The article is devoted to comparison of Finnish and Russian historical memories about Russian-Swedish war of 1808−1809. The author describes Finnish and Russian ‘memorial places' connected with the war, predominantly Finnish memorials in the places of battles and Russian monuments related to conquest of Finland, and draws the conclusion that the war occupied very different places in the Russian and Finnish historical memories. For Russia it was successful but unpopular campaign which afterwards was nearly buried in oblivion. For Finland the war became one of cornerstones for construction of the national historical memory. In the second half of the 19th century memory about the war became a decisive vehicle for formation of the young Finnish nation. Rate of memorial construction at battlefields corresponded to intensity of national feeling upsurge. In Russia the memory about that war was revived only at the early 20th century. It was done with the purpose to strengthen the imperial concept at the conquered periphery. Two monuments that expressed this idea and conquest of Finland jubilee celebration proved to be purely bureaucratic events and aroused emotional response neither in the Finnish nor in the Russian national consciousness. The imperial historical myth was losing the ground to the mythology of little nation which experienced the peak of its emergence.