Lotta Svärd
Encyclopedia
Lotta Svärd was a Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 voluntary auxiliary
Auxiliaries
An auxiliary force is a group affiliated with, but not part of, a military or police organization. In some cases, auxiliaries are armed forces operating in the same manner as regular soldiers...

 paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....

 organisation for women. During the Finnish Civil War
Finnish Civil War
The Finnish Civil War was a part of the national, political and social turmoil caused by World War I in Europe. The Civil War concerned control and leadership of The Grand Duchy of Finland as it achieved independence from Russia after the October Revolution in Petrograd...

 it was associated with the Suojeluskunta
White Guard (Finland)
The White Guard was a voluntary militia that emerged victorious over the socialist Red Guard as part of the Whites in the Finnish Civil War of 1918...

. After the war Lotta Svärd was founded as a separate organisation on September 9, 1920. The name comes from a poem by Johan Ludvig Runeberg
Johan Ludvig Runeberg
Johan Ludvig Runeberg was a Finnish poet, and is the national poet of Finland. He wrote in the Swedish language....

. Part of a large and famous book, The Tales of Ensign Stål
The Tales of Ensign Stål
The Tales of Ensign Stål is an epic poem written in Swedish by the Finland-Swedish author Johan Ludvig Runeberg, the national poet of Finland...

, the poem described a fictional woman named Lotta Svärd
Lotta Svärd (poem)
Lotta Svärd is the fourth poem in the second part of Johan Ludvig Runeberg's epic poem The Tales of Ensign Stål from 1860.The Lotta Svärd poem is about a woman who manned a field kitchen during the Finnish War...

. According to the poem, a Finnish soldier, private Svärd, went to fight in the Finnish War
Finnish War
The Finnish War was fought between Sweden and the Russian Empire from February 1808 to September 1809. As a result of the war, the eastern third of Sweden was established as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland within the Russian Empire...

 and took his wife, Lotta, along with him. Private Svärd was killed in battle, but his wife remained on the battlefield, taking care of wounded soldiers. The name was first brought up by Marshal Mannerheim
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim was the military leader of the Whites in the Finnish Civil War, Commander-in-Chief of Finland's Defence Forces during World War II, Marshal of Finland, and a Finnish statesman. He was Regent of Finland and the sixth President of Finland...

 in a speech given on May 16, 1918. The first known organisation to use the name Lotta Svärd was the Lotta Svärd of Riihimäki
Riihimäki
Riihimäki is a town and municipality in the south of Finland, about north of Helsinki and southeast of Tampere. It is somewhat of a railway junction, since the railway tracks going from different parts of the nation to Helsinki merge there. Sako, Ltd...

, founded on November 11, 1918.

The organisation expanded during the 1920s and it included 60 000 members in 1930. By 1944 it included 242 000 volunteers, the largest voluntary auxiliary organisation in the world, while the total population of Finland was less than four million. During the war
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...

 some 100 000 men whose jobs were taken over by "Lottas" were freed for military service. The Lottas worked in hospitals, at air-raid warning posts and other auxiliary tasks in conjunction with the armed forces. The Lottas, however, were officially unarmed. The only exception was a voluntary anti-aircraft battery
14th Searchlight Battery (Finland)
14th Searchlight Battery was a Finnish anti-aircraft searchlight battery formed from women of the Lotta Svärd organization at the end of the Continuation War. The battery was formed to free men for other tasks and was used in the air-defence of Helsinki...

 in Helsinki in the summer of 1944, composed of Lotta Svärd members. The battery operated the AA search-lights. The unit was issued rifles for self-protection, thus being the only armed female military unit of the Finnish Defence Forces history.
Since 1.4.1995 women between the ages of 18 and 29 have had the right to apply for voluntary military service in the Finnish Defence Forces and are free to apply into any form of service, which is granted provided they fulfill the minimum fitness and health requirements.

When the Continuation War
Continuation War
The Continuation War was the second of two wars fought between Finland and the Soviet Union during World War II.At the time of the war, the Finnish side used the name to make clear its perceived relationship to the preceding Winter War...

 ended, the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 demanded that all organisations considered by them to be paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....

, fascist or semi-fascist be banned. Thus, the Lotta Svärd organisation was one of the groups which was disbanded. This happened November 23, 1944. However, a new organisation called Suomen Naisten Huoltosäätiö (Support Foundation of Finnish Women) was started which took over much of the old property. This organisation still exists by the name of Lotta Svärd Säätiö (Lotta Svärd Foundation).

The Finnish Lotta Svärd organisation has inspired similar organisations in other countries and there is still a Lotta Svärd organisation in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 (Lottorna
Lottorna
The Swedish Women's Voluntary Defence Service is an auxiliary defence organization of the Swedish Home Guard, a part of the Swedish Armed Forces. It was created in 1924 inspired by the Finnish women's auxiliary organization, Lotta Svärd founded in 1920...

); the same model is also used in Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 and Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

.

A 2005 film http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427914/Lupaus ("Promise") describes the trials and tribulations of a number of Finnish Lottas during the Second World War.
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