I should qualify what follows by saying that it is a skeleton history of Finland. It is not intended to go into any great depth on any specific subject, since most subjects in history on which one could go into depth probably deserve their own nodes anyway. This is only intended to hit the major events in Finnish history and orient people who are like myself five hours ago, which is to say those who know nothing about Finland.
Based on archeological finds during the 1990's, we now think that Finland was probably first settled by humans somewhere on the order of a hundred thousand years ago. Somehow, though, the Finns managed to hide for
98,000 years, which is why they first surface in recorded history in about 98 C.E. That's the year that Tacitus wrote about people called the Fenni,
which, although he was probably actually writing about the Lapps, is the
first reference to Finland in recorded history.
The Finns again managed to hide for another thousand years, apparently,
before resurfacing in the 1150's. During that time, southwestern Finland
hosted a military campaign for religious conversion, called the First Swedish Crusade, by the Swedish king
Erik and his buddy, the English-born bishop Henry, who may not even have existed. Apparently not
satisfied with the level of Christianization in Finland, Birger, the Earl
of Sweden, led a campaign known as the Second Swedish Crusade into the inland
Finnish province of Tavastia. That crusade started in 1238 and lasted
until 1249. It apparently garnered enough converts to warrant the building
of a nice cathedral, the Turku Cathedral, in the principal Finnish city of Turku starting in 1290. Still,
however, the Swedes weren't satisfied. A third Swedish crusade, this time
penetrating to Karelia in eastern Finland, was led by Tyrgils Knutsson in
1293. This crusade's geographic extent would eventually form the dividing
line for an Orthodox east and a Catholic west after the Russians began to
exert their power over the eastern section of the country. In the
meantime, though, the Swedes had managed to exert effective control over
most of the country, and they consolidated their holdings throughout the
thirteenth century by building castles and other fortifications against
rebellion in Turku, Tavastia, and Viborg.
In the fourteenth century, the Finns began to come out of their
collective shells, so to speak, beginning with the sending of several
Finnish students to major foreign universities, like Sorbonne in
France. In 1323, the Finns were divided into a Novgorod-governed east and
Swedish-governed west by the peace treaty of
Pähkinäsaari. These dividing lines roughly followed the line of the Third Swedish
Crusade and effectively crystallized religious and cultural differences
between the two halves of the country. Finnish remained the primary
language throughout, though. In 1362, the Swedish half was granted the
right to send representatives to vote in the Swedish royal election, although representation in the Swedish legislature as a whole would have to wait until the sixteenth century.
The fifteenth century saw the construction of a number of stone
churches, as well as the construction of a major castle, Olavinlinna, in
eastern Finland by a Swedish noble Erik Axelsson Tott in 1475. Finland was
also recognized semi-officially by the outside world when it appears in
1493 on a printed map by the German Hartmann Schedel. The fifteenth
century appears to have been quiet, otherwise.
Finland was first given representation in the Swedish Diet during the
sixteenth century. The Kalmar Union, of which Finland had been a part by
extension through Sweden, was dissolved after 136 years by the new Swedish
king Gustav Vasa in 1523. Four years later, Catholic Finland underwent
a huge change when the Swedish Diet approved the Lutheran reformation,
including the cofiscation of ecclesiastical property. Bishop Mikael
Agricola, who had brought the reformation to Finland in the first place,
had apparently gotten over the shock of the whole thing by 1543, when he
published the first ever book written in Finnish. Appropriately enough, it
was a book on Finnish grammar. This was somewhat unusual in the Finland of
the day, since Swedish domination in the fields of lawmaking and
statecraft meant that Swedish had become the language of power.
After those quiet years, Finland was apparently ready for a little
adventure. The Swedes, who were calling all the shots militarily, were
more than happy to oblige. Sweden got control over the entire Baltic
through the Peace of Stolbova in 1617, including the Gulf of
Finland. Then, during the extremely nasty Thirty Years' War, in which
Sweden's king Gustav Adolph played a major part (until he got killed
at the Battle of Lutzen), the Finns provided heavy support for the Swedes in the
form of an elite corps of heavy cavalry. These cavalrymen were so adept at
the charge that they got a special nickname, the Hakkapelites, and their
commander, Torsten Stalhhandske, went down in history as a Finnish war
hero.
After the war, Gustavus Adolphus' successor, Queen Christina,
established the first university in Finland, the Åbo Akademi, in
1640. Although the university was Swedish in language, it was only two
years after that that the first completely Finnish-language Bible appeared. Although I don't know whether the two phenomena were related,
one can't help but think that they were.
The seventeenth century was another adventurous one for Finland,
although not quite as much fun in the end. Sweden and Russia got into the
Great Northern War starting in 1700, during the course of which Peter the
Great of Russia founded St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland in 1702. This
brought more economic competition to the area and in general wasn't good
for the Finns or the Swedes. Of course, when Sweden was forced to admit
defeat to Russia in 1721, they had to give up Livonia, Ingria, and Estonia
to Russia, along with a sizeable chunk of southeastern Finland. Apparently
feeling a need to protect Finland after their loss in the war, Sweden
began to build a castle called Sveaborg (fortress of Sweden) in some
islands off the coast of Helsinki. The fortress was later renamed
Suomenlinna (fortress of Finland).
Russia had only whetted its appetite for Finland, it seems,
though. When in 1807 Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I of Russia conspired to
blockade Britain, Alexander pledged to force Sweden to help. In the
resulting conflict, called the Finnish war, Sweden was defeated and thus
made to cede the whole of Finland to Russia, who preserved the Swedish laws and social systems but converted Finland to an autonomous Grand Duchy with Alexander as
its head. Thus, Finland became more or less independent after the war,
although they existed only at the mercy of the Russians. In 1812, Russia
joined its other Finnish holdings to the autonomous Grand Duchy and
proclaimed Helsinki the capital. In 1828, the nation's only university was
also moved to Helsinki, confirming its status as the nation's first city.
Given the recent developments and the general tide of worldwide nationalism, one would expect to find a building
nationalist momentum in Finland, which is indeed what happens at about
this time. The Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, was first published in
1835, although its compiler Elias Lonnrot enlarged it and published a
bigger version fourteen years later. In 1848, the national anthem, Maamme
(Vart Land) or "Our Land," was first publicly performed. Writing becomes
very prevalent, and both Faltskarns Berattelser (The tales of
Barber-Surgeon) by Zacharias Topelius and Johan Ludvig Runeberg's Fanrik
Stals Sagner (Tales of Ensigh Stal) are published during the mid-19th
century. Coincidentally, paper manufacturing and sawmilling were becoming
big industries for Finland at this time, too. The Finnish markka became
the first indigenous currency in 1860, and Finland's national legislature
convened for the first time three years later. Finnish was given equal
status with Swedish as an administrative language at this time, too. In
1870, the first Finnish novel, The Seven Brothers by Aleksis Kivi, was
published.
Given the rising sense of nationalism in Finland, it's no surprise that
the end of the nineteenth century found Finland agitating for full independence
from Russia. They thought that Tsar Nicholas II had betrayed his previous
promise to uphold the Finnish constitution when he issued the February
Manifesto, which the Finns thought would undermine their autonomy. They
continued to agitate for independence until they managed to secure
Bolshevik recognition thereof during the 1917 revolution. In the meantime,
Finns had been streaming out of the country to the New World, reaching a
high point of 23,000 emigrees in 1902. In 1906, Finland's national
parliament met for the first time during a period of low pressure from Russia due to revolution there. It was popularly elected by universal
suffrage, including women. This made Finland the first nation to grant
such full political rights to women.
After independence, though, things didn't go easily right off. A civil
war broke out in 1918 between southern Finnish communists and the army of
the fledgling government, who was trying to disarm them and some Russians after the Russian revolution had spilled over into Finland. Eventually, this
rising was put down with German help, and the throne of Finland was
offered at the end to a German prince named Friedrich Karl. He renounced
the throne within a month, though, without ever having actually gone to
Finland. In 1919, the country became a republic under the first president,
K.J. Ståhlberg. Under his leadership, Finland joined the League of Nations
in 1920, the same year that Finland acquired the Petsamo area from Russia
via the Peace of Tartu.
The next year, autonomy was granted to the Åland Islands. 1922 saw the
introduction of compulsory education and military service as well as institutionalization of
freedom of religion. In 1926, not only was the first Finnish Broadcasting
Company (YLE) established, but the Social Democratic government also
took power. It had to fend off the strong anti-Communist movement, the
Lapua, inspired by Italian Fascism, until a failed power seizure by the Lapua gave occasion to outlaw
that organization. The Communist party itself was also banned on the
grounds that it was an agent of a foreign country. All the same, Finland
signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union in 1932, probably just
to fend off any attacks more than anything else. The Soviet Union kept
secret the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement with Germany, which said that Finland was
claimed by the U.S.S.R. when the conquering started up, but Finland was
apparently worried about Soviet aggression anyway.
Starting on November 30, 1939, Soviet forces began to attack
Finland. Although without any allies or aid, the Finnish forces held out
for 105 days under Marshal C.G. Mannerheim, a veteran commander from the
Finnish Civil War. The world press focuses on this war, known as the
Winter War, and most sympathies lie with Finland. That didn't stop them
from having to cede Viborg province in the southeast to the Soviets,
though.
The Finns continued to fight Russia through 1944, aligning themselves
with Nazi Germany in order to fight off the U.S.S.R. Although they weren't
fighting the Nazis, they did fight Nazi ideology apparently, rejecting
ideological Nazi incursions with the same vigor as the military ones of
the Russians. The Finns held out against Russia, ultimately stopping their final advance in 1944
at the 1940 border. Finland had to pay reparations to Russia after the war
and had to give back the province of Petsamo as well. The entire population
of Petsamo apparently voluntarily left on the event of the cession; they
were resettled in Finland. Also, the peace settlement with Russia
involved the forceful expulsion of 200,000 German troops in Lapland to Norway,
which the Finns spent 1944-1945 carrying out. An Allied Control Commission,
consisting of Britain and Russia, was established in Helsinki starting in
1944, and Russia has Communist activities legalized as well as having
certain Finnish leaders prosecuted for their role in the Russo-Finnish
conflict.
Also in 1945, the first Moomin book, Moomin and the Great Flood by
Tove Jansen, is published.
Finland fell under Soviet influence after the war, rejecting U.S. financial aid under
the Marshall Plan in accord with Soviet orders, although they apparently recieved a lot of unofficial Marshall money. Finland was made to manufacture heavy things like trains and ships for the Russians, and this would ultimately form the basis for Finnish national industrialization. So the Russian influence wasn't all bad, in spite of its best efforts at times. In 1948, the two nations
signed a Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance. Finland
began to rise in international prestige at the same time. The 1952
Olympics were held at Helsinki, and Finland joined both the U.N. and the
Nordic Council three years later and the European Free Trade Association
in 1961. In 1956, the Soviets returned the Porkkala naval base, rented
after WWII, and Urho Kekkonen was elected president. Urho tried to protect
Finland in a Cold War world by remaining as neutral as possible, but the
Soviets really wanted to mess with Finland and wouldn't take no for an
answer. In 1958 and 1961, the U.S.S.R. directly intervened in Finnish
government twice, engendering the "night frost crisis" in the first case
and the "note crisis" in the second.
In 1970, Finland adopted the 40 hour work week. In 1973, they signed a
free trade agreement with the EEC. Urho Kekkonen's tenure as president ran
out in 1981, capping 25 years of development from a backwater of Europe to
a pretty respectable little nation. In 1989, Finland joined the Council of Europe, and its major international obstacle
to prosperity, the Soviet Union, broke up two years later. Unfortunately,
a deep recession hit from 1991-1993, just about the time that Linus
Torvalds first wrote Linux. Finland decided in 1992 to apply to the
European Union, although they weren't admitted until 1995. They quickly
rose to the top, however, serving as President of the Council of the
European Union in 1999. In 2000, they adopted a new constitution and a new female president, Tarja Halonen, and that
pretty much brings us up to date.
Source: http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english, which is a wonderful source for damn near everything Finnish. Anything that doesn't appear there came from my conversation with vuo, who pointed out a lot of stuff I missed.