Talk:History of Finland

Comment

I'm preparing an article on the concept of Western Betrayal at User:Halibutt/Western betrayal. I need someone to drop in and add facts about the Allied promises to Finland during the Winter War and the overall fealing it gave to the Finnish population. Could anyone help with the data?Halibutt 07:50, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ice hockey

(Finland in the post-Soviet era): On July 5th 1995 Finland won the ice hockey world championship in Stockholm, Sweden, beating Sweden 4-1.

Does it belong here? — Monedula 06:25, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

History articles covering the same subject from different points of views?

Following the Wikipedia policy to avoid concurrent articles covering the same subject from different points of views, I would suggest that Finland's and Sweden's history between 1155 and 1809 are to be coordinated and merged, although framing articles like History of Finland and History of Sweden of course must remain.

I can see one substantial problem: The wikipedia:templates for Swedish history would need to be somehow extended to cover also for relevant overview articles on Finland's history.

Being a foreigner to both countries (although I've lived in Malmö for a couple of years), I'm somewhat confused by the invisibility of Finland on the Swedish history pages.

--Ruhrjung 22:24, 2004 Dec 28 (UTC)

I don't know if I'll have time by the computer this weekend (it all depends on the sun, the snow, and social requirements) but I consider to split this article into parts that are referred to with the main-template from this framing article. In that respect, it would seem natural for me to manifest Finland's and Sweden's shared history by articles that are not separated for the period of 1155–1809.
Ruhrjung 00:46, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

In theory a good idea, but likely to become the source of highly unwished and counter-productive strifes between nationalist Swedes on one hand and Finns who read the history with fennoman goggles on the other — I don't know if I advice against it, but I warn against it! ;-) /Tuomas 15:18, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Anjala conspiracy

The Anjala conspiracy was a movement of officers who opposed the absolutist tendencies of Gustaf III and the war started by him. The small separatist group of Finnish officers was, quite simply, a different thing, although many of its members took part in the Anjala conspiracy. Most of the Anjala men would have been appalled by the though of Finnish indepency - just like most of the Finns would have been. User:130.232.193.11

Hello to Turku!

I do not disagree with you - so far. However, the conspiracy is known under the name of the Anjala conspiracy and the relation between the separatists (who, as far as I understand, more or less hijacked the process) and the signers of the documents (the Liikkala and the Anjala letters) ought to be presented in more detail in the article on the Anjala conspiracy, but mentioned correctly, although briefly, here. I'm sure you can see to that better and more authoritatively than I can. But the hyperlink to the Anjala-article has to be preserved. That's important to keep in mind.

Johan Magnus 09:41, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Origins of the Finns

I am also frustrated because of the suggestion made by Johan Magnus that my corrections are not neutral. Actually I made modifications to the prehistory text to steer it towards more neutral direction! The present text gives an improportionate piece of space to a disputed, (according to many Finnish researchers, unscientific, possibly even national-chauvinistic) theory of the origins of Finns, and mentions the more widely supported theories only in passing, or not at all. That is certainly not neutral and unbiased.

Yes, I guess you were at least as distressed about my easy reversion of your drastic shortening on the reasoning on when Finns might have arrived in the country. There are two or three aspects on this:

First of all, sweeping eradications are generally not the very best thing to do at Wikipedia. They tend too easily to be interpreted as bordering to Wikipedia:vandalism. You, and contributors in your position, do not see this so, of course. You had the best intentions, of course. But the issue is: How make this obvious also for other Wikipedians?

Secondly, the text as it stands has its worst weakness therein, that it lacks references to credible sources and authorities. Your shorter version was not an improvement in this respect.

Lastly, as I wrote in the edit summary, in my perception the text you tried to edit away was much more in line with Wikipedia's NPOV-policies, that is about as close to a Constitution for Wikipedia as you can come, than your substitute, that had cut away all the stuff on alternative points of view/earlier belief. I realize that I might be more or less wrong here, and I'm sorry for the feeling of rejection that you might have felt, but hopefully this will in the end result in a maybe much improved text! (And, without intending to seem arrogant: I think you made one or a few mistakes that were rather presentational or procedural. I consider these to have been initial mistakes of the kind all of us have made — and hopefully we've become wiser as a consequence.)

(Finally, a user name could be advantageous for all involved parts. It maybe oughtn't be so, but in reality, one looks a tad more credible with a good username instead of a series of a dozen digits. :)

Kind regards!

Johan Magnus 09:41, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There is one thing more I will try to express:

It may seem as if I feel a certain responsibility for Finland- and Finnish-related Wikipedia articles. This is only temporarily. During the time (years, by now) I've been interested in Wikipedia, it has become very obvious to me, that for obscure fields of interest, there is often not more than one, two or a handful of engaged contributors, but there is a certain rotation. For different reasons, people get more involved in certain pages at certain times, and then there are other reasons, Wikipedia:Wikistress for instance, that make them focus on something else. At the moment, coincidentally, I've mostly come to react on what's happened on Finland-related pages. If such reactions include reading up on a subject and writing/editing an article (Anjala Conspiracy), it tends to become a self-amplifying process... But, as with all such processes, it won't go on eternally. :-))) --Johan Magnus 09:51, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

YYA-treaty (1948)

The wording of YYA-treaty was very carefully considered, especially it's military parts. It was a military treaty, although it was more written to keep forces out instead of keeping forces in like is typical in normal military treaties.

The only responsibility for Finns is to defend only their own country against Germany (meaning NATO). Any neutral country has responsibility to defend their borders against all aggressors, so nothing damaging there. The treaty specifically stays silent about defending against SU, leaving the point open (Do not wake up sleeping tiger...). Practically meaning that Finland would stay neutral.

There is no section for Finns to send troops to Soviet needs or place Finnish troops under Soviet command. There is no section for Soviet troop placements to Finland or even allowing for Soviet air force to operate in Finnish air space.

The most damaging to Finnish neutrality was the military consultations-chapter in the treaty. In that chapter it was mandated that political discussions will be started for military co-operations if both parties agree. The threat of these discussions were used once by SU (1961 Berlin crisis), but the they were not started because of Finnish reluctance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Whiskey (talk • contribs) 09:52, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Wars in 18th centuries

I don't understand to this paragraph:

"The 18th century was a relatively good time, partly because the life was now more peaceful. However, during the Lesser Wrath (1741–1742), Finland was again occupied by the Russians after the government, during a period of Hat party dominance, had made a botched attempt to reconquer the lost provinces. Instead the result of the Peace of Åbo was that the border was moved further to the west. During this time, Russian propaganda hinted at the possibility to create a separate Finnish kingdom."

Lesser Wrath page says that this war lasted from June 1788 to August 1790. The whole paragraph is unclear to me. Can abybody, who knows this history, rewrite it? Thank you. Miraceti 17:15, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Lesser Wrath redirected to the wrong place. I've fixed it to point to the Hats' Russian War. -- Jniemenmaa 17:47, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Susiluola

Should I add a paragraph on the "preprehistory" as well? The article only talks about from 8500 BC onwards, while the earliest marks of human life (or.. well.. stone tools) date back to 118 000 BC (i.e. the Susiluola stone tools: http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=25917 http://www.susiluola.fi/eng/wolfcave.php http://www.susiluola.fi/eng/links.php ) --HJV 12:17, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Susiluola finds are debated, as the article says. 217.30.179.130 14:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Middle Ages

The section on Viking/Middle ages seems to suffer from misuse of the term "century" all over the place, i.e. assuming "14th century" means the 1400s and not the 1300s. My knowledge of the period isn't extensive enough to fix it with confidence, but I know enough to notice something's wonky there. Hopefully someone who knows more about the period can fix it:).--Snowgrouse 04:25, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I checked it out, but I wasn't able to find that kind of errors. 217.112.242.181 10:11, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Viking carvings in Häme

"On the other hand, there are some stone carvings in Häme region made to triumph the victory over raiding Vikings."

Unfortunately, this is all nonsense. Those carvings were natural marks on a rock, found and misinterpreted by an over-enthusiasistic amateur archaeologist, who gained publicity by the silly and uncritical article published in a major newspaper.217.112.242.181 21:32, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Western betrayal of Finland?

Perhaps some may want to rescure parts of this removed edit.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  22:02, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

EEA Treaty

I have included some information on the Finland's initial drive towards the accession to the EEA Treaty along with most other EFTA members, rather than the European Community/European Union. Several sources also indicate that Sweden's application also played some role in redirecting Finnish attention to EC/EU instead of the EEA. RedZebra 10:08, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

The country that paid its debt

Wouldn't it be worth mentioning in the text, that Finland was the United States’ only debtor country that continued to pay its war-related debt until the end? --213.186.251.24 08:35, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

It is most certainly worth mentioning.

--John 02:15, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Comb ceramic/Corded ware cultures

This article doesn't mention the important prehistoric comb ceramic and corded ware cultures. The prehistory section could be vastly expanded and moved into a separate article.--JyriL ^talk 00:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Neolithic used to be there but someone restored a vandalizing badly and so the section was lost. I have restored the section now. And yes, prehistory should be expanded and if enough material accumulates a separate article should be created. Clarifer 08:38, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

The occupations of 18th century

Guinness man asked[1], whether the two Russian occupations of the 18th century were harsher than the Swedish rule prevalent at the time. The answer is yes. The Swedish rule was not an occupation but a status quo, which had prevailed since Middle Ages. Finland was not oppressed, and there were no systematic efforts to destroy the populace. Basically, Finland was an integral part of Sweden. There was a functioning civil authority, guaranteeing a basically peaceful life for the people. On the other hand, especially during the occupation of 1713–1721, there was basically no civil authority in the country and in Ostrobothnia, closest to unoccupied portions of Sweden, there was a systematic terror, which destroyed some 6.000 people, a quarter of total population. From other parts of Finland, 10.000–20.000 people were forcibly transferred to work as serfs in Russia, and the country suffered from famine. (Finland had no serfdom at the time.) The Finnish population was about 400.000 at the time. Calling this harsh may be POV, but I have heard some more forceful ways to call it.

On the other hand, during the occupation of 1743–1744, the Russians did not engage in any specific terror campaigns, rather vice versa. The most important calamities were a result of the breakdown of civil government due to the occupation. Still, a country with a foreign army inside its borders is usually always under some hardship. In the 18th century, rapes and looting were still a widespread practice in any army, not just in Russia. --MPorciusCato 10:47, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Finland in World War II

I'm new to this wiki stuff so I want to run this change past a few more experienced hands.

I take exception the the statement: "the Continuation War led to a Finnish invasion of the Soviet Union designed not only to recover the lost territory but additionally to answer irredentist pan-Finnicist dreams of a Greater Finland by incorporating East Karelia whose inhabitants were culturally kindred although religiously Russian Orthodox."

This implies that Finland was the aggressor.

I feel some kind of comment needs to be added, since according to "A History of Finland" by Eino Jutikkala & Kauko Pirinen on the start of the Continuation War:

"As a formal pretext for starting the war, the Soviet government accused Finns of having fired artillery shells on a Red Army unit stationed in a border village, Mainila. The Finns disputed this charge, and documents found by researchers in Moscow archives after the collapse of the Soviet regime reveal that the shells were fired by KGB troops."

ErkkiS 15:52, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

You are talking about the start of Winter War. The Continuation War started a year and a half later. --MPorciusCato 11:44, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Text from Finnish Orthodox Church

The following text is pasted here from the article Finnish Orthodox Church. As the text overlapped with the contents of this article, please see if the text has reusable elements here. --Drieakko 07:44, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Early Christian art in a territory inhabited by Karelians: fresco painted in 1167 in St. George's church in Staraya Ladoga

Around 1100 Finland was an almost uninhabited country. Historians have estimated that there were only 50.000 - 60.000 inhabitants in the whole country at 1100, the end of Iron Age in Finland. The settled regions were the southwestern coast region, whose centre became some 200 years later the small town of Turku (Swedish: Åbo, Latin: Aboa) A second settled region was the southeastern region of Karelia, the area populated by the most eastern tribe of Finnish speaking peole, the Karelians, Karjalaiset. There grew up the town of Viborg, who was to become the second important town in Mediaeval Finland. The Sami (Lappish) people were pushed by the Finns into the forests of Central Finland.

As is the case in most of Northern Eurasia - North-Western Europe (Celts and Scandinavians) similarly to North-Eastern Europe (Finno-ugric peoples, the Sami, Samojed people in northern Russia etc.) - the Finns' native religion was a form of shamanism. Traces of a similar animistic belief system were still visible among the Sami people until the 19th century.

In the Viking Age, Europe's central trade routes, the Volga trade route and the trade route from Scandinavia to Greece, extending from the British Isles in the West to Bagdhad and Constantinople in the East, passed along the Finnish coast, through the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. The Swedes, also known as Varyags or Vikings, started their journey in their long ships from central Sweden, or from the island of Gotland, to Holmgard (Novgorod) and from there on to Miklagard ("The great town") i.e. Constantinople. Some restless Finns may have joined these traders and raiders, and certainly the Finns have been their customers and so, slowly the influence of Christianity started to disseminate among the Eastern Finns, the tribe of Karelians. Staraya Ladoga the first capital of the Rus' people, (which is generally considered to denote a ruling class of the Scandinavians), was located in the territory inhabited by the tribe of Karelians.

--

Western Finland, which was called by the Swedes Österlandet (the Eastland, not to be confused with Estonia) in mediaeval Swedish language, was of political interest to Sweden. The Swedes sent priests and monks and made also crusades to convert the Finnish tribes of Varsinais-suomalaiset and Hämäläiset to the Catholic faith. Most famous of them was an English bishop Henricus (Henry), who was murdered during his mission in Finland, and became the Patron Saint of Finland. In the long run the Swedes incorporated the greater part of Finland to their country, and the Novgorodians and later Russians would annex a much smaller part of Finland to their territory.

As Novgorod grew in size, it took a firmer grip on Karelia. There were taxing military patrolling and also missionary activity. The Russians had in 988 been converted to Christianity by the firm order of the ruler of Kiev, prince Vladimir I the Great. He organized missionary activity in every part of Russia. According to a Novgorodian cronicle, prince Yaroslav son of Vsevovold ordered in 1227 that all Karelians should be baptized. The Orthodox Church took a much milder stance to the pagan religion of Eastern Finns than the Roman Catholic Church who converted the Western Finns. Less resistance from the converted, one can surmise. Remnants of old pagan rituals are still extant among the rural Orthodox population both in Estonia and Karelia (at present especially those areas of Karelia, which are now a part of Russia).

--

The Swedes wanted to annex the territory of Novgorod, and so did the Teutonic Knights, who ruled the Baltic countries. In 1240 the armies of Novgorod led by Alexander Nevsky (later proclaimed Holy due to his achievements) conquered the Swedish army on the river Neva. Two years later Alexander Nevsky fought against the Teutonic Knights who attacked Novgorod from Estonia, and was victorious again. This meant the end of Western expansion, and the stabilization of the border between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Smaller raids and skirmishes continued nevertheless.

Staraya Ladoga was not a territory settled by Karelians. There were other Finnic population groups atround the Volkhov river, not Karelians.--130.234.75.164 09:45, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

References

Arrival of the Finno-Ugric languages

This is somewhat strange part of the article. First of all the title refers only to Finno-Ugric languages but the text itself talks about Germanic languages and Swedish as well. Furthermore the first sentence refers to Finnish which is not the same thing as "Finno-Ugric". The second sentence refers to a Uralic language which again is not the same thing as "Finno-Ugric, not to mention Finnish. The third sentence refers to an "opposite view" but it's impossible to understand what an opposite view could mean even in theory (that there were first Finnish and then Uralic apparently!). The fourth sentence argues that "according to one expert, the Uralic language existed [...] ca. 2000 BCE". Perhaps but there's nothing about it in the article referred to (http://www.kotikielenseura.fi/virittaja/hakemistot/jutut/2006_2.pdf) The fifth sentence refers to a letter to an editor which mentions no sources and doesn't give any dates at all. The last chapter uses the same letter to an editor as its only source and argues a whole new theory. I tried to make the text even a little better, relevant and factual, but user:JdeJ changed it back. As to his argument for doing so: If you know any studies claiming a continuous presence of Swedish speakers in Finland older that 1000 years (outside Åland) please tell. In fact, the title could for my part go. The relevant discussion about the languages could be added to where they chronologically belong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tahdistin (talk • contribs) 11:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

If you know any studies claiming a continuous presence of Swedish speakers in Finland older that 1000 years (outside Åland) please tell. This is claimed by some Swedish-speaking local patriots in Finland and, surprisingly, by some Swedish archaeologists as well. The view is contested by the Finnish researchers (including, it seems, the Swedish-speaking ones). The question appears to be tainted by politics as much as it was during the 1920´s: Swedish nationalism vs. Finnish nationalism.--195.237.90.72 (talk) 13:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

There are lots of problems in the same paragraph. One is the anachronism between the "Nordic Bronze Age" and "Proto-Germanic". Typically, the Proto-Germanic phase seems to be attested to the latter half of the 1st millennium BC, i.e. starting from ca. 500BC. The Nordic Bronze Age was already fading away by this time. If there have been "Indo-European speaking" influences in Finland prior to 500BC these have either been Baltic and/or from (an) Indo-European language(s) that are/is pre-Germanic and pre-Baltic. On the other hand, nothing certain cannot be said about the dates of emergence of the contemporary languages in Finland. Clarifer (talk) 15:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The current dating of the arrival of Swedish language is rather well accepted inside the scholarly community. Of course, even ideas from outside the research community may be notable enough to merit mention in the article, but we should see good references for the notability of those ideas. Letters to the editor are not such. They are like blogs. So, I do not have any problem at all giving article space to this theory, but I'd like to know three things: Who has proposed it? Where has the proposal been published? Who have come to the support of the theory? "Some local patriots" is not sufficient reference. ("Some local patriots" often equates with "village idiots", when it comes to the social standing and acceptability of such persons.) --MPorciusCato (talk) 16:01, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the last statement, "local patriots" aren't much of a source :) On the other hand, there are a good number of scholarly references to suggest that Swedish has been spoken continuously for around 2500 years (obviously not Swedish at the earlier stages, but Germanic and Old Norse). Now, I don't claim I necessarily believe in that, but that's another matter. Any theory that has been put forward by researches with expertise within their own field are notable, even if they may be incorrect. A group of Swedish archeologists made some pretty extensive studies on the subject, published in the book Järnåldersbygd i Österbotten, supporting this theory. The late professor Ralf Norman put forward the same time span based on linguistic evidence in the book Österbottniska vattennam. It's a book that I personally consider likely to be wrong, but it's notable. There have been a few other academic publications by other researchers whose names elude me at the moment. Much of it is not very convincing but the research by the Swedish archeology group was actually pretty solid stuff, so I see no problem with the notability of this theory. JdeJ (talk) 21:21, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Conclusions of those Swedish archaeologists (from the University of Umeå) have been presented in several books published in the series Studia Archaeologica Ostrobothniensia, and in papers published in archaeological journals such as Fennoscandia archaeologica. One should note that they present an explicit theory of settlement continuity in Swedish-speaking Southern Ostrobothnia from the Middle Iron Age to the medieval period; claims of linguistical continuity have been mostly hidden "between the lines".

Settlement continuity theory has met strong criticism from some Finnish collegues. Especially Eljas Orrman, an expert of early settlement history, has been a fierce opponent. According to Lars Huldén, a poet and a philologist, place-names indicate that the Swedish-speaking region in Ostrobothnia was originally settled by Finnish-speaking population, and the Swedes came only during the 12th and 13th centuries. Similar argument has been presented regarding the Åboland archipelago. On the other hand, Professor of History Jouko Vahtola suggests that there was a Germanic element of population in Iron Age SW Finland alongside the Finnic-speaking one. He bases his view on place-names, too.

If Huldén and Vahtola are to be believed, "Svenskfinland" was originally Finnish-speaking and the Finnish Finland had a long-lasting (not necessarily continuous) Germanic or Proto-Norse presence. It seems that history is much more complicated than the present-day nationalists would like to think.--130.234.75.18 (talk) 11:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your enlightening comment. I really learned something new. Can you write these things into the article? I am sure that the theories mentioned are notable, but I think you would do a better job in writing them into the text, as you know them better. And yes, there has clearly been a Germanic-speaking element in nowadays-Finnish-speaking part of Finland. Think about names like Harjavalta and Karjala. Both seem to refer to the Germanic root *harja, the latter has only gone through a consonant-change, as Baltic-Finnish did not have phoneme /h/. And a massive amount of important Finnish every-day words have a Germanic or Baltic origin. --MPorciusCato (talk) 11:39, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the compliment. I promise to write something about this in near future. Right now I am sick and too tired to seek out the reference literature.--217.112.249.156 (talk) 13:54, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

"It is widely believed<ref> ... </ref> that Finno-Ugric (or Uralic) languages" - < The "or" is logical nonsense, because FU is the western daughter of Uralian, and thus not interchangeable by "or" with the mother language Uralian. Seems to be copied from the Danish wiki with the same text. I corrected this. However, the sentence is stille pure phantasy, because we have no written attestations und stones and pots do not speak. 2A02:8108:9640:AC3:5508:6824:BCFA:951F (talk) 09:51, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Actually Finno-Ugric and Uralic are widely used as synonymous since the beginning of this millennium. That is because there has been so far no credible evidence, that Samoyedic was the first branch to split off from the protolanguage. And historical linguistics can tell much about when languages arrived in their current regions. Jaakko Häkkinen (talk) 19:51, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

mongolians

There's no mention of the Mongols. Aren't the Finns a Mongoloid people? They have an old history that takes them back to a place not far from present day Mongolia and their language Alto-uralic also includes Mongolian and the modern Turkic languages. This is what makes Finland, Hungary and Estonia different from the rest of Europe. They are all Mongoloid by language and history even if not completely —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.227.52.125 (talk) 00:49, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

You are rather confused in this matter. No, Finns are not a Mongoloid people. Finnish language is not "Alto-uralic" but Fenno-Ugric. According to the present-day views, Fenno-Ugric languages have nothing or very little to do with Turkic languages or Mongolian. The age-old Ural-Altaic hypothesis seems to have been completely discarded among serious linguistics. Ethnic Finns look similar than Scandinavians, Central Europeans or European Russian. I am not aware of any serious modern scientist suggesting that the linguistical or genetical ancestors of the present-day Finnish population would ever have lived anywhere near Mongolia. That is a obsolete 19th century view.

There is nothing wrong with Asians, but Finns have little to do with them, historically, linguistically or otherwise.--217.112.249.156 (talk) 14:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

• • • Even if the theory -- of Finns being from beyond the Urals (i.e. Mongol or Asian) -- is not correct or accepted today, shouldn't it be mentioned in the article? Isn't it widespread enough of a belief that it deserves a paragraph or two of either support or refutation/modern view? I must admit that I was looking for such a paragraph myself -- so the previous commentator is not alone. I thought the view as that Finland and Finns stood apart from the rest of Scandinavia for this very reason -- this history. If that is not true, it deserves a mention as it is a common belief. BTW I had a friend in school with parents who were Finnish and Italian, and he certainly had non-Scandinavian features. I am part Swedish myself...and my friend looked much more (Central) Asian than I do. Chesspride 66.19.84.2 (talk) 03:47, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Uralic is not Turkic is not Mongolic is not Tungusic is not Yukagihr is not Korean is not Japonic, at least according the present knowledge and recognition. Mongolic languages are their own language family that has not been succesfully connected to any other language group, although an Altaic superfamily between Mongolic, Turkic, Tungusic (and even Korean and Japanese) has been suggested. But is very controversial. And for Finns being Asian, Finland is located in Europe. But it is true that these languages share many typological features like vowel harmony, postpositions instead of prepositions, pretty simple syllable structure... but a real connection would require also vocabulary connections etc, not just similar elements in grammar. All major North Eurasian language families spoken in northern taiga zone and the Eurasian steppe south from it share these kinds of elements, so it could be an geographical tendency. Languages can effect each other without being of exactly same origin - for example, Swedish spoken in Finland has Finnish intonation, Finnish loanwords and even Finnish grammar influences regardless it is a Germanic language and Finnish is an Uralic one. So, languages can have a great impact on each other even if they are not exactly related.

It is interesting that Indo-European languages are so different from the rest of Eurasian main families - especially if the Kurgan hypothesis is valid and the proto-IE was spoken by early horse nomads on the Pontic Steppe not that far from Proto-Uralic associated with Volga-Urals -region and the northen taiga - late forms of PIE and Proto-Uralic had lots of happy family time together according the loan word analysis, by the way. Especially the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European has a very exotic phonology and syllable structure from Eurasian (and also Semitic and Basque and Dravidian) point of view - huge number of plosives, many laryngals, aspirated stops, consonants everywhere... But Anatolian languages, the first Indo-European languages split from PIE (or maybe originally Anatolian was a sister language of the PIE) have a much simpler phonology than the reconstructed PIE. Of course, this could mean the Anatolian homeland hypothesis could be valid, but I would suspect that Caucasian languages (or language families?) could have something to do with this. Caucasus is famous for is many languages with very extraordinary phonology and grammar, like Georgian. There are theories that PIE had expensive contacts with some Caucasian languages before it started to split (Anatolian had split already, of course) - or maybe there was a Sprachbund with Northwest Cauciasian. These theories are mentioned in Proto-Indo-European_language — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmarkusp (talk • contribs) 07:46, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Land holdings, tenure, peasantry

The article makes some reference to the shape of society in the lands now known as Finland, but there is very little about the organization of society and the relationship between land holding and social status. I would be interested to know how land was held, how rights to land were enforced during the various forms of rule. Did there develop in Finland a form of hierarchy of land holding and tenature as was seen in much of medieval Europe with few rich land owners and a subordinated peasantry?

Is there an article in the Finnish language Wikipedia on this subject that could be brought into the English language WP? --Tom (talk) 08:29, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Unfortuntely, the articles about Finnish social history in fi-Wikipedia still lack proper sources, and with a brief googling, I was unable to find English-speaking material on Finnish land ownership. However, I may outline the Finnish landownership briefly:

• Finland never had a feudal system. The majority of land was, at all times, held by peasants. Large estates exised only in the Southern part of the country, and even there, they did not constitute the majority of arable land.
• Until 19th century, the land was legally either frälse or taxable. The usual, taxable land was owned by peasants. However, their ownership was rather weak. If the taxes of a farm were unpaid for three years, the farm was declared öde, empty, and returned to the crown, which might then issue it to another peasant. Frälse land was on the other hand, reserved only to noble families, and free of taxes. It could only be transferred to other nobles. However, a noble was allowed to have the frälse status only for one to three estates, depending on his rank. Other estates owned by the same person were taxable.
• In 17th century, the crown had a wide-spread practice of donating the taxes of houses, villages or parishes to nobles who had served it well. Such donation did not constitute a transfer of ownership of the land, nor did it give the noble any jurisdiction in the area. However, malpractices occured. The practice came to an abrupt end in the 1670s, as Charles XI, with the support of the diet, "reduced" three quarters of such donations back to the crown.
• In addition to the independent peasants, there existed a class of crown peaseants, whose ownership was weaker, a life-tenure which usually was transferred to the same family. They were given the right to buy their farms in 1789, and by 1850's, they had disappeared as a class.
• A major reform, isojako, was conducted from 1760s on (still ongoing in some parts of the country). In this reform, the earlier, medieval Open field system was substituted with a system of fields owned by single owner. At the same time, the common forests were divided in relation to field ownership, while more distant forests were declared for the crown.
• After isojako, a new crofter class was formed. The torppas, the crofts, were formed in the forests cleared for agriculture. The crofter usually paid rent with his work, making one or two days a week to the house. The crofters were given the right to buy out their farms in 1919, transforming the class to smallholders.--MPorciusCato (talk) 18:11, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

In some eastern areas that were part of Russia since 1721 - called "Old Finland" from Russian point of view - there were something like serfdom going on - the system of donation lands, "lahjoitusmaat". During the autonomy this "Old Finland" was joined back to the mainland and the system of donation lands was abolished, but this did not happen instantly. Well, the whole system of serfdom was abolished on 1800s, wasn't it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmarkusp (talk • contribs) 07:54, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Recent history

Would somebody like to look into this, maybe provide a source or remove it?

"Like other Nordic countries, Finland has liberalized the economy since late 80s. Financial and product market regulation was removed. The market is now one of the most free in Europe. State enterprises were privatized and taxes were cut. However, unlike in Denmark, trade unions blocked job market reforms, causing persistent unemployment and a two-tier job market. Trade unions also blocked social security reform proposals towards basic income or negative income tax."

That's quite a serious accusation without any references whatsoever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.195.88.43 (talk) 12:38, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

- I agree, the excerpt is based on someone's political opinion, totally unsuitable for an encyclopedia. Kjeh (talk) 09:16, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Abu University

This page says Abu university was the only university in Europe founded by a women. This is wrong as Queen Elizabeth I of England founded Trinity College in Dublin in 1592 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.43.166.51 (talk) 14:10, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Tendentious material

Officially claiming to be neutral, Finland lay in the grey zone between the Western countries and the Soviet Union. The "YYA Treaty" (Finno-Soviet Pact of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance) gave the Soviet Union some leverage in Finnish domestic politics. This was extensively exploited by President Urho Kekkonen against his opponents. He maintained an effective monopoly on Soviet relations, which gave him a status of "only choice for president" and 25 years regime from 1956 to 1981. There was also a tendency of self-censorship regarding Finno-Soviet relations. This phenomenon was given the name "Finlandisation" by the German press (fi. suomettuminen). When Finlandisation was not enough, direct censorship was used, including in 1700 books and many movies. Asylum-seeking defectors were returned to the Soviet Union for punishment or execution. The Soviet-financed, anti-Western, pro-Soviet youth movements peaked in the 1970s, when the communist-led Teen Union started to harass bourgeoisie-suspected teachers. Soviets succeed in agitating a majority of baby boomers to socialist ideologies, with the radical taistoists even demanding that Finland join the Soviet Union. The Stasi and KGB used their strengthened allies to cooperate installations of socialists in the administration, mass media (particularly by Tampere University journalism department, YLE, and Helsingin Sanomat), academia (particularly social sciences), political parties and trade unions (particularly the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions). Politicization, pursued as a way to socialist revolution, was widespread and public sector workers were often dependent on having the correct political party membership.

Unless proper citations are provided for this highly tendentious series of statements, I will delete this section 24 hours from now. Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 09:57, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Go ahead, that is a clear violation of NPOV. Taken as single points, many of the claims can be sourced properly, but the text as an entity gives a very biased view of the phenomenon. --MPorciusCato (talk) 14:46, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

This interesting though, if the Finns held a high degree of property rights (libertarianism) yet stayed friendly with the Soviets (socialism), then those Finns were absolute masters of the card game that has been Europe all along. Explains, actually, how a Finn dominated free software that was previously dominated by a seeming socialist (RMS), to hand it over to the ultimate capital construct: IBM. Linux was obsolete when it was written (Tannenbaum) but we can't get rid of it!--John Bessa (talk) 14:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree the above text is not in "encyclopedic" form, but I can't point a single fact therein, which wasn't "generally accepted" among the scholars of recent Finnish history. One would of course need to have the ex-soviet archives online to verify the other side but most factual claims can be referenced via http://yle.fi/elavaarkisto/index.html or http://www.paivalehdenarkisto.fi/ but that would require some quantification of text analysis and some interpretation of political cartoons, which were often the only way of publicly expressing anti-Sovietization issues. Even the latter was subjected by the USSR into an extent where they asked then a Finnish president mr. Kekkonen "if nothing could be done for a certain political cartoonist" http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kari_Suomalainen ... There is a English language page on him too but it's a stub.

91.156.158.150 (talk) 14:36, 26 February 2014 (UTC)Kehva

WWII convolutions and how they defined Finland

As an XC skier, I have always admired the Finnish Soviet resistance, as did the US military when it formed the 9th Mountain Division. (Members of the 9MD went on to create the sport of downhill by forming, for instance, Aspen, CO, and it was in Italy that they showed their strength--but not in the Alps!) For WWII, I like the Ballantine series. It is blue-collar to the core, but, as it happens far more factual than the sequential and socratic, so I tend to believe it over "higher" sources. According to the winter war (not capitalized) it seems obvious that the Finns played a) the hatred of Bolshevism by the French and English against the Soviets, and b) the obvious falseness of the Hitler/Stalin pact to get the Soviets to hurry a Finn-Soviet armistice.

According to this article, tiny and brand-new Finland went on to become a top nation in the World. This can happen only if the top people are promoted, rather than the sequential and predatory, as had happened in the Soviet Union, Germany, and, ultimately, the US. This, I think needs to be researched, understood, and integrated into the article to assure picture-perfect comprehension of Finland.--John Bessa (talk) 14:28, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Finland in World War I

The article is quite weak on Finland's history 1890-1916. In particular, one would expect a grand duchy of the Russian empire to send lots of soldiers to Russia's war against Germany (World War I), but apparently this did not happen, because the conscription strike of 1901-1902, following the new conscription law of 1901. Finnish soldiers apparently also weren't used in the war between Russia and Japan in 1905. --LA2 (talk) 07:38, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Discontinuation of the Republic of Finland in 1995 ?

The timeline graph in the introduction part is incorrect. According to the graph, the Republic of Finland had existed in 1917 - 1995 after which the polity of Finland had been changed to a "Membership of the European Union". There must be a misunderstanding. Finland has been and still is, a republic from 1917 onwards. Actually the republic was not declared until 1918 after the fall of imperial Germany in WW I. In November 1918 the already elected king of Finland, Kaiser's brother-in-law prince Friedrich Karl of Hessen was asked to decline the offered throne.

Of course, besides EU, Finland is a member state of numerous other organizations (like UN, WTO, CSCE, Nordic Council etc) just as are the neighbouring EU members. But I did not see such a cease of status in their corresponding Wikipedia entries. Not in any EU member. I wonder what would the British say if their monarchy were declared as being ceased in Wikipedia from 1973 owards when the Britain joined EEC which later became EU.

Perhaps some moderator could correct the timeline? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.249.199.25 (talk) 08:45, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

The neutrality of this article - Swedish point of view?

Am I the only one who finds this article a) not well enough sourced and b) written from a very Swedish point of view? The whole history of Finland from 1100-1900 is written like the Swedish influence was only positive and Russian influence was only negative. I think this article need big improvements, better sourcing and a more neutral point of view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Reskelinen (talk • contribs) 02:32, 3 January 2014 (UTC)--Reskelinen (talk) 02:34, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Like many other articles on Wikipedia, I am sure this too can and should be improved. I noticed the section 18th century – the Age of Enlightenment seemed to lack any sources at all; and other sections may lack adequate sources too, as well as having possible problems with neutrality/perspective. The best thing you can do is try to rewrite/adding sources; the second best is to tag part of the article for problems you have noticed. Regards, Iselilja (talk) 02:43, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Society and welfare state section has serious issues

Hi there! I just noticed that this article's section on Society and the welfare state is heavily unreferenced, somewhat slanted, and suspiciously sourced by at least one book which I have read that does not seem to flesh out anything relevant to the section. My suggestion is to have a very thorough rewrite of the section. Meşteşugarul - U 01:15, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Countries bording USSR that maintained independence

This article currently says that Finland "was the only bordering country of USSR in Europe that kept its independence after the war." Presumably the author believes that Romania, Hungary, etc. did not keep their "independence" because they were under Soviet influence. However, that distinction should be made clear, since technically they were independent states. Also, Norway bordered the USSR and remained independent after the war. It could be argued that at times it didn't border the USSR, but still, the point is debatable. 74.71.86.209 (talk) 03:27, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

The RS agree the staellites were under Kremlin control and had no independent voice. Of course the Baltics were absorbed by USSR. Rjensen (talk) 04:32, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

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From 8th AD to 13th BC??

You guys just jumped from Merovingian period(575 AD – 800 AD) to Finland under Swedish rule(13th - 14th). Like, what happened to the Finns in those 20 centuries missing? BarbarianAshamedLiar (talk) 23:27, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

800 pretty much marks the start of the Viking era. We know that the Christianity had started to spread to Finland by mid 1100s as from 1170s there exists a copy of an official papal letter (fi:Gravis admodum) complaining of how the Finns act towards missionaries. Something translating roughly into "A very heavy complaint has been made to the apostolic throne about how Finns always, when threatened by a hostile army, promise to keep the Christian faith and plead for having preachers and teachers of Christian law, but after the army has left they denounce the faith and despise and persecute the preachers". It also marks the end of the Finnish pre-history and start of history in Finland (as in first verified written source).

Some information is written in Finnish (but with very few sources) in fi-wiki page. There is no evidence of tribes living in the modern day Finland uniting. On the contrary it seems that fighting against each other as well as outside forces occurred. As did allying themselves with foreign powers. There is just some circumstantial evidence for it but it appears that SW Finland (i.e. Finland Proper) was already allied with Swedish tribes or at very least had good trade relations with them during the early viking era. Similar thing happens in the east - around lake Ladoga where some of the Karelian tribes had close relations with the Rus.

The last part - after mid 1150s seems to be written already but just not on that page - Finland under Swedish rule. - Wanderer602 (talk) 07:14, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

The 13th century is the earliest reference to Finland?

This statement was made in the article, but it's dubious. The Old English poem "Beowulf", which is dated to at the latest the early 11th century (and is probably centuries older than that), mentions how the eponymous character washed up in Finland. So it looks like there are references earlier than the 13th century.--Beneficii (talk) 23:37, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Good point. The text should be updated accordingly. Velivieras (talk) 18:00, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

this is the official church narrative. it is standard for colonial christian narratives to simply erase any and all history that existed before forced christianization (which, in finland, was never substantive) and then to claim it never existed. any history before the violent enforcement of christianity is just labeled "pre-christian". so, what it really means is that anything before the forced christianization of finland is invalid. while standard in church records, such pre-modern approaches to history should be targeted by wikipedia for removal. 107.190.102.230 (talk) 23:02, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

finland is also mentioned by snorri and was certainly a staging ground for the substantive viking migration into eastern europe, as far back as the gothic expansion. tacitus mentions the fenni in the area now called finland. 107.190.102.230 (talk) 23:06, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

in fact, wikipedia has an article on this topic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenni 107.190.102.230 (talk) 23:10, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

there is also a wikipedia article on kvenland, which is how finland was often referred to in the indigenous norse sources, which indeed predate the violent enforcement of christianity into the region:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvenland 107.190.102.230 (talk) 23:31, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

it should be noted, however, that it would be difficult to find explicit references to "finland" in historical texts because the country didn't really exist until the 19th century. from the time of the northern crusades to the time of the great northern war, the region was a swedish colony. before that, as mentioned, it was very likely a staging ground for swedish vikings. while references to the region are quite abundant in the norse literature, and the area is clearly referenced in the roman histories, the indigneous people of the region were illiterate hunter-gatherers, and the norse would have seen their settlements in the region as outposts. searching for references to finland in ancient literature should be done with the understanding that there was not much there, at the time. 107.190.102.230 (talk) 23:35, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Minor corrections - it was not a Swedish colony. But a full-fledged part of the Swedish Realm (Svearike) with rights to take part to the electing of the kings for example. - Wanderer602 (talk) 16:12, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Beginning of the Articlle

I feel that the beginning of the article introduces stuff that's irrelevant to the history of Finland. The Stone Age cultures are not important, maybe have a link at the top to the stone age of Finland. What they should be more concerned about is the history and not the prehistory. ~~ Hushak — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hushak (talk • contribs) 03:42, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Homann Map

Anyone else find that map peculiar? The Kymi didn't become the Swedish-Russian border until the Treaty of Turku was signed in 1743, even though Homann died in 1724. But the map also shows Savonlinna as being part of Sweden, even though Sweden ceded Savonlinna as a result of the treaty. Could it be that he made a mistake, and incorrectly assumed that the Kymi was the border when in reality it was farther to the east? Betelgeuse X (talk) 18:22, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

this article has a dominant pro-christian bias

the article is written from a colonial christian perspective, rather than from an indigenous pagan perspective. christianity was never popular in finland; today, the country is overwhelmingly atheist. a much greater attempt should be made to narrate the history of finland from the perspective of the finns and their traditional beliefs and values, and not from the perspective of beliefs and values import by imperial conquerors from the south. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.190.102.230 (talk) 22:59, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Feel free to be bold and add more pre-Christian beliefs/aspects to the article, backed up by reliable sources of course. TylerBurden (talk) 14:15, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Timeline

There is a timeline template to the left of the Scandinavian series template along with a number of images that is adding too much clutter to the introduction. I do not see this template as being useful and I am not sure if up to c. 1250 AD can entirely be considered "prehistoric Finland" (this is not sourced). Is it best to remove this template? Mellk (talk) 12:14, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I have removed it for now. Mellk (talk) 06:39, 19 July 2024 (UTC)