One self-ascribed characteristic of Finnish people is sisu [see-soo}. It is a term describing going beyond one´s mental or physical capacity. In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which is home to a large concentration of Americans of Finnish descent, it is widely understood as stoic toughness.
The first use of Sisu in the English language may have been on January 8, 1940, when Time magazine reported:
The 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.
In Robert A. Heinlein’s “juvenile” novel, Citizen of the Galaxy, Krausa is captain of the interstellar trading ship Sisu. The interstellar trading “family” of this ship is described as being fiercely proud and independent, preferring battle and death to being taken prisoner by raiding pirates.
Rather than being a genetic trait which one is born with, or a specific culture’s construct, Sisu is being thought of as a universal capacity. Through the process of social transfer of narratives (i.e. story telling), values become embedded within a culture and connected to the thought processes of its individuals. Individuals bring these narratives to life through their independent choices and actions. Then, these individual behaviors collected together prime and become the behavior of an entire nation.
The term has picked up new contemporary meanings of spunk, attitude, and self-confidence.
Bruce Mine Incident 