Abstract Finland is the only country in the world where all ports freeze over during a typical winter. Over the century 1878–1978, Finland developed a winter-seafaring system that broke the winter isolation and eliminated seasonal variation in shipping. By using diverse archival sources, we deconstruct the dominant narrative of Finnish winter seafaring through which national as well as technological development is often presented as natural, inevitable and straightforward. We reinterpret the Finnish winter navigation system as a tangible, historical experience and show that technological solutions in this domain cannot be understood outside the context of a decades-long process of nation-building. Finally, we argue that winter navigation became a central imaginary for Finland as a western, industrial and modern nation. As such, the Finnish winter-seafaring system presents a case of technological nationalism in which a small, peripheral country sought to integrate itself into a modern international order.

中文翻译：

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小国、大船冬季航行和外围国家的技术民族主义，1878-1978

摘要 芬兰是世界上唯一一个在典型的冬季所有港口都结冰的国家。在 1878 年至 1978 年的一个世纪里，芬兰开发了一种冬季航海系统，打破了冬季的隔离，消除了航运的季节性变化。通过使用不同的档案资源，我们解构了芬兰冬季航海的主导叙事，通过这种叙事，国家和技术发展通常被呈现为自然、不可避免和直接的。我们将芬兰冬季导航系统重新解释为一种有形的历史经验，并表明在长达数十年的国家建设过程之外，无法理解该领域的技术解决方案。最后，我们认为冬季航行成为芬兰作为一个西方、工业和现代国家的核心想象。因此，