms during the regular academic year.
Chairs are chosen by an advisory committee through an open competition.
Kahonen is an expert on foreign policy, with an emphasis on Soviet-Finnish relations.
If COVID-19 restrictions permit, he will make public presentations in the city during the fall and winter terms.
Kahonen is also interested in hearing from Finnish-Canadians and their descendants for a research project he's undertaking.
The project is entitled "Mobilization, Participation and State relation: Case of a Finnish Community in Canada, 1900-1960".
He's collecting data on the role of religious, social and political activities in providing a means for Finnish-Canadians to participate in Canadian society.
Kahonen has taught numerous courses at the University of Helsinki, and has delivered courses at universities in Moscow and Warsaw.
In his doctoral thesis, he explained a crisis in Cold War Finnish-Soviet relations in the late 1950s caused by foreign and trade politics, together with ideological reforms in the Soviet Union.
