The Charm of Scandinavia

by Francis E. Clark; Sydney Clark

My dear Judicia,

I wonder if you are asking why I include Finland in the letters which we submit to you in regard to the relative merits of the different parts of Scandinavia. Do I hear you say that Finland is a part of Russia, and that the Finns are not even of Aryan stock like the Swedes, but are descendants of Turanian tribes, “first cousins to the Hungarians, and forty-second cousins to the Turks”?

Nevertheless, in spite of all this, I must maintain that Finland is more a part of Scandinavia and more nearly related to the Swedes in customs, temperament, and manner of life than to any other nation. The Swedes were the people who found the Finns in barbaric heathenism, who Christianized and civilized them, though it must be acknowledged that, in doing this, they conquered and sometimes exploited them at the same time. For four hundred and fifty years after this conquest by Sweden the Finns constituted a loyal and devoted part of the Swedish kingdom, speaking the Swedish language almost as freely as their own, adopting Swedish laws and customs, and equal in political and social rights to their neighbors across the Gulf of Bothnia.

It was only about a hundred years ago that they were conquered by the Russians, when, after centuries of struggle, Sweden’s domains were rent in twain.

To prove my contention that to all intents and purposes Finland should be considered a part of Scandinavia, I must remind you that long before the Finns came to Finland the southern part of their country was doubtless inhabited by Scandinavians. One writer tells us that they were there “thousands of years before the Finns arrived.” But way off beyond Persia were some Turanian tribes, related to the Mongols and the Manchus, who started on that everlasting trek toward the west, which, since the days of the Pharaohs, seems to have urged the Eastern peoples on toward the setting sun.

They seem to have tarried in Persia for awhile and to have brought with them some Persian coins, which to this day are occasionally unearthed in Finland. On and on they pressed, the first of the Eastern hordes to cross the Ural mountains, until they came, some to the banks of the Danube and others to the shores of the Baltic. The tribes who settled the fertile plains of Hungary are the Magyars of to-day; those who pushed on to the Baltic Sea are the Finns.

Eric XI of Sweden was the first king to turn his attention particularly toward Finland. He seems to have desired not only the conquest of the Finns but their conversion to Christianity, and so he is known both as King Eric and St. Eric. It was no easy job, however, to conquer this slow, obstinate, patient race, and it was one hundred and fifty years, or, to be exact, in 1293, that Sweden’s conquest was complete. She soon set an example to all future conquerors, an example by which Great Britain has so well profited in these later days by giving perfect liberty to the conquered peoples and confirming their liberties by an irrevocable law.

Nothing better ever happened to the Finns than this conquest by the Swedes. Christianity, civilization, education, and an invaluable training in liberty under law was the result, until the descendants of those wild tribes from the steppes of Asia have become one of the most civilized, enlightened, and perhaps the best educated nation in the world.

Says Ernest Young, in his interesting book on Finland: “It is a remarkable fact that the Finnish and Swedish populations of Finland, though running like two different streams beside each other without blending, never rose against each other, but, on the contrary, always stood side by side in the same rank whenever sword was drawn at home or abroad. There was rivalry between them, but no oppression.… The laws and social order of Sweden were introduced without resistance into a country where law and society did not exist before. The people grew into these new forms, applied them according to their characters, and became familiar with them as their own.”

Would that Russia could have learned a lesson that Sweden taught to all the world, concerning conquered provinces. At first it seemed as though she had done so, and no one ever spoke fairer words to a conquered people than Czar Alexander I spoke to the Finns through the Governor-general in the “Act of Assurance,” given to the first Finnish Diet that convened after the cession of Finland to Russia by the Swedes.