Fennoman
Encyclopedia
The Fennomans were the most important political movement in the 19th century Grand Principality of Finland. They succeeded the fennophile interests of the 18th and early 19th century.

History

After the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

, they founded the Finnish Party
Finnish Party
The Finnish Party was a Fennoman conservative political party in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland and independent Finland. Born out of Finland's language strife in the 1860s, the party sought to improve the position of the Finnish language in Finnish society...

 and intensified the language strife
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,...

, yearning to raise the Finnish language
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

 and Finnic
Finnic peoples
The Finnic or Fennic peoples were historic ethnic groups who spoke various languages traditionally classified as Finno-Permic...

 culture from peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...

 status to the position of a national language and a national culture. The opposition, the Svecomans, tried to defend the status of Swedish
Finland-Swedish
Finland Swedish is a general term for the closely related cluster of dialects of Swedish spoken in Finland by Swedish-speaking Finns as their mother tongue...

 and the ties to the Germanic world.

Although the notion of Fennomans was not as common after Paasikivi's (born 1870) generation, their ideas have dominated the Finns' understanding of their nation.

Many of the first generation of Fennomans were originally Swedish-speaking as their mother tongue. Some of the originally Swedish-speaking Fennomans learned Finnish, and made a point of using it inside and outside the home.

Several Fennomans were from Finnish or bilingual homes. Some originally had Swedish surnames, common in Finland at that time.

Most of the Fennomans also Finnicized their family names, particularly from the end of the 19th century.

In the last years of the 19th century, and in the first years of the 20th, the Fennoman movement split into two political parties: the Old Finnish Party and the Young Finnish Party
Young Finnish Party
The Young Finnish Party or Constitutional-Fennoman Party was a liberal and nationalist political party in the Grand Duchy of Finland...

.

Motto

The Fennoman motto
Motto
A motto is a phrase meant to formally summarize the general motivation or intention of a social group or organization. A motto may be in any language, but Latin is the most used. The local language is usual in the mottoes of governments...

 was coined by Adolf Ivar Arwidsson
Adolf Ivar Arwidsson
Adolf Ivar Arwidsson was a Finnish political journalist, writer and historian. His writing is critical of Finland's status at the time as a Grand Duchy under the Russian Tsars. His writing activity cost him his job as a lecturer at The Royal Academy of Turku and he had to emigrate to Sweden,...

 (originally in Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...

):
"Swedes we are no longer,
Russians we do not want to become,
let us therefore become Finns!"

Prominent Fennomans

  • Daniel Juslenius
    Daniel Juslenius
    Daniel Juslenius was a Finnish writer and bishop. He was a professor of Hebrew, Greek and theology at the Royal Academy of Turku....

  • Fredrik Cygnaeus
  • Yrjö Sakari Yrjö-Koskinen
    Yrjö Sakari Yrjö-Koskinen
    Baron Yrjö Sakari Yrjö-Koskinen was a freiherr, senator, professor, historian, politician and the chairman of the Finnish Party after Johan Vilhelm Snellman. He was a central figure in the fennoman movement...

    , formerly Georg Zacharias Forsman
  • Alexandra Gripenberg
    Alexandra Gripenberg
    Alexandra Gripenberg, also known as Alexandra van Grippenberg, was a Finnish social activist, author, editor, newspaper publisher, and elected politician, and was a leading voice within the movement for women's rights in Finland at the turn of the 20th century...

  • Lauri Kivekäs, formerly Stenbäck
  • Johannes Linnankoski
    Johannes Linnankoski
    Johannes Linnankoski was a Finnish author. His most famous work is the sensual Laulu tulipunaisesta kukasta...

  • Agathon Meurman
  • Julius Krohn
    Julius Krohn
    Julius Leopold Fredrik Krohn was a Finnish folk poetry researcher, a professor of Finnish literature, a poet, a hymn writer, a translator and a journalist. He was born in Viipuri. Krohn worked as a lecturer on Finnish language in Helsinki University from the year 1875 and as a supernumerary ...

  • Juho Kusti Paasikivi
    Juho Kusti Paasikivi
    Juho Kusti Paasikivi was the seventh President of Finland . Representing the Finnish Party and the National Coalition Party, he also served as Prime Minister of Finland , and was generally an influential figure in Finnish economics and politics for over fifty years...

    , formerly Johan Gustav Helstén
  • Emil Nestor Setälä
  • Johan Vilhelm Snellman
    Johan Vilhelm Snellman
    Johan Vilhelm Snellman was an influential Fennoman philosopher and Finnish statesman, ennobled in 1866.Snellman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, as son of Kristian Henrik Snellman, a ship's captain...

  • Eero Järnefelt
    Eero Järnefelt
    Eero Erik Nikolai Järnefelt was a Finnish realist painter.Eero Järnefelt was born in Viipuri, Finland. His father August Aleksander Järnefelt was an officer in the Russian army and his mother was Elisabeth Järnefelt . He studied at the St...


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