FNSC9007 FINLAND IN NORTHERN EUROPEAN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

1
FNSC9007 FINLAND IN NORTHERN EUROPEAN
CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

• Location and timetable
• Publicum 5
• Sept 2, 14-16
• Sept 9, 14-16
• Sept 16, 14-16
• Sept 30, 14-16
• Oct 14, 14-16
• Oct 21, 14-16 Vesa Vares
• Oct 28, 14-16 Markku Jokisipilä
• Nov 4, 14-16 Kimmo Rentola

2
The goal of this course

• The main facts of Finnish history
• Finland became an independent state in 1917.
  Before that, the region and its inhabitants had a
  history.
• From pre-history to the present day, with an
  emphasis on the 19th and 20th centuries.
• Reflect on these facts
• What can historical developments teach us on the
  Finnish collective experience nowadays? What is
  the role of History for the Finns? What are the
  main hinges, trends, characters, developments,
  debates?

3
Assignment

• Your grade will be decided on the basis of
• Your participation to and involvment in the
  course attendance list, questions, participation
  (2 or 3)
• A short (min 5 p.) essay on a subject linked to
  the course a good essay pulls your grade to 3, 4
  or 5
• In English, subject decided with the teacher
• Deadline for the essay end of November
• Comparison, book review, commentary, essay on
  specific subject

4
What the ?_at_ is he talking about?

• A Concise History of Finland, David Kirby
  (Cambridge University Press, 2006, 342 pages)?
• Finland can fairly lay claim to have been one of
  the big success stories from the modern age
• A Short History of Finland, Fred Singleton (CUP,
  1998, 242 pages)?
• The Finns are in many ways a special people
• A political History of Finland since 1809, Osmo
  Jussila, Seppo Hentilä, Jukka Nevakivi (Hurst,
  1999)
• The History of Finland, Jason Lavery (Greenwood
  press, 2006)
• http//www.history-of-finland.com/
• For a wider perspective Kirbys The Baltic World
• The website http//thisisfinland.fi
• Ask me for more specific references

5
Finland in History

• A marginal, yet interesting experience
• A small people, speaking a strange language a
  few hundred thousands till 1800, 3 m in 1940, 6 m
  today About 6 m inhabitants in Saint-Petersburg
  only
• An interesting margin the Finnish experience
• I. Arwindsson, 1850s The history of this place
  is tragically uneventful. One never has to fear
  being overwhelmed by work, instead one can thank
  the Lord when finding something to tell
• For most of historical times, a non-event
  scattered tribes, unorganized, uncivilized
• What Arwindsson looks for is the history of
  organized communities recorded history of
  diplomatic relations, law, the state,
  administration, taxes, trade, war
• Most of Finnish history is outside of this
  realm, the unrecorded history of scattered
  settlers, tribes, wild lands A young community
  in its modern form. Comparison
  Helsinki-Stockholm. In that, much in common with
  the United States.
• A history under influence Finnish history is
  Swedish, German, Russian, British history
• The importance of the context

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. Geology, climate . A rocky, cold, infertile,
slowly rising granitic bed . In the south-west
archipelagos, the sea, forests, arable lands .
In the east lakes, forests, swamps . In the
north a toundra-like environment . Natural
borders? . The sea? . The wilderness in the
east? . A periphery of classical Europe and the
Russian, Eastern sphere . Yet, a crossroad of
influences and contacts
Turku
7
The origins of the Finns a mystery

• Theories and debates over the age, nature and
  origins of the first settlements on the territory
  of present day Finland
• More questions than answers, few findings
• Populations from the East and South, a language
  from the East
• The stabilization into two zones of settlement
  east-northern Finland south-western Finland
• Different influences, ways of living, etc
• The origins as a political problem politically
  motivated interpretations
• In the 19th century, when the Finns developed a
  national identity, and later when Finland
  became independent, the origins were interpreted
  in a politically convenient way.
• For example, defuse the 19th century racial
  theories on the Eastern, mongol origin of the
  Finns
• The story of Kalevala The children of Kalevala
  against the children of Pohjola, South against
  North

8
1155-1809 a periphery of Sweden

• The Northern crusades 1155, bishop Henri and
  Swedish king Erik cross the sea into Finland
• Mythical figures?
• Politics, religion, trade the extension of
  Sweden against the Russian city-states. The
  Finnish-speaking tribes as spectators of the
  clash between Novgorod and Svearik
• The colonization of Finland?

9
1155-1809 a periphery of Sweden
1300 AD

• 1323 The peace of Pähkinäsaari sets the border
  between Novgorods and Stockholms influence

Tavasthus//Hämeenlinna
Viborg/Viipuri
Åbo/Turku
10
1155-1809 a periphery of Sweden

• The kings of Sweden nominated administrators for
  Finland, taken from the Swedish gentry and
  nobility. These formed a group of administrators,
  soldiers, clergymen, a Swedish or German-speaking
  elite, that will slowly complement its ranks with
  peoples of local extraction
• A social pattern emerged
• A free peasantry, subject to taxation
• Officials with charges delegated by the crown
• The nobility (often soldiers)?
• The clergy

• Maunu Niilonpoika Särkilahti
• Bishop of Turku, 1489-1500

11
1155-1809 a periphery of Sweden

• No serfdom, but poverty, wars, taxes, debts,
  social unrests, the importance of tax exemptions
  and service to the crown
• The 'Eastlands' remained a rather poor marchland
  of the Swedish centre, a frontier country
• 1695-1696 famine strikes, killing 100 000
  peoples. Hunger episodes will remain a reality in
  Finland until the beginning of the 1900s 1917
  was a year of food shortage and almost famine in
  some parts of the country
• Thetta landsände (this end of the country) in
  1550 34000 farms, 200 manors, a few towns, about
  400 000 inhabitants in all
• Eric Christiansen Where Sweden was poor,
  Finland was poorer in educated men, in books, in
  towns, in arts, in schools
• A land of free peasants, rude and unlettered,
  but by no means unenterprising (Kirby)? trade,
  navigation, war, culture, etc.
• The division between eastern and western
  Finland, the elite and the population, the coast
  and the hinterland
• The Swedish legacy
• Administrative and social organization
• Religion
• Legal tradition
• Bilingualism

12
Russia on the rise, 1703-1808

• 1703 the construction of Saint-Petersburg
• 1700-1721 the great Northern war and Poltava
  (1709)
• Lord Byron
• 1700-1743 occupation and war in the Eastern
  lands
• A buffer zone
• The long memory of a peasant society, and the
  development of Finnish patriotism an attachment
  to the land, a sense of belonging, an interest
  for the peoples
• 1788-1790 Gustavs war
• The last straw?
• The confederation of Anjala, 1788 changing
  Finlands status?

13
Finland as an issue in the Napoleonic wars

• Napoleon as the successor of the French
  revolutionnary period
• Napoleon against Europe, 1800-1814
• The idea of a continental blockade against
  England
• Sweden a problem
• The successor of Gustav III was fiercely opposed
  to Napoleon and anti-revolutionary. He strongly
  refused to associate Sweden to the blockade
• June 1807 Napoleon's victory over the Russian
  Army at Friedland brought the Polish Campaign to
  an end
• Napoleon wanted the Russians help in forcing
  Sweden to associate to the blockade, and the Czar
  had no choice but to oblige

14
From Tilsit to Turku

• Napoleon met with Alexander I in the small town
  of Tilsit, near present day Kaliningrad
• They signed a peace treaty on 7 July, 1807
• Amongst other things, the treaty obliged the Czar
  to try and persuade the Swedish king to join the
  blockade
• The Swedish king refused, and at the end of 1807,
  Alexander I reluctantly decided upon a military
  operation to resolve matters
• The operation would obviously take place in
  Finland
• 1808-1809 Finland is occupied in a matter of
  months by the Russians
• Turku occupied in March 1808

15
Divided reactions in Finland

• Some of the nobility remained faithful to Sweden
• The population, especially in regions like
  Ostrobothnia or Savo resisted the Russian troops
• Memories of previous occupations resistence to
  the Russian troops was especially fierce in
  Ostrobothnia, where these memories were
  especially painful
• Distrust of a gentry accused of corruption and of
  selling out to the Russians for the satisfaction
  of petty interests
• Hedgehog reaction against external threats
• The nobility and the clergy, however, mostly
  chose to comply with the Russians
• Possibility for a region they felt had been
  abandoned by Stockholm Determination to seize
  the opportunity offered by Alexander I
  Acknowledgment of Russian power and of Swedish
  unpreparedness and military incompetence
  Emphasis on a local, distinct identity above a
  general, Swedish identity
• Jakob Tengström, bishop of the see of Turku

16
A deputation to the czar

• Alexander I of Russia
• Strategic interests and the defense of
  Saint-Petersburg
• Liberal-minded, willing to conciliate strategic
  interests with a dose of experimentation in the
  organization of the empires conquered provinces
• Desire to calm down the situation in Finland for
  a smooth transition from Swedish to Russian rule
• Charming, civilized, capable a good impression
• The Russian commander was ordered to organize the
  election of a deputation to the czar
• Headed by Carl Erik Mannerheim, this deputation
  met with Alexander in the end of 1808
• The future of Finland inside the Russian empire
  was still unknown, but the czar announced his
  intention to call the estates representing the
  Finnish orders)
• Alexander showed his acceptance of the rules and
  regulations herited from the Swedish time system
  of the estates, consultation of said estates,
  religious liberties, etc

17
Porvoo, March 1809

• Alexander confirmed the rules, laws, and
  religious liberties of the Swedish time
• In a declaration, he modelled the borders of a
  Grand-Duchy of Finland, that he placed under his
  rule
• Finland was elevated to the rank of nations
• What did the say? Why did he do that?
• Securing the Finns loyalty, cutting the links
  with Sweden a declaration much in line with
  others made to other conquered parts of the
  empire
• A desire to experiment with new ways of
  organizing the relations between centre and
  periphery, ruler and subject at a time when the
  tsar and his principal advisor Speransky were
  much concerned with reforming the administrative
  structure of the empire, Finland did offer a
  timely exemplar of the well-ordered monarchical
  state
• The estates could help Alexander to manage
  Finland on the cheap
• 1810 My intention has been to give the people
  of that country a political existence, so that
  they could not consider themselves conquered by
  Russia, but joined to it by their own
  self-evident interests

18
Important consequences of 1808-1809

• The emergence of an administrative and legal
  entity, inside borders assembling east and west,
  Old Finland, Swedish Finland, Lapland, eastern
  Finland
• The strengthening of the specific, symbolic
  identity of the Finns, and its transformation
  into a national identity
• The nation as a phenomenon characteristic of
  19th century Europe insistance on national
  identity, construction of national myths, etc
• Benedict Andersson the imagined community
• Nationalism as a liberating, revolutionary
  ideology
• State, then nation

19
Breaking the link with Stockholm

• The capital of Finland moved from Turku to
  Helsinki in 1810
• After the city of Turku was all but destroyed by
  fire in 1827, the university was transferred to
  Helsinki
• Helsinki was rebuilt as a symbol of imperial rule
  in Finland
• Promoting the Finnish language against Swedish