CULTURAL INFORMATION ABOUT FINLAND
Basic Information
◊ Capital (and largest city) Helsinki 60°10′N, 24°56′E
◊ Official languages Finnish, Swedish
◊ Government Parliamentary republic
◊ President Tarja Halonen
◊ Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen
◊ Independence from Russian Empire
- Autonomy March 29, 1809
- Declared December 6, 1917
- Recognised January 4, 1918
◊ EU accession January 1, 1995
◊ Area - Total 338,145 km² (65th) 130,558 sq mi - Water 10%
Population
- 2008 estimate 5,305,353[1] (111th)
- 2000 census 5,155,000
- Density 16/km² (161st) 40/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2005 estimate
- Total $163 billion (52nd)
- Per capita $34,819 (12th)
GDP (nominal) 2005 estimate
- Total $193.491 billion (31st)
- Per capita $40,197 (12th)
◊ Currency Euro (€)² (EUR)
Finland, officially the Republic of Finland (Finnish: Suomi), is a Nordic country situated in the Scandinavian portion of Northern Europe. It has borders with Sweden to the west, Russia to the east, and Norway to the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland. The capital city is Helsinki.
Finland has a population of 5,302,778 people, spread over an area of 338,145 square kilometres (130,559 square miles). The majority of the population is concentrated in the southern part of the country. As their mother tongue, most Finns speak Finnish. The second official language, Swedish, is spoken natively by a 5.5 percent minority.
Formerly part of Sweden and from 1809 an autonomous Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire, Finland declared its independence in 1917. Today, Finland is a democratic, parliamentary republic and has been a member state of the United Nations since 1955 and the European Union since 1995. Finland has thriving services and manufacturing sectors and is a highly democratic welfare state with low levels of corruption, consistently ranking at or near the top in international comparisons of national performance.
According to the World Audit Democracy profile, Finland is the freest nation in the world in terms of civil liberties, freedom of the press, low corruption levels and high levels of political rights. Finland is rated the sixth most peaceful country in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit, and since 1945, Finland has been at peace, adopting neutrality in wartime.
Finland was rated the best country to live in by Reader's Digest study released in October 2007, which looked at issues such as quality of drinking water and greenhouse gas emissions as well as factors such as education and income.
HISTORY
Swedish Era (until 1809)
Sweden established its official rule of Finland in the 13th century by the crown. Swedish became the dominant language of the nobility, administration and education; Finnish was chiefly a language for the peasantry, clergy and local courts in predominantly Finnish-speaking areas. The Bishop of Turku was usually the most important person in Finland during the Catholic era.
The Middle Ages ended with the Reformation when the Finns gradually converted to Lutheranism. In the 16th century, Mikael Agricola published the first written works in Finnish. In the 18th century, wars between Sweden and Russia led to occupation of Finland twice by Russian forces, known to the Finns as the Greater Wrath (1714–1721) and the Lesser Wrath (1742–1743). By this time "Finland" was the predominant term for the whole area from the Gulf of Bothnia to the Russian border.
Grand Duchy in the Russian Empire (1809–1917)
On 1809, after being conquered by the armies of Alexander I of Russia in the Finnish War, Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy in the Russian Empire until the end of 1917. During the Russian era, the Finnish language started to gain recognition, first probably to sever the cultural and emotional ties with Sweden and thereafter, from the 1860s onwards, as a result of a strong nationalism, known as the Fennoman movement. Milestones included the publication of what would become Finland's national epic, the Kalevala, in 1835; and the Finnish language achieving equal legal status with Swedish in 1892.
Despite the Finnish famine of 1866-1868, in which about 15 percent of the population died, political and economic development was rapid from the 1860s onwards.
In 1906, universal suffrage was adopted in the Grand Duchy of Finland, the second country in the world where this happened. However, the relationship between the Grand Duchy and the Russian Empire soured when the Russian government made moves to restrict Finnish autonomy. For example, the universal suffrage was, in practice, virtually meaningless, since the emperor did not approve any of the laws adopted by the Finnish parliament. Desire for independence gained ground, first among radical nationalists and socialists.
Civil War (1917–1918) and Early Independence
On December 6, 1917, shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, Finland declared its independence, which was approved by Bolshevist Russia.
In 1918, the country experienced a brief but bitter Civil War that affected domestic politics for many decades afterwards. The Civil War was fought between "the Whites", who were supported by Imperial Germany, and "the Reds", supported by Bolshevist Russia. The Reds consisted mostly of propertyless rural and industrial workers who, despite universal suffrage in 1906, felt that they lacked political influence. The White forces were mostly made up of bourgeoisie and wealthy peasantry, politically to the right. Eventually, the Whites overcame the Reds. The deep social and political enmity between the Reds and Whites remained. The civil war and activist expeditions to the Soviet Union strained eastern relations.
After a brief flirtation with monarchy, Finland became a presidential republic, with Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg elected as its first president in 1919. Finnish democracy survived the upsurge of the extreme rightist Lapua Movement and Great Depression in the early '30s. However, legislators tended to be anti-communist and the relationship between Finland and the Soviet Union was tense.
Fokker D.XXI planes of the Finnish Air Force during World War II.
During World War II, Finland fought the Soviet Union twice: in the Winter War of 1939–40 after the Soviet Union had attacked Finland and in the Continuation War of 1941–44, following Operation Barbarossa in which Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Following German losses on the Eastern Front and the subsequent Soviet advance, Finland was forced to make peace with the Soviet Union. This was followed by the Lapland War of 1944–45, when Finland forced the Germans out of northern Finland.
Areas ceded by Finland to the Soviet Union after the Winter War in 1940 and the Continuation War in 1944. The Porkkala land lease was returned to Finland in 1956.The treaties signed in 1947 and 1948 with the Soviet Union included Finnish obligations, restraints, and reparations as well as further Finnish territorial concessions (cf. the Moscow Peace Treaty of 1940). Finland ceded most of Finnish Karelia, Salla, and Pechenga, which amounted to ten percent of its land area and twenty percent of its industrial capacity. Some 400,000 evacuees, mainly women and children, fled these areas. Establishing trade with the Western powers, such as the United Kingdom, and the reparations to the Soviet Union caused Finland to transform itself from a primarily agrarian economy to an industrialised one. Even after the reparations had been paid off, Finland continued to trade with the Soviet Union in the framework of bilateral trade.
The Post-War Era and Modern History
After the Second World War, neutral Finland lay in the grey zone between the Western countries and the Soviet Union. The "YYA Treaty" (Finno-Soviet Pact of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance) gave the Soviet Union some leverage in Finnish domestic politics. This was extensively exploited by President Urho Kekkonen against his opponents. He maintained an effective monopoly on Soviet relations, which gave him a status of "only choice for president". There was also a tendency of self-censorship regarding Finno-Soviet relations. This phenomenon was given the name "Finlandisation" by the German press (fi. suomettuminen). However, Finland maintained a democratic government and a market economy unlike most other countries bordering the Soviet Union.
The post-war era was a period of rapid economic growth and increasing wealth and stability for Finland. In all, the war-ravaged agrarian country was transformed into a technologically advanced market economy with an extensive social welfare system. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the bilateral trade disappeared overnight. Finland was simultaneously hit by a severe depression originating from the Western markets and the Finnish economy itself that caused a structural change of the economy. The depression lasted from 1990 to 1993, but the economy survived and began growing at a high rate. Finland joined the European Union in 1995.
Geography and Environment
Finland is a country of thousands of lakes and islands; 187,888 lakes (larger than 500 m²) and 179,584 islands to be precise. One of these lakes, Saimaa, is the fifth largest in Europe. The Finnish landscape is mostly flat with few hills and its highest point, the Halti at 1,324 metres, is found in the extreme north of Lapland at the border between Finland and Norway.
The landscape is covered mostly (seventy-five percent of land area) by coniferous taiga forests and fens, with little arable land. The greater part of the islands are found in southwest in the Archipelago Sea, part of the archipelago of the Åland Islands, and along the southern coast in the Gulf of Finland.
Flora and Fauna
All terrestrial life in Finland was completely wiped out during the last ice age that ended some 10,000 years ago, following the retreat of the glaciers and the appearance of vegetation.
Today, there are over 1,200 species of vascular plant, 800 bryophytes and 1,000 lichen species in Finland, with flora being richest in the southern parts of the country. Plant life, like most of the Finnish ecology, is well adapted to tolerate the contrasting seasons and extreme weather. Many plant species, such as the Scots Pine, spruce, birch spread throughout Finland from Norway and only reached the western coast less than three millennia ago. Oak and maple grows in nature only in the southern part of Finland.
The Archipelago Sea, between the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland, is the largest archipelago in the world by number of islands; estimates vary between 20,000 and 50,000.Similarly, Finland has a diverse and extensive range of fauna. There are at least sixty native mammalian species, 248 breeding bird species, over seventy fish species and eleven reptile and frog species present today, many migrating from neighbouring countries thousands of years ago.
Large and widely recognised wildlife mammals found in Finland are the Brown Bear (the national animal), Gray Wolf, elk and reindeer. Other common mammals include the Red Fox, Red Squirrel, and Mountain Hare. Some rare and exotic species include the flying squirrel, Golden Eagle, Saimaa Ringed Seal and the Arctic fox, which is considered the most endangered. The Whooper Swan, the national bird of Finland, is a large Northern Hemisphere swan. The most common breeding birds are the Willow Warbler, Chaffinch and Redwing. Of some seventy species of freshwater fish, the northern pike, perch and others are plentiful. Salmon remains the favorite of fly rod enthusiasts.
Climate
The climate in Southern Finland is a northern temperate climate. In Northern Finland, particularly in the Province of Lapland, a subarctic climate dominates, characterised by cold, occasionally severe, winters and relatively warm summers. The main factor influencing Finland's climate is the country's geographical position between the 60th and 70th northern parallels in the Eurasian continent's coastal zone, which shows characteristics of both a maritime and a continental climate, depending on the direction of air flow. Finland is near enough to the Atlantic Ocean to be continuously warmed by the Gulf Stream, which explains the unusually warm climate considering the absolute latitude.
A quarter of Finland's territory lies above the Arctic Circle, and as a consequence the midnight sun can be experienced – for more days, the farther north one travels. At Finland's northernmost point, the sun does not set for 73 consecutive days during summer, and does not rise at all for 51 days during winter.
Religion
Most Finns are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (82.5 percent). A minority belongs to the Finnish Orthodox Church (1.1 percent). Other Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church in Finland are significantly smaller, as are the Muslim, Jewish and other non-Christian communities (totalling 1.2 percent). 15.1 percent of the population is unaffiliated. The main Lutheran and Orthodox churches are the national churches of Finland. Church attendance is much lower than these figures may suggest. Most of the population holds generally secular views. A majority of members of the state Lutheran Church do not participate actively, often attending church only for special occasions like weddings and funerals.
Defence Forces
The Finnish Defence Forces is a cadre army of 16,500, of which 8,700 are professional soldiers (officers), with a standard readiness strength of 34,700 people in uniform (27,300 Army, 3,000 Navy, and 4,400 Air Force). Finland's defence budget equals about 1.4 percent of the GDP. A universal male conscription is in place, under which all men above 18 years of age serve for six, nine, eleven (unarmed service) or twelve months. Inhabitants of Finland's Åland Islands and Jehovah's Witnesses are exempt, but there are no other general exemptions. Non-military service for twelve months is also possible. Since 1995, Finnish women have been able to do military service as volunteers. The defence is based on a large trained reserve. During the Cold War, Finland could have mobilised 490,000 reservists in a conflict, but this number has since been reduced to some 350,000 due to ongoing budget cuts.
The Finnish Defence Forces are under the command of the Chief of Defence, who is directly subordinate to the President of the Republic in matters related to the military command.
The military branches are Finnish Army, Finnish Navy and Finnish Air Force. The Border Guard is under the Ministry of the Interior but can be incorporated into the Defence Forces when required by defence readiness.
'Finnishness'
Strong Finnish sauna culture is one of the remains of the aboriginal Finnish culture. Like the people, Finnish culture is indigenous and most prominently represented by the Finnish language. Throughout the area's prehistory and history, cultural contacts and influences have concurrently, or at varying times, come from all directions. As a result of 600 years of Swedish rule, Swedish cultural influences are still notable. Today, cultural influences from North America are prominent. Into the twenty-first century, many Finns have contacted cultures from distantly abroad, such as with those in Asia and Africa. Beyond tourism, Finnish youth in particular have been increasing their contact with peoples from outside Finland by travelling abroad to both work and study.
There are still differences between regions, especially minor differences in accents and vocabulary. Minorities, such as the Sami, Finland Swedes, Romani, and Tatar, maintain their own cultural characteristics. Many Finns are emotionally connected to the countryside and nature, as urbanisation is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Finnish Words
Here are some words that are characteristic of 'Finnishness'. The term 'Finnishness' is frequently used as the national identity of the Finnish people and its culture.
Kalevala: the national epic of Finland, and Finnish mythology in general
Kantele: traditional musical instrument
Mämmi: traditional Easter food
Kalakukko: traditional Savonian food
Mustamakkara: traditional blood sausage from Tampere
Karelian pasties: traditional pasties from the region of Karelia
Joulupukki: Father Christmas/Santa Claus
Jean Sibelius: one of the most popular national figures (composer of the symphonic poem Finlandia)
Sauna: a Finnish national institution (see also Finnish sauna)
Sisu: will, determination, perseverance, mental fortitude
Puukko: traditional Finnish style woodcraft belt-knife
Talkoot: community work
Ice swimming: swimming in a body of water with a frozen crust of ice
Nordic walking: a recreational sport first popularized in Finland
Salmiakki: salty liquorice
Sahti: traditional beer
Koskenkorva: Finnish vodka
Reilu meininki: fair dealing
Flying Finn: a nickname given to notable Finnish sportsmen (originated with Olympic medalist Hannes Kolehmainen)
Disclaimer; Parts of this information were compiled with the use of Wikipedia.