Word: sisu
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...half a million families have their own private steam rooms, where temperatures rise to 275°F as the bather briskly whips his body with wet birch branches before dashing out and leaping into a frigid lake or snow bank. The sauna is said to develop the quality of sisu-a combination of courage, stamina, tenacity and stubbornness. Sisu indeed is Finland-and is perhaps the reason why it still exists...
...plea: "Swedes we are no longer. Russians we can never be. Therefore we must be come Finns." Finland finally proclaimed its independence in 1917, has been Finnish ever since. An earthy, engaging, moody people who have fought war after war, and always started again from the ruins, they regard sisu, plain guts, as the highest virtue. For, say Finns, "Whatever happens, we will be on the wrong side...
...against the Red army in World War II, the Finns in 1944 were forced to pay an exorbitant reparations bill: 17,680 square miles of territory and $300 million worth of goods, including industrial products that they had no means of producing. It took know-how as well as sisu, but they did it. The Russians, who had also occupied the naval stronghold of Porkkala just west of Helsinki, finally withdrew...
...crowds of up to 135,000 that turn out to watch Europe's venturesome jumpers. Last February, Recknagel flew off with the gold medal in the Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley with one jump of 306 ft. This season, showing the brand of toughness the Finns call sisu, Recknagel has won central Europe's toughest title with a gigantic jump of 323 ft. at Bischofshofen, Austria, in addition has taken a flock of warmup meets against the Austrians...