Finland's language strife

The language strife was one of the major conflicts of Finland's national history and domestic politics. It revolved around the question of what status Swedish—the language which since the Middle Ages had been the main language of administration and high culture in Finland—and, on the other hand, Finnish—the first language of the majority of Finns—should have in political, cultural, educational, and other national arenas. The strife began in the latter half of the 19th century, continuing well into the 1920s and 1930s. The language question has today lost its prominence as Finnish has attained a dominant status, but there is still public debate about issues such as the extent to which Swedish-majority administrative units should be kept separate, and to what extent knowledge of Swedish should be a prerequisite for different job opportunities.

Background

As the area nowadays known as Finland was gradually incorporated in the Swedish Realm from the 13th century onwards, Swedish (and Latin) became dominant over Finnish as the most-used language of administration and higher education among the Finns. Immigration of Swedish peasants to Finland's coastal regions also boosted the status of Swedish.

As a result of the Finnish War, Sweden ceded Finland to Russia in 1809. Finland became an autonomous grand duchy within the Russian Empire.

Johan Vilhelm Snellman became a chief initiator of the language strife during the 1850s. Finnish gained an official language status comparable to that of Swedish.

Nationalism and the question of language

Finnish eventually recovered its predominance in the country after the birth of Fennomanic Finnish nationalism in the 19th century.

A set of graves in Tampere, showing the Swedish surname 'Kyander' as well as the Fennicized 'Kiianmies'.

A significant contribution to the Finnish national awakening from the mid-19th century onwards came from the members of the mostly Swedish-speaking upper classes deliberately choosing to promote Finnish culture and language. Snellman himself was a Swede and later ennobled. These people, known as the Fennomans, Fennicized their family names, learned Finnish, and made a point of using it both in public and at home. However, another group of the Swedish-speaking population, the Svecomans, did not wish to abandon Swedish, and strove against the Fennoman ideology and Fennoman-inspired reforms.

Finnish gained an official language status comparable to that of Swedish, and within a generation Finnish dominated in government and society in Finland. This situation made for conflict between the supporters of the two languages.

After independence

After Finland's independence in 1917, relations with Sweden unexpectedly became strained in connection with the Finnish Civil War and the Åland crisis, which further aggravated the language dispute, sharpening it into a prominent feature of domestic politics during the 1920s and 1930s.

In the newly independent Finnish constitution of 1919, Finnish and Swedish were given equal status. The language strife thereafter centered on this and on the role of Swedish in universities, particularly regarding the number of professors working in Swedish. Then, at the resettlement of over 420,000 Karelian refugees after the Winter War against the Soviet Union (1939–1940), the Swedish-speaking minority feared that the new Finnish-speaking settlers would change the linguistic balance of their neighborhoods.

See also

References

    Further reading

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