From: mtf@saha.hut.fi (Matti Franssila)
Subject: Re: Swedish 'colonialism'
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 12:13:35 GMT


This comes from Antti Lahelma, not Matti Franssila as the From: -line says..
my apologies for not knowing how to change the line. Also, I won't be able
to answer to followups, as I'm in the army at the moment... but I just had
to write this one :-) You can mail me at this adress, if you wish to comment.


In article <1992Aug24.132816.2694@nntp.hut.fi> f33012l@puukko.hut.fi (Janne Kivel{) writes:
>In article <1992Aug24.091431.20472@kth.se> tomas_e@LINK.Physchem.KTH.SE writes:
>
>>It's well known that Columbus wasn't the European who discovered 
>>America. The proud and noble vikings did that! (Even of they weren't 
>>Swedish vikings )-: ) Good for Europe, yes. Good for the natives, no.
>>Brought European civilization, yes. But as you seem to be aware, there 
>>were some rather advanced societies already existing in America. (Which 
>>didn't survive.) Was that so in (what later became) Finland?
>
>Little is known of people who lived here before the crusades, but I
>assume they didn't have central administration. Instead, they had
>some kind of tribal society. I am not an expert so perhaps someone 
>else could help.

 Not so little. There was no central administration in what *now* is called
Finland, but Ha"me and Finland-Proper at least were kingdoms of a sort ("king-
doms" in the same sense as the early viking kingdoms were). Also, there was 
some kind of co-operation among these kingdoms, as there is a large system of
ancient fortifications in the finnish coastline, built to protect the inland
from the vikings. This line of fortifications is too large to have been
built and maintained by a simple tribal organization.

In recent archaeological excavations a pre-christian finnish town has 
been found in Hameenlinna's Varikkoniemi. It is as yet uncertain whether 
this town (recognized as the Vanai mentioned in early russian chronicles) 
actually fulfils the requirements of a true town, but it did have many 
different sorts of craftsmen and merchants living in it, and two stone/wood 
walls around the town. Anyway, it shows that finnish society was rather 
organized already before the swedes came - very well comparable to pre-
christian Sweden. The main difference between viking age Sweden and viking
age Finland was that finns were fewer and not as eager to go barbarizing
central Europe (finns stayed mostly in the baltic sea, trading and fighting
with the swedes...) It also puts in new light the tales and certain maps 
which speak of finnish towns and kingdoms (for example, the map by al-Idrisi
mentions that there were three kingdoms in Finland and each had a capital 
town). 

 Speaking of the crusades, the motives behind them are nearly lost in the
mists of history, but bringing the christian faith to a pagan Finland
really wasn't one of them (at least in the case of the 1st crusade). Changes
in peoples burial customs are considered a rather reliable sign of changes
in religious thought, and according to the finds in Finland-Proper, christi-
anity came to Finland in early 11th century, and by the turn of the
century most of Finland-Proper was already christian (the 1st so called
crusade was made in 1155 to Finland-Proper (that's Varsinais-Suomi in
finnish, I'm not sure if that's the correct translation); by then pagan 
graves were rare even in Ha"me and Satakunta).

>
>Finnish written language was created by Mikael Agricola in the 16th 
>century as you may well know. Finnish was also considered too primitive
>language to be used by any others than peasants.

 Not quite so. *Before* the 16th century finnish language was quite widely
used by even the very highest nobility and church officials. For example,
most of the medieval finnish bishops spoke finnish as their mother tongue.
(And this is of great importance, since medieval swedish kings had quite
limited power in Finland - the finnish catholic church with the bishop of
Turku at its head was at least as powerful as the king). Some of the mightiest 
medieval noble houses were purely finnish (Kurki and Sa"rkilahti for example). 
Finnish was probably used as a written language long before Mikael Agricola, 
but unfortunately no evidence of this has survived (most of the medieval 
finnish documents were destroyed in the fire of Kuusisto bishops castle, 
which was used as a sort of a national archives of medieval Finland). Agricola
is of course still the true father of finnish written language, but ev he didn't
make it out of the thin air.
 It was only in the 16th and 17th centuries, with Sweden becoming a great
power with a strong king attracting the finnish nobility to move across the
Bothnian gulf, that finnish culture lost its identity and finnish language 
became unimportant - a peasants language.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic