The Eternal Road

Set in the interwar 1930s, a period of political volatility and social upheaval. The Lapua Movement pursues anti-communists in Finland, while Stalin-era terror reshapes life across Soviet Karelia. The timeline spans Jussi’s abduction in 1931, his captivity and new life in Hopea, and the Great Purge that reshapes the fate of the kolkhoz residents by 1937.

The story moves between Finland and the Soviet borderlands. Jussi returns to a divided Finland and is drawn into the Soviet-leaning Karelia region, where his fate becomes intertwined with a Finnish American/Karelian kolkhoz. Key locations include the border crossing point, the hospital in Petrozavodsk, and the Hopea kolkhoz where the new community forms.

🛡️ Survival

The protagonist endures kidnapping, a gunshot wound, and a forced reconfiguration of life in a foreign political system. Amid surveillance and danger, Jussi clings to resilience, adapting to a new society while clinging to memories of his Finnish family. The struggle focuses on staying human under coercive pressure and violence.

🧭 Identity

Forced to assume the name Jussi Kari, the character negotiates belonging across borders and loyalties. A new family and a new community force him to redefine who he is, while the state apparatus tests his loyalty and allegiance. The tension between personal and political identity is a throughline of his transformation.

⚖️ Persecution

The narrative centers on state-driven fear: the Lapua Movement’s abductors, the NKVD’s scrutiny, and the Great Purge’s reach into everyday life. People are measured by political loyalty rather than kinship, and ordinary life becomes a site of coercion and potential ruin. The threat of arrest, interrogation, and betrayal looms over the Hopea community.