ReettaEiranen

I am a historian whose work focuses on the intersections of nationalism, experiences, close relationships, and gender. I lead my own Academy Research Fellow project, ”Contested compliance – Finnish personal nationalism towards the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century (CoPe)”, at the Finnish Literature Society (SKS). The project operates as part of the Research Council of Finland’s Centre of Excellence in Nationalism Research in the Humanities (NARS). CoPe examines the formation of compliance as a political attitude in the relations between the Grand Duchy of Finland and the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century from the perspectives of the history of experiences, networks, and gender.

I am interested in various informal groups and networks behind political and ideological activity, for example, within family circles and civil society. Methodologically, I am versed in narrative and hermeneutic approaches. My latest publications address the methodology of the history of experience, emotional relationships in the nineteenth-century Finnish–Swedish language question, and personal nationalism. In my doctoral dissertation (2019), I examined the intertwining of the national cause and close relationships in the Tengström family circle ini the nineteenth century from a group biographical perspective. Since then, I have worked at the Research Council of Finland’s Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences, at the Tampere Institute for Advanced Study, and as a visiting researcher at the Center for the History of Emotions at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin. I am a member of the steering committee of Narrare: Centre for Interdisciplinary Narrative Studies, the National Committee for Historical Sciences, and the editorial board of the journal niin & näin. Academic editing and the popularization of science are important to me, and I have previously served on the editorial board of the Historiallinen Aikakauskirja (Finnish Historical Journal) and been involved in founding publications that popularize science.

Eiranen, Reetta; Miettinen, Riikka & Toivo, Raisa Maria (eds) Sources and Methods for the History of Experience. Palgrave 2026.

Eiranen, Reetta & Suodenjoki, Sami. Egodocuments and life-writing as sources for the history of experience. In Reetta Eiranen, Riikka Miettinen & Raisa Maria Toivo (eds) Sources and Methods for the History of Experience. Palgrave 2026.

Eiranen, Reetta. Tunnesuhteet ja sukutraditio suomen- ja ruotsinmielisessä kansallisessa kiinnittymisessä. Johanna Schybergson aatteiden välissä. niin & näin 32 (1), 2025, 35–43. [Emotional relationships and family tradition in Finnish- and Swedish-minded national attachment. Johanna Schybergson between ideologies]

Eiranen, Reetta & Ovaska, Anna (eds) Kollektiiviset kokemukset ja tunteet -teemanumero. niin & näin 32 (1), 2025. [Introduction to the special issue, Collective experiences and emotions]

Eiranen, Reetta. Gendered Personal Nationalism: National Cause as a Resource of Self-Construction in Finnish Nineteenth-century Letters. Nations and Nationalism 31 (1), 2025, 245–261.

Eiranen, Reetta. The Narrative Construction of Experience. Digital Handbook of the History of Experience. Research Council of Finland’s Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences, 2023.

Eiranen, Reetta. Emotions and Nationalism. In Katie Barclay & Peter Stearns (eds) The Routledge History of Emotions in the Modern World. Routledge 2022, 407–422.

Eiranen, Reetta; Hatavara, Mari; Kivimäki, Ville; Mäkelä, Maria & Toivo, Raisa Maria (eds) Theme issue ‘Narrative and Experience’. Scandinavian Journal of History 47 (1), 2022, 1–15.

Eiranen, Reetta. Personal Nationalism in a Marital Relationship: Emotive and Gendering Construction of National Experience in Romantic Correspondence. In Ville Kivimäki, Sami Suodenjoki & Tanja Vahtikari (eds) Lived Nation as the History of Experiences and Emotions in Finland, 1800–2000. Palgrave, 85–108.  

Eiranen, Reetta. Lähisuhteet ja nationalismi. Aate, tunteet ja sukupuoli Tengströmin perheessä 1800-luvun puolivälissä. Tampereen yliopiston väitöskirjat 79. PunaMusta, Tampere 2019. [Close Relationships and Nationalism. The Cause, Emotions and Gender in the Tengström Family in Mid-Nineteenth Century Finland, with English Summary]

Eiranen, Reetta. Kirjeet ajan ja paikan tunteikkaina ylittäjinä. niin & näin 23 (2), 2016, 43–46. [Letters as emotional transgressors of time and space]

Eiranen, Reetta. Kirjeet kohtauspaikkoina. Ihanne ja eletty todellisuus Jeanette ja J. V. Snellmanin välisessä kirjeenvaihdossa. Sukupuolentutkimus– Genusforskning 27 (2), 2014, 5–17. [Epistolary encounters: Ideals and lived reality in the correspondence between Jeanette and J. V. Snellman]