The study, entitled "Researching Cultural Objects and Manuscripts in a Small Country: The Finnish Experience of Raising Awareness of Art Crime," focuses on "the position of Finland in conversations on the movement of unprovenanced cultural objects, within the national, the Nordic and the global contexts." As written in the abstract, "Finland’s geopolitical position, as a ‘hard border’ of the European Union neighbouring the Russian Federation, and its current legislative provisions which do not include import regulation, mean that nonetheless has the potential to be significant in understanding the movement of cultural property at transnational levels."
The article documents a recent initiative by the authors and other colleagues on working with cultural objects and manuscripts, which was funded in 2017 by the University of Helsinki Future Fund. "Although Finland has a small population and is usually absent from international discussions on the illicit movement of cultural property (save a few exceptions)," the article argues that "it is still possible — and important — to affect policy and attitudes concerning art crime, provenance, and the role of stakeholders such as decision-makers, traders and the academy."
The article is currently under peer review, but can already be accessed as a open access pre-print using the following link: https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/201803.0201/v1. The authors are happy to receive comments.