Word: sisu
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Finland's wiry old peasant President, Kyosti Kallio-73 years old and full of sisu (courage)-last week thought up a new scheme to get supplies for his country. To the New York Times's Correspondent Harold Denny he said...
...adoption would be to provide airplanes and anti-aircraft guns. President Kallio was ready to promise that the planes would not operate beyond Finnish borders or against planes or troops engaged in genuine military operations. Said he: "Every attack in which Finns shoot down Russian planes strengthens Finnish sisu...
...Finns have something they call sisu. It is a compound of bravado and bravery, of ferocity and tenacity, of the ability to keep fighting after most people would have quit, and to fight with the will to win. The Finns translate sisu as "the Finnish spirit," but it is a much more gutful word than that...
Last week the Finns gave the world a good example of sisu by carrying the war into Russian territory on one front while on another they withstood merciless attacks by a reinforced Russian Army. In the wilderness that forms most of the Russo-Finnish frontier between Lake Laatokka and the Arctic Ocean, the Finns definitely gained the upper hand...
...quickly. Colonel Zilliacus was having a hard time, for most U. S. plants were clogged with French and British orders. And the Finns' greatest need, artillery and small arms, was even harder to buy in a warring world. A good example of the Finns' plight and of sisu was contained in a letter from a soldier to his sis ter, which Correspondent Leland Stowe cabled to the Chicago Daily News. Excerpts...