This article deals with the political history of Finland from prehistoric times, through the Swedish rule (c.1200-1808), to the Russian rule (Grand Duchy of Finland, 1809-1917) and the time of independent Finland (1917-). In this context, Finland broadly refers to the geographical area in which the current Finnish state is located.
Swedish rule
In 1362, Finland was granted the right to send a representative to the Swedish royal election. Under the 1634 Swedish-Finnish form of government and the first parliamentary order, Finland's four estates, the nobility, the clergy, the bourgeoisie and the peasants, sent their representatives to the Riksdag in Stockholm.Finnish Parliament on the history of Finland
Autonomy in the Russian Empire (1809–1917)
After the weakening of the Swedish Empire, it was no longer in a position to maintain its conquests of the Baltic Sea environment and had to cede the eastern parts to Russia as a result of wars. First, the so-called Old Finland, and with the Finnish War, the rest of Finland, which became a fully autonomous Grand Duchy to the Russian Empire in 1809. Finland had the status of a Grand Duchy from 1809 to 1917.
Critical changes A significant change compared to the Swedish era was that Finland began to build its own central government. In 1809, the Finnish Senate was established to deal with Finland's internal affairs. It was to prepare and implement matters within the emperor's discretion, and in practice acted as a government. Under the Senate, a central government was formed, which in time developed into the state administration of independent Finland. The Secretary of State of Finland served in Saint Petersburg to present Finnish affairs to the Emperor. The establishment of these new administrative bodies was of great importance, and through them Finland was able to improve its own conditions when the taxes collected could be used directly for Finland's benefit. In 1812, the Russian Emperor Alexander I moved the capital of the Grand Duchy from Turku to Helsinki. In the same year, the so-called Old Finland, i.e. the area of Finland that Sweden lost to Russia in the 18th century, was restored to Finland. Vyborg, the most important city in Old Finland, grew into a major port and industrial city during the 19th century. In many ways, however, life continued unchanged from Swedish times.
Despite the development of the administration and the economy, the transition to Russian rule was not entirely favorable for Finland. For example, Finland was left out of the political development that began in Sweden towards a constitutional monarchy, party politics and, ultimately, democracy. The Diet did not begin to convene in Finland until the 1860s. Finland was also overshadowed by the strong development of freedom of expression in Sweden in the 19th century, the development of a free press, the strengthening of the rights and freedoms of individuals and the formation of civil society. The Russian Empire represented the opposites of the liberal ideals of the era to conservatism, monotony, and arbitrariness. The Finnish central government also adopted the methods of the Russian bureaucracy fluently and generally did not take a very positive view of the reforms.
Political struggles during autonomy During the Russian rule, political activism gradually grew demanding more autonomy and eventually independence for Finland. However, several generations of struggle were needed before the Finnish nationalist movement realized its objectives. One form of activism was the underscoring of Finnish language, also at the expense of the primacy of Swedish language that was still widely spoken and the official language of the country. Numerous members of the Swedish-speaking community entered the campaign, adopting Finnish as their language and exchanging their Swedish family names for Finnish ones. Finnish journals were founded, and Finnish became an official language in 1863. By the end of the century, there was a slight majority of Finnish-speaking students at the University of Helsinki, and Finnish-speakers made up sizable portions of the professions.
Finland's first political parties grew out of the language struggle. Those advocating full rights for Finnish-speakers formed the so-called Fennoman group that by the 1890s had split into the Old Finns and the Young Finns, the former mainly concerned with the language question, the latter urging the introduction of political liberalism. The Swedish-speaking community formed a short-lived Liberal Party. As the century drew to a close and the Fennoman movement had achieved its principal goals, economic issues and relations with the tsarist empire came to dominate politics.
Over time Finland's modernizing economy encouraged the formation of social groups with specific, and sometimes opposing, interests. In addition to the Finnish movement's Old and Young Finns, other political organizations came into being. Because the existing political groups did not adequately represent labor's interests, a workers' party was formed at the end of the century. In 1903 it became the Finnish Social Democratic Party (Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue or SDP). At the same time labor was organizing itself, the farmers began a cooperative movement; in 1907 they formed the Agrarian Party (Maalaisliitto). The Swedish People's Party (Svenska Folkpartiet or SFP), also dating from this period, was formed to serve the entire Swedish-speaking population.
The Grand Duchy's relationship with St. Petersburg began to deteriorate in the 1890s. The nervousness of tsarist officials about Finnish loyalty in wartime prompted measures to bind Finland more closely to the empire. The campaign of "Russification" ended only with Finland's independence in 1917. In retrospect, the campaign can be seen as a failure, but for several decades it caused much turmoil within Finland, reaching its most extreme point with the assassination of the governor general in 1904. The first Russian revolution, that of 1905, allowed Finns to discard their antiquated Diet and to replace it with a unicameral legislature, the Eduskunta, elected through universal suffrage. Finland became the first European nation in which women had the franchise. The first national election, that of 1907, yielded Europe's largest social democratic parliamentary faction. In a single step, Finland went from being one of Europe's most politically backward countries to being one of its most advanced. Nonetheless, frequent dissolutions at the hands of the tsar permitted the Eduskunta to achieve little before independence.
Right to vote and the first parliamentary elections In 1906, universal and equal suffrage was enacted in Finland for both women and men. Women were the first in the world to exercise their right to vote in the 1907 parliamentary elections. At that time, excluded from the right to vote were however, for example, persons receiving assistance for the disabled. Under the current constitution, the right to vote is universal and equal for everyone over the age of 18.
The first parliamentary elections were held on 15–16 March 1907. Until then, Finland lagged behind other European countries in terms of democracy, but now women were the first in Europe to receive both the right to vote and to stand for election, and the 19 women MPs elected to the new parliament were the world's first female MPs. At the end of the Diet, there were about 126,000 eligible voters in Finland, but in the first parliamentary elections there were 1,272,873, i.e. the parliamentary reform increased the electorate tenfold. Modern party institutions were also born in Finland with the right to vote in 1906.Mylly 2006, s. 148, 189–190, 254, 292.
Decreased autonomy The reforms in Russia after the revolution of 1905 put an end to Finland's autonomy. With these reforms, Russia got a cabinet headed by the Prime Minister, through which all matters concerning Finland that went to the emperor passed through. Thus, it can be said that Finland's autonomy ended or was at most limited to those things that did not require the approval of the emperor and thus the Russian government.
Finland's autonomy experienced a new upswing after the February Revolution and the subsequent March manifesto, when part of the February Manifesto (1899), and the 1910 law on national legislation were repealed. However, in Finland there was a dispute over the supreme power, and in Russia the position of the provisional government was at least questionable.
The time of independence (1917–present) The Finnish Senate issued a declaration of independence on December 6, 1917, after Russia's second revolution in October 1917. The Council of People's Commissars of Soviet Russia, chaired by Lenin, recognized Finland's independence on December 31, 1917, and soon after that many other states followed. On January 28, 1918, a civil war broke out that ended in the victory of German-backed Whites against Bolsheviks-backed Reds. In the same year, the volunteers made some armed expeditions into Soviet Russia, including Karelia, and also Estonia. Peace with Soviet Russia was established in Tartu on November 14, 1920. During World War II, Finland fought against the Soviet Union in the Winter War of 1939–1940 and in the Continuation War of 1941–1944. After the ceasefire on September 4, 1944, the weapons had to be turned at the request of the Soviet Union against Germany in the Lapland War of 1944–1945.
Independence, civil war and the inter-war period The second Russian revolution allowed Finland to break away from the Russian empire, and independence was declared on 6 December 1917. Within weeks, domestic political differences led to a Finnish Civil War that lasted until May 1918, when right-wing forces, with some German assistance, were able to claim victory. As a consequence, Finland began its existence as an independent state with a considerable segment of its people estranged from the holders of power, a circumstance that caused much strife in Finnish politics.
After right-wing dreams of a monarchy based on the coronation of a German prince as the king of Finland came crumbling down with the German defeat in the World War, a republic was formed. In mid-1919, Finns agreed on a new Constitution, one that constructed a modern parliamentary system of government from existing political institutions and traditions. The 200-seat unicameral parliament, the Eduskunta, was retained. A cabinet, the Council of State, was fashioned from the Senate of the tsarist period. A powerful presidency, derived, in part at least, from the office of governor general, was created and provided with a mixture of powers and duties that, in other countries, might be shared by such figures as king, president, and prime minister. Also included in the new governmental system was an independent judiciary. The powers of the three branches of government were controlled through an overlapping of powers, rather than a strict separation of powers.
Finland faced numerous political and economic difficulties in the interwar years, but it surmounted them better than many other European countries. Despite the instability of many short-lived governments, the political system held together during the first decades of independence. While other countries succumbed to right-wing forces, Finland had only a brush with fascism. Communist organizations were banned, and their representatives in the Eduskunta arrested, but the SDP was able to recover from wounds sustained during the Civil War and was returned to power. In 1937 the party formed the first of the so-called Red-Earth coalitions with the Agrarian League, the most common party combination of the next fifty years, one that brought together the parties representing the two largest social groups. The language problem was largely resolved by provisions in the Constitution that protected the rights of the Swedish-speaking minority.