Talk:History of Finland

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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.

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 (Template:Lang-sv, Template:Lang-la) 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.

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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).

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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)

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)

WP:NPOV requires us to take all notable opinions into account, with such attention as their public support requires. A letter to the editor in a newspaper is not a very good source to show notablility. I am a Finnish-speaking Finn, very interested in history, and I had never before come across the idea that Swedish-speaking (or actually, Norse-speaking or proto-Norse-speaking) inhabitation would date earlier than 10th century AD.

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. They have 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 were 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 believes that there has been 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 complicated than the present-day nationalists would like to think.--130.234.75.18 (talk) 11:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)