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The Fennoman movement or Fennomania was a Finnish nationalist movement in the 19th-century

Grand Duchy of Finland The Grand Duchy of Finland ( fi, Suomen suuriruhtinaskunta; sv, Storfurstendömet Finland; russian: Великое княжество Финляндское, , all of which literally translate as Grand Principality of Finland) was the predecess ...

, built on the work of the ''fennophile'' interests of the 18th and early-19th centuries.

History

After the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included t ...

, Fennomans founded the

Finnish Party The Finnish Party ( fi, Suomalainen Puolue) was a Fennoman conservative political party in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland and independent Finland. Born out of Finland's language strife in the 1860s, the party sought to improve the positio ...

and intensified the language strife, yearning to raise the

Finnish language Finnish (endonym: or ) is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish ...

and Finnic culture from peasant status to the position of a national language and a national culture. The opposition, the

Svecomans The Svecoman ( sv, Svekoman, , ) movement was a Suecophile or pro-Swedish nationalist movement that arose in the Grand Duchy of Finland at the end of the 19th century chiefly as a reaction to the demands for increased use of Finnish vigorously ...

, tried to defend the status of Swedish and the ties to the Germanic world. Although the notion of ''Fennomans'' was not as common after the generation of

Juho Kusti Paasikivi Juho Kusti Paasikivi (; 27 November 1870 – 14 December 1956) was the seventh president of Finland (1946–1956). Representing the Finnish Party until its dissolution in 1918 and then the National Coalition Party, he also served as Prime Minist ...

(born 1870), their ideas have dominated the Finns' understanding of their nation. The mother tongue of many of the first generation of Fennomans, like

Johan Vilhelm Snellman Johan Vilhelm Snellman (; 12 May 1806 – 4 July 1881) was an influential Fennoman philosopher and Finnish statesman, ennobled in 1866. He was one of the most important 'awakeners' or promoters of Finnish nationalism, alongside Elias Lönnrot ...

, was Swedish. Some of the originally Swedish-speaking Fennomans learned Finnish, and made a point of using it inside and outside the home. Several Fennomans were from Finnish or bilingual homes. Some originally had Swedish surnames, common in Finland at that time. Most of the Fennomans also Finnicized their family names, particularly from the end of the 19th century. In the last years of the 19th century, and in the first years of the 20th, the Fennoman movement split into two political parties: the

Old Finnish Party The Finnish Party ( fi, Suomalainen Puolue) was a Fennoman conservative political party in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland and independent Finland. Born out of Finland's language strife in the 1860s, the party sought to improve the position ...

and the

Young Finnish Party The Young Finnish Party or Constitutional-Fennoman Party ( fi, Nuorsuomalainen Puolue or ) was a liberal and nationalist political party in the Grand Duchy of Finland. It began as an upper-class reformist movement during the 1870s and formed as ...

Motto

The Fennoman

motto A motto (derived from the Latin , 'mutter', by way of Italian , 'word' or 'sentence') is a sentence or phrase expressing a belief or purpose, or the general motivation or intention of an individual, family, social group, or organisation. Mo ...

attributed to

Adolf Ivar Arwidsson Adolf Ivar Arwidsson (7 August 1791 – 21 June 1858) was a Finnish political journalist, writer and historian. His writing was critical of Finland's status at the time as a Grand Duchy under the Russian Tsars. Its sharpness cost him his job a ...

was actually coined by

: "Svenskar äro vi icke, ryssar vilja vi icke bli, låt oss alltså vara finnar." :"''We are not Swedes,'' :''We do not want to be Russians,'' :''So let's be Finns.''"

Kari Tarkiainen Kari Valtteri Tarkiainen (born 14 June 1938 in Helsinki) is a Finnish historian and archivist, who served as the national archivist of Finland 1996–2003. He is a grandson of the scholar Viljo Tarkiainen and his wife, writer Maria Jotuni. Tarki ...

: ''Adolf Ivar Arwidsson'', in

Matti Klinge Matti Klinge (born August 31, 1936, Helsinki) is a Finnish historian. He studied at the University of Helsinki and gained his Ph.D. in 1969. He later served as a Visiting Professor at the University of Paris (1970–1972) and held the Swedi ...

(ed.): ''Suomen kansallisbiografia'' 1. SKS, Helsinki 2003, (page 406)

Prominent Fennomans

Daniel Juslenius Daniel Juslenius (10 June 1676, Mynämäki – 17 July 1752, Skara) was a Finnish writer and bishop. He was a professor of Hebrew, Greek and theology at the Royal Academy of Turku. Juslenius is considered Finland's first Fennoman and a firm advo ...

Fredrik Cygnaeus Fredrik Cygnaeus (1 April 1807 – 7 February 1881) was a Finnish poet, art critic and collector, docent of history and university professor of aesthetics and literature. Cygnaeus was an influential figure in Finnish art and literature, con ...

Yrjö Sakari Yrjö-Koskinen Baron Yrjö Sakari Yrjö-Koskinen (birth name Georg Zakarias Forsman, author name Yrjö Koskinen; 10 December 1830 in Vaasa – 13 November 1903 in Helsinki) was a friherre, senator, professor, historian, politician and the chairman of the Finn ...

, formerly Georg Zacharias Forsman *

Alexandra Gripenberg Alexandra Gripenberg, also known as Alexandra van Grippenberg, (1857 – 24 December 1913) was a Finnish social activist, author, editor, newspaper publisher, and elected politician, and was a leading voice within the movement for women's rights ...

* Lauri Kivekäs, formerly Stenbäck *

Johannes Linnankoski Johannes Linnankoski (originally Vihtori Johan Peltonen, 18 October 1869 – 10 August 1913) was a Finnish author and playwright, which mainly influenced writing in the Golden Age of Finnish Art. His most famous work is the romance novel, ''The S ...

Agathon Meurman Agathon Meurman (9 October 1826, Kangasala – 17 January 1909, Helsinki)Agathon Meurman
– Agathon Meurm ...

Hjalmar Mellin Robert Hjalmar Mellin (19 June 1854 – 5 April 1933) was a Finnish mathematician and function theorist. Biography Mellin studied at the University of Helsinki and later in Berlin under Karl Weierstrass. He is chiefly remembered as the develop ...

Julius Krohn Julius Leopold Fredrik Krohn (19 April 1835 – 28 August 1888) was a Finnish folk poetry researcher, professor of Finnish literature, poet, hymn writer, translator and journalist. He was born in Viipuri and was of Baltic German origin. Krohn ...

, formerly Johan Gustav Hellsten *

Eemil Nestor Setälä Eemil Nestor Setälä (; 27 February 1864 – 8 February 1935) was a Finnish politician and once the Chairman of the Senate of Finland, from September 1917 to November 1917, when he was author of the Finnish Declaration of Independence. Se ...

Eero Järnefelt Erik "Eero" Nikolai Järnefelt (8 November 1863 – 15 November 1937) was a Finnish painter and art professor. He is best known for his portraits and landscapes of the area around Koli National Park. He was a medal winner at the Paris ''Exposit ...

Otto Donner Otto Donner (15 December 1835, Kokkola – 17 September 1909, Helsinki) was a Finnish linguist and politician. Biography He was professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Indo-European linguistics at the University of Helsinki, but also studied ...

* Heikki Renvall *

Toivo Kuula Toivo Timoteus Kuula (7 July 1883 – 18 May 1918) was a Finnish composer and conductor of the late-Romantic and early-modern periods, who emerged in the wake of Jean Sibelius, under whom he studied privately from 1906 to 1908. The core of Ku ...

Yrjö Jahnsson Yrjö Jahnsson (1877–1936) was a Finnish economics professor at the University of Helsinki, appointed in 1911. He openly criticized the strict monetary policy of the "orthodox" government and central bank in the early 1930s, and was ideologically ...

References

External links

The Association of Finnish Culture and Identity
{{National revivals Grand Duchy of Finland Finnish nationalism Nationalist movements in Europe

History

Motto

Prominent Fennomans

See also

References

External links