The Swedish Empire following theTreaty of Roskilde of 1658.Dark green: Sweden proper, asrepresented in the Riksdag of theEstates. Other greens: Swedishdominions and possessions.

Governor General of Finland, land, and Ostrobothnia (other parts of Sweden had also had governor generals).The modern boundaries of Finland actually came into existence only after the end of Sweden-Finland. What was signed over to Russia in 1809was not so much a "Finland" as six counties, land, and a little part of Vsterbotten County. The boundary between the new Grand Duchy ofFinland and the remaining part of Sweden could have been drawn along the river Kemijoki, which was the boundary between VsterbottenCounty and sterbotten County (Ostrobothnia) at the timewhich the Swedish proposed in the peace negotiationsor along the river Kalix,thereby including the Finnish-speaking part of Menmaawhich the Russians proposed. The boundary, which followed the Torne River and theMuonio River to the fells Saana and Halti in the northwest, was a compromise, which later became what the concept of Finland came to standforat least after the tsar Alexander I of Russia permitted the parts of Finland located to the east of the Kymi River which were conquered byRussia in 1721 and 1743, called "Old Finland", to be administratively included in "New Finland" in 1812.

History

Prehistory

According to archaeological evidence, the area now comprising Finland was settled at the latest around 8500 BCE during the Stone Age as the icesheet of the last ice age receded. The artifacts the first settlers left behind present characteristics that are shared with those found in Estonia, Russiaand Norway.[23] The earliest people were hunter-gatherers, using stone tools.[24] The first pottery appeared in 5200 BCE when the Comb Ceramicculture was introduced.[25] The arrival of the Corded Ware culture in southern coastal Finland between 3000 and 2500 BCE may have coincidedwith the start of agriculture.[26] Even with the introduction of agriculture, hunting and fishing continued to be important parts of the subsistenceeconomy.

The Bronze Age (1500500 BCE) and Iron Age (500 BCE1200 CE) were characterised by extensive contacts with other cultures in theFennoscandian and Baltic regions. There is no consensus on when Uralic languages and Indo-European languages were first spoken in the area ofcontemporary Finland. During the first millennium AD, early Finnish was spoken in agricultural settlements in southern Finland, whereasSmi-speaking populations occupied most parts of the country. Although distantly related, the Sami are a different people that retained the hunter-gatherer lifestyle longer than the Finns. The Sami cultural identity and the Sami language have survived in Lapland, the northernmost province,but the Sami have been displaced or assimilated elsewhere.

Swedish era

Swedish kings established their rule in the Northern Crusades from the 12th century until 1249.[27] Thearea of present-day Finland became a fully consolidated part of the Swedish kingdom. Swedish-speakingsettlers arrived at the coastal regions during the medieval time. In the 17th century, Swedish became thedominant language of the nobility, administration and education; Finnish was chiefly a language for thepeasantry, clergy and local courts in predominantly Finnish-speaking areas.

During the Protestant Reformation, the Finns gradually converted to Lutheranism.[28] In the 16th century,Mikael Agricola published the first written works in Finnish. The first university in Finland, The RoyalAcademy of Turku, was established in 1640. Finland suffered a severe famine in 16961697, during whichabout one-third of the Finnish population died,[29] and a devastating plague a few years later. In the 18thcentury, wars between Sweden and Russia twice led to the occupation of Finland by Russian forces, timesknown to the Finns as the Greater Wrath (17141721) and the Lesser Wrath (17421743).[29] It isestimated that almost an entire generation of young men was lost during the Great Wrath, due namely tothe destruction of homes and farms and to the burning of Helsinki.[30] By this time Finland was thepredominant term for the whole area from the Gulf of Bothnia to the Russian border.

Two Russo-Swedish wars in twenty-five years served as reminders to the Finnish people of how precarioustheir position between Sweden and Russia was. An increasingly vocal elite in Finland soon determined thatFinnish ties with Sweden were becoming too costly, and following Gustav III's War (17881790), theFinnish elite's desire to break with Sweden only heightened.[31]

In the late eighteenth century a politically active portion of the Finnish nobility became convinced that, dueto Sweden and Russia's repeated use of Finland as a battlefield, it would be in the country's best interests to seek autonomy. Even before theRusso-Swedish War of 17881790, there were conspiring Finns, among them Col G. M. Sprengtporten, who had supported Gustav III's coup in1772. Sprengporten fell out with the king and resigned his commission in 1777. In the following decade he tried to secure Russian support for anautonomous Finland, and later became an adviser to Catherine II.[31]

Notwithstanding the efforts of Finland's elite and nobility to break ties with Sweden, there was no genuine independence movement in Finlanduntil the early twentieth century. As a matter of fact, at this time the Finnish peasantry was outraged by the actions of their elite and almostexclusively supported Gustav's actions against the conspirators. (The High Court of Turku condemned Sprengtporten as a traitor c. 1793.)[31]

Russian Empire era

On 29 March 1809, having been taken over by the armies of Alexander I of Russia in the Finnish War, Finland became an autonomous GrandDuchy in the Russian Empire until the end of 1917. In 1811 Alexander I incorporated Russian Vyborg province into the Grand Duchy of Finland.During the Russian era, the Finnish language began to gain recognition. From the 1860s onwards, a strong Finnish nationalist movement known asthe Fennoman movement grew. Milestones included the publication of what would become Finland's national epic the Kalevala in 1835, and

Finland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Finland

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