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Olga Terho

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(Redirected from Olga Virtanen)
Female SKDL parliamentarians. Olga Terho on the left in the front row.

Olga Lydia Terho (née Virtanen) was a Finnish politician. She represented the Finnish People's Democratic League in parliament 1945–1948.

Olga Virtanen was born on 23 July 1910 in Siikainen, a rural village in south-western Finland.[1][2] Her parents were Evert Virtanen and Hilma Kaisantytär, and she grew up in a tenant peasant family.[1][2] She completed four years of elementary school.[1] She began as a seamstress working at age of 15.[1][2][3] In 1929 she moved to Lahti.[1] In Lahti she became involved in left-wing politics, joining a leftist sports club and an association to support political prisoners.[1] She befriended Väino Sievänen, who invited her to become a member of the District Committee of the underground Communist Party of Finland (SKP).[1]

Olga Virtanen was a political prisoner 1932–1933, 1936-1940 and 1941–1944.[2] In 1932 she was arrested by the Detective Central Police.[1] She spent months in jail before being given a suspended eight-month sentence in 1933.[1] After leaving jail Virtanen migrated to Leningrad, Soviet Union.[1] In Leningrad she attended a party school.[1]

The party school was closed down in June 1936.[1] Virtanen returned to Finland in October 1936.[1] She was pregnant at the time, the father of her child was killed in a purge.[1] She was again arrested and sentenced to four years in jail for treason in January 1937.[1] She and her baby were held at Hämeenlinna prison.[1] In 1939 Sievänen helped arrange for her child to stay with a foster family in Lahti.[1] Virtanen was released in the fall of 1940, but was restricted from leaving Helsinki and could rarely see her child.[1] In Helsinki she became an activist in the Society for Peace and Friendship between Finland and the Soviet Union.[1] In October 1941 she was again arrested and sentenced to eight years imprisonment for treason.[1]

Virtanen was released from jail after the 1944 armistice.[1] Soon after returning to Helsinki the Communist Party sent her to work as organizer in south-western Finland.[1] She married Martti Rafael Terho in 1945.[2] Olga Terho was elected to parliament in the 1945 Finnish parliamentary election, standing as a SKDL candidate in the Turku North I constituency.[4]

Olga Terho was a member of the Pori municipal council.[2] She died on November 22, 2003.[2]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Claire Duchen; Irene Bandhauer-Schöffmann (2000). When the War was Over: Women, War, and Peace in Europe, 1940-1956. Leicester University Press. pp. 120–124. ISBN 978-0-7185-0179-2.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Eduskunta. Olga Terho
  3. ^ Finlands statskalender. Weilin + Göös. 1948. p. 24.
  4. ^ Finland. Eduskunta (1947). Protokoll i sammandrag. p. 842.
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