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** FINLAND & LAPLAND 2015 - A PROLOGUE ** |
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Ethnicity, language and topography |
The Sami Peoples (Laplanders) |
Early History of Finland |
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In summer 2012 we made our first trip to
Finland
(see
Finland 2012 Travelogues). This was not our first visit to Scandinavia; we had spent
late summer 2007 exploring Denmark (see
Denmark 2007 Travelogues), but it did establish our liking for
the peace and tranquillity of these Nordic lands and an admiration Finnish and
Swedish society and for the civility of their people. We particularly admire the
noble resilience of the Finns in not only defending their homeland against the
Russian barbarism in
1939~44,
but in re-
This year's journey out to Finland has been made more lengthy by the regrettable decision by the shipping line DFDS to end what was the last North Sea ferry crossing from Harwich to Esbjerg on the west coast of Jutland in Denmark. DFDS has over the years predatorily bought up all the North Sea routes and dog-in-manger shut them down when unable to make them pay. Although expensive, the Harwich~Esbjerg route has meant over the last 3 years that with an overnight cabin we could reach our Scandinavian host-country within a couple of days of leaving home in UK. This year with the last of the North Sea ferry routes now gone, it will take almost a week before we reach Finland. We shall have to cross from Harwich to Hook of Holland, and then drive the 360mile route across Holland and Northern Germany, camp overnight at Lübeck, cross to Sjćland in Southern Denmark on the Puttgarden~Rřdby ferry, drive to Copenhagen and finally cross the Öresund Bridge to Sweden. Click on the map right for details of our elongated outward route. But there may be the glimmer of hope for a future year's route to Scandinavia: a Danish entrepreneur, Niels Poulsen, is fighting the vested interests to re-establish the Harwich~Esbjerg ferry crossing - see Regina Line's web site - and deserves travellers' support in his efforts. Hopefully the new service will be in operation later in 2015, but it will be too late for our journey in early May to Finland.
We shall be setting off shortly and during the course of our journey around
Finland and across the Arctic Circle to Lapland, we shall publish our usual detailed
travelogues
and pictorial records covering the progress of our travels. As is our custom, we now present this Prologue study with demographic, topographical,
cultural, economic and historical background to Finland, our host
country for 2015.
Ethnicity and Language: the
ancestors of today's Finns were Finno-Ugric nomadic tribes who migrated from
NW Siberia, settling in the northern Baltic region and Eastern Scandinavia during the millennia following
the last Ice Age, and sharing a closely related non-Indo-European linguistic and
cultural inheritance with the Estonians and Sámi (Laplanders). Modern Finland is one of Europe's Demography: the current population of Finland is 5.3 million with an average of 17 people per square kilometre, making it along with Norway and Iceland the least densely populated country in Europe. Population distribution is however very uneven, being concentrated in the small south-western coastal plain. About 64% of inhabitants live in the towns and cities, with one million living in the Helsinki region. At the opposite extreme in Arctic Lapland, there are only 2 people to every square kilometre.
Wildlife: Finnish plant life, having been wiped out by the last Ice Age, has developed relatively recently and adapted to survive the harsh winters and take advantage of the short summers. Most of Finland's extensive forest cover is made up of pine, spruce and birch and has given rise to a carefully managed forestry industry, producing pine-tar, timber, wood pulp and paper, still accounting for 21% of total exports. Finland's vast expanses of forests and lakes and wide network of protected areas form the habitats of impressive numbers of bird and animal species. These include a number of large mammals such as elk, and carnivores like brown bear, lynx, wolf and wolverine. In Lapland huge numbers of reindeer are traditionally herded by the Sámi Peoples. Finland has some 300 bird species, including large species like the black grouse, capercaillie, whooper swan and birds of prey such as the golden eagle, eagle owl and osprey. THE SÁMI PEOPLE (LAPLANDERS):  Finland's indigenous people,
the Sámi (Lapp or Laplander is regarded by the Sámi as a pejorative term), are
descendents of the peoples who have occupied the far-north of the country
together with neighbouring Arctic Norway and Sweden and parts of the Russian
Kola Peninsula for over 5,000 years. The region is called Sápmi in the Sámi
language (see map left). The early Sámi settlers of the arctic region, ethnically distinct
from the later arriving Finns, were nomadic peoples who migrated with the
seasons hunting wild reindeer and fishing. Today there are around 75,000 Sámi of
whom the majority live in Arctic Norway, with 9,000 living in Northern Finland. There are several distinct Sámi groups in Finland today
living around the towns of Enotekiö, Utsjoki, Inari and Sodankylä, each with their own cultural traditions and
language, not mutually intelligible but all Finno-Ugric in origin and related to
Finnish.
 The
reindeer truly symbolises the spirit of Finnish Lapland. For 1000s of years,
reindeer have been central to the Sámi People's culture and existence, providing
food, clothing, shelter and an inspiration for their traditional shamanistic
religion. The Lapland winter lasts for 7 months of the year, yet reindeer
herding has enabled the indigenous Sámi to survive in this harshest of climates.
Reindeer herding has been a traditional way of live for centuries with families
moving their tepee-like tent-villages to follow the migrating herds of wild
reindeer to seasonal grazing grounds. The Sámi life style gradually
evolved from nomadic to pastoralist as reindeer herds were domesticated and
increased in size, and the advent of mechanisation in
the mid-20th century meant that reindeer herders could travel out from settled
villages on snowmobiles. The are now some 230,000 of the semi-domesticated reindeer grazing freely in Lapland, and
Sámi herders still use ancient patterns of calf ear-marking to identify their
stock in the high fells between June and August with herd separation taking
place in mid winter. But today's increasing urbanisation has threatened
traditional lifestyles in Finnish Lapland and now only one in ten Sámi families
still earns its living from reindeer husbandry.
HISTORY OF FINLAND:
 with Swedish territory was
established in 1323. To reinforce their control and impose Orthodoxy, the
Russians founded the Orthodox Valamo Monastery. During the 14~15th centuries, Swedish rule
brought the Finns a degree of freedom with increased population and economic
growth, and gave protection against the expansionist threat of imperial
Russia. But there were constant skirmishes between Russians and Finns during the
15th century in the border lands around the Finnish Baltic fortified trading
centre of Viipuri (now Russian Vyborg). During the 16th century under Swedish
King Gustav Vasa, the Lutheran Church spread with the Reformation, state
administration developed, and Bishop Mikael Agricola of Turku created the first
written form of the Finnish language, translating the Bible into Finnish. The
town of Helsingfors (later Helsinki) was founded in 1550 but remained little
more than a fishing village for the next 2 centuries. The Swedish Empire reached
its most powerful during the 17th century, but tensions continued with Russia
now unified by the Muscovite Ivan the Terrible. During the Great Northern War of
1700~21, the Russians under Tsar Peter the Great occupied parts of Karelia,
moving the border westwards into Finland. Despite the hardships of Russian
occupation and failed harvests, the later 18th century brought a period of
development for Finland. Sweden's Empire declined, Russian influence in Finland
increased.
Grand Duchy of Finland under the Russian Empire and the rise of Finnish nationalism (1809~1917): following Russian conquest of Finland in 1807 under Tsar Alexander I, the Treaty of Hamina signed with Sweden ceded the whole of the country to the Russian Empire; Finland became an autonomous Russian Grand Duchy in 1809. The Tsar secured Finnish favour with beneficial terms: Swedish law remained effective, the Finns governed themselves and kept their Lutheran religion, Finnish peasantry remained free unlike Russian serfs, there was no conscription and taxation was frozen. Realignment of the border with Russia restored Finnish territory around Viipuri and Helsinki was declared the country's capital in 1812. The long period of peace which followed saw improvements in Finnish development and prosperity. The early 19th century produced an increasingly active Finnish language movement: under the slogan Swedes we are no longer, Russians we do not want to become, let us therefore  become Finns, the Fennomans
attempted to raise the Finnish language and Finnic culture from
peasant status to the position of national language and culture. In 1835
Elias Lönnrot (see right) published the Kalevala, an epic poem based on a collection
of Finnish
and Karelian mythology and folklore which soon attained the status of
national epic and a focal point of Finnish nationalism. In
1858
 Finnish was declared the official language of government in
Finnish-speaking areas, giving the native language equal status with Swedish. The
Russian imperial bureaucrats countered this Finnish nation-building movement
with increasing Russification and in 1894, under Tsar Nicholas I, Russian was
declared the official language and attempts made to integrate Finland
politically, militarily and culturally into imperial Russia. In 1899 the Jean
Sibelius (see left) composed his inspirationally nationalistic Finlandia symphonic
poem, publishing it under the title Happy Feelings at the awakening of
Finnish Spring to side-step Russian censorship of performances of a patriotic character. The 1905 attempted
overthrow of the Tsar in Russia encouraged further nationalistic growth in
Finland with major democratic changes in the Finnish parliamentary system
elected by universal suffrage including women in 1906. But faced with endemic
poverty, many Finns emigrated to North America in search of work and a better
life. Imperial Russia
regarded Finland as a hotbed of left wing opinion (the exiled Lenin based
himself there and met Stalin in Tampere for the first time in 1905) and in 1910 the Tsar removed the new Finnish parliament's powers.
In WW1 Finland was allied with Russia but did not fight with the Tsar's
army. Civil
War and the Independent Finnish Republic (1917~1939): the Russian Revolution of
October 1917 brought political turmoil to Finland which led to the Finnish
government declaring its de facto independence from Russia. But with the country
divided along social lines, power struggle between the conservative right wing
landowners, the Whites, and left wing socialist labour movement, the Reds, led
to outbreak of a brief but bitter civil war lasting from January to May 1918.
With Lenin's defeat of Kerensky's Provisional Russian government, the Bolsheviks
gave recognition to Finland's independence and withdrew Russian forces from
Finland. The right wing Whites with military aid from Imperial Germany
eventually achieved victory in the Civil War but at a cost of harsh suffering and
enormous loss of life for the socialist Reds; 8,000 were executed, 80,000 were
imprisoned in camps where 9,000 died of disease and hunger, all of which
provoked a bitter resentment lasting for generations. Insistence on new
elections in Finland as the price for Allied recognition of Finnish independence
resulted in the White right wing peasantry's rise to political leadership and establishment of the Republic of
Finland with the liberal Kaarlo Juho Stĺhlberg (see right) as its first President
in 1919. Despite the bitter civil war and repeated threats from fascist
movements, Finland managed to remain a free democracy under the rule of law
during the 1920s~30s, and as Europe moved towards war in the late 1930s, Finland
looked more to traditionally neutral Scandinavia.
Defeat and territorial loss meant
that Finland, which
prior to the war had been self-sufficient in grain supplies, now was reliant on
grain imports from Germany. Desperate to retain its position of neutrality but fearing
Soviet attack, Finland was drawn closer to Nazi Germany which from December 1940
supplied arms in return for transit rights
through Finland to occupied Norway.
Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 finally led Finland into war
against Stalin which became known
as the Continuation War. Most of the territory lost in the
Winter War was initially recovered but Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil
Mannerheim (see right), who commanded the Finnish forces from his HQ at Mikkeli,
refused to join the German attack on Leningrad. He also refused Churchill's
demand that the Finns halt their advance, which compelled Britain to side with
its then ally Stalin and declare war on Finland in December 1941. With Allied
The Cold War, Presidency of Urho Kekkonen
and collapse of the Soviet Union (1947~91): post war Finland managed
to preserve its autonomy and balanced relations with both the West
Like UK, Finland this year faced a general
election, with the election campaign dominated by the country's
protracted recession and struggling economy. Finnish voters
went to the polls amid hopes that a
new government would pull the country out of its three-year economic slump. A
year of stagnation in 2014 was preceded by two years of recession with Finland's
unemployment now standing at 9.2%. The former Prime
Minister Alexander Stubb and his conservative National Coalition Party faced a
strong challenge
So that's the background story of Finland so far, which in its brief 98 year history since independence in 1917 has managed not only to survive the dreadful ravages of WW2 but to achieve impressive post-war recovery and to flourish in the modern world as one of Europe's economic star performers and technological innovators. To those in Britain, Finland is little known, but as always we journey with a purpose: we learnt much of life in modern Finland during our first visit in 2012 which gave us a liking and admiration for the country and its people. The intention that our 2015 travels around Finland will give the opportunity for learning more for about our host-country and to discussing and understanding more about peoples' lives and their hopes for the future with a new government, and their modus vivendi with their Russian neighbours.
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asserting their independence and re-building their post-war economy, a
fact of history made more poignant by contemporary Russian aggression against
the sovereignty of Ukraine which, despite futile and blustering rhetoric by
Western leaders, has so far been largely unchallenged by NATO. Ironically
Russian tourists and cross-boarder shoppers are now an accepted feature of life
in Eastern Finland where signs in Cyrillic are regularly seen.
most ethnically homogeneous
countries, the bulk of the population (93.4%) being Finnish, but also with
significant numbers of indigenous Sámi in Lapland, Swedish-speaking population
(5.6%) along the south-western coastline, and Roma-Gypsies (0.3%) around
Helsinki. The modern Finnish language has little in common with other
Indo-European-derived languages, including those of its Scandinavian neighbours.
Its grammatical and syntactical structure is highly complex: eg there are no
prepositions in Finnish, replaced by the complexity of nouns having 15
agglutinative case-suffixes; verbs have some 160 conjugations and personal
forms.
Thankfully English is widely spoken, and in spite of our customary
attempts to master the basics of our host country's language, Finnish is
certainly not the easiest of languages.
Topography: lying between latitudes 59° and 71° N and longitudes 20°
and 32° E, Finland is one of the world's northernmost countries; of capitals
cities, only Reykjavik is more to the north than Helsinki. The distance from
Finland's southernmost point Hanko to the northernmost point Nuorgam is
1,160 kilometres (720 mi). In the northern latitudes of
Lapland, summer months experience the midnight sun and winter months the
Aurora Borealis. Finland's unique topography
was created by the last Ice Age which ended some 10,000 years ago: the glaciers
were thicker and longer lasting in Scandinavia compared to the
rest of Europe. The eroding effects of the masses of retreating ice,
which scoured the terrain at the end of the last Ice Age,
have left the Finnish
landscape mostly flat with few hills or mountains. A characteristic feature of
the glaciated landscape are Eskers, long winding ridges or embankments formed of
stratified sand and gravel moraine deposits. Depressions left behind by
retreating glaciers were filled with melt-waters and the Finnish land surface is
now marked by 187,888 lakes, more lakes
than any other country in the world, which cover 10% of the country; forests and
bogs cover almost 70% of what is left. Released from the oppressive weight of
the ice masses, the terrain is still slowly rising at a rate of 6mm per year and expanding the surface area by some 7 square kilometres annually, a geological
phenomenon known
as isostatic post-glacial
rebound; the Baltic Sea, created at the end of the last Ice Age, is decreasing
in size as the land rises. 
From
the 18th century the emerging independent Nordic states attempted to impose systematic
assimilation of their indigenous peoples and to eradicate their separate
identity, language and culture. The 20th century produced an increasing ethnic
and national awareness among the Sámi People and after WW2 cooperation across
political borders, bringing pressure for greater recognition of Sámi rights to
protection of their land resources, language and culture. Under the 1995 Finnish
constitution the Sámi as an indigenous people have the right to maintain and
develop their own language, culture and traditional livelihoods. The Sámi
Parliament (the Sámediggi - see photo left) established in 1996 which
meets in Inari now forms their self-governing legal body; its 21 members are
elected by the Sámi for a 4 year term and deals with all aspects of Sámi life.
But there remain significant tensions between the minority people and the
national government of Finland: unlike Norway and Sweden, the Finnish government
controversially does not recognise the Sámis' exclusive claim to herd reindeer.
Sámi leaders are in continued dispute with the state over land rights in the
traditional herding grounds. The Finnish government fears alienating the
powerful forestry industry lobby, which generates a significant proportion of
national exports and claims that grazing reindeer damage newly planted saplings.
The result is increasing distrust between the state and its indigenous
population.
Migrant prehistoric settlers from central Asia:
early human habitants occupied Finland in the millennia following the retreat of
the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago; these included the Sámi who migrated
to more northerly hunting grounds displaced by further waves of agricultural
settlers. The Baltic Finns, nomadic migrants from central Asia, crossed into Finland
around 100 AD to found settlements around the west coast trading with Sweden.
The settlers spread northwards and eastwards into Karelia absorbing the
indigenous population and venturing into Lapland to fish and hunt.
WW2 - the Winter War and Continuation War
with Stalin's Soviet Union (1939~45):
the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact placed Finland squarely in the Soviet
sphere; Stalin compelled the Baltic States to accept Russian bases and in
October 1939 demanded the same of Finland in the Karelian isthmus. When Finland
dared to refuse, Stalin launched an attack, triggering the Winter War. The
invading Red Army was crippled by Stalin's purges and its young leaders were
well versed in communist ideology but severely inexperienced in military
strategy.
Expecting a rapid victory and to be welcomed as liberators, the Soviet
soldiers carried no winter clothing and little food. But despite facing vast Soviet superiority in numbers,
tanks and aircraft, the Finns were defending their homeland and hard-won
independence; familiar with the forested, snow-covered terrain and bitter winter
temperatures, the Finns heroically resisted the invasion with guerrilla style
assaults for almost 4 months. The Red Army lost 1000s of troops but the Finns
were eventually defeated in March 1940. The resultant Treaty of Moscow forced them
to cede the entire Karelian Isthmus, city of Viipuri and 11% of territory and 30% of the economic
and industrial assets of pre-war Finland. 12% of Finland's population, some 422,000 Karelian refugees had
to be evacuated and rehoused within Finland's reduced borders (see map left).
victory inevitable after the German defeat at Stalingrad in 1943, Mannerheim was
forced to accept a peace treaty in September 1944 signed with the Soviet Union
and Great Britain. Under its terms, Finland was to give up the Pestamo region in
the north with borders restored to the 1940 position; stinging war reparations
were imposed and Finland was compelled to drive out the Germans from its
territory within 2 weeks. This resulted in bitter fighting in the north lasting
until Spring 1945, with the Germans inflicting a scorched earth policy during
their retreat causing the destruction of over half of all towns in Lapland and
1000s of refugees. Mannerheim served briefly as President of Finland from
1944~46, and through his prestige Finland managed to preserve its sovereignty,
democracy and market economy, and avoided post war Soviet occupation unlike other
countries bordering the USSR. It had resisted German demands for
extermination of its Jewish population and in fact had saved Jewish refugees
from Central Europe by grants of Finnish citizenship; it was however punished
more than other co-belligerents of Germany, having to pay massive war
reparations to the Soviet Union and resettle an eighth of its population after
having lost so much of its territory and industrial assets.
and Soviet Union,
and in 1952 Helsinki staged the Olympic Games; this was also the year that
Finland completed paying its vast war reparations to the USSR. Establishing
trade relations with the West balanced by
payment of reparations to the USSR mainly through ships and machinery enabled
Finland to transform itself from a war-ravaged agricultural society to
industrialised economy. During the Cold War, the astute but controversial political figure of Urho Kaleva Kekkonen
(see right), prime
minister from 1950~56 and Finland's longest-serving President from 1956~82,
managed to steer the difficult course of maintaining balanced relations with
both USSR and the West. Kekkonen continued the
'active neutrality” policy of his predecessor President Juho Paasikivi under
which Finland retained its
independence, able to trade with both NATO members and those of the
Warsaw Pact. Finland became a member of the UN in 1955, and despite criticism of
Kekkonen's political style as being unconstitutionally autocratic and
pro-Moscow, he managed to maintain Finland's balanced neutrality by
complementary trade agreements with both the then-EEC and with the Soviet Bloc.
Kekkonen presided over a period in which Finland grew into a modern
European capitalist democracy with healthy economy and sound social welfare
system, all in the shadow of its powerful Soviet neighbour whose actions in
Eastern Europe gave reason for Finland to tread with caution.
EU membership and modern Finland (1995 to
present day): the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 removed a 50
year burden from Finland; immediate recognition was given to the newly
independent Baltic States, the proximity and linguistic links with Estonia
creating a special relationship. But the USSR's collapse with unpaid debts and the global recession of the 1990s created severe economic depression for Finland:
its
banking
system was in crisis, unemployment the highest in Europe, and the growing
numbers of asylum seekers became the scapegoat for social problems. Economic
tensions brought closer links with Western Europe, and following a national
referendum majority vote,
Finland joined the EU in 1995. Since then the economy
has recovered and Finland has prospered enough to become one of the first EU
member states to adopt the Euro in 2002. Balancing power between President and
Parliament had been a long-standing political issue since
Kekkonen's monarchical presidency,
and in 1999 a new constitution limited presidential powers.
The Social Democrat Tarja Halonen (see left) was
elected president in 2000 under the new order; as the country's first female
president, she had earned high regard and in 2006 was re-elected by a narrow
majority for a second 6 year term. In the presidential election of 2012, Sauli Niinistö
former
leader of the National Coalition Party, was elected President (see right). Finland's long-standing neutrality and
concern about the issue of joining NATO remains a controversial
issue; as of now Finland along with Sweden remains outside NATO.
from former businessman Juha
Sipilä
(see left) and his centre-right Centre
Party. Mr Stubb's governing coalition had struggled to push through reforms,
leading to a reduction in support ahead of polling day; Mr Sipilä dismissed as
unrealistic government plans to cut 6 billion euros from budget deficits over
the coming 4 years, pledging to curb what he called reckless spending and
create 200,000 private-sector jobs over the next 10 years. With 99% of votes now
counted from Sunday's election, Mr Stubb has acknowledged defeat in the polls: support for the
conservative National Coalition Party stands at 18.2%,
ahead of the eurosceptic True Finns Party with 17.6% of votes and the Social
Democrats at 16.5%, but trailing the Centre Party's 21.2% of votes cast. Mr
Sipilä, an IT millionaire, was relatively unknown in Finland until he became
leader of the Centre Party three years ago. With this lead in the polls, he now looks set to
form the next government. Forecasts suggested that the Centre Party would take at least 49 seats
in the 200 member Finnish Parliament, the Eduskunta, while Mr Stubb's National
Coalition Party would have only 37. It is as yet unclear clear however who Mr Sipilä as
prime minister elect will choose as coalition partner.
