Sweden keeps Finland in 1809; When does Finland get independence?

[Minnesota_Nationalist]

So simple scenario. Sweden somehow keeps Finland in 1809. Whether the punishment was lighter (for whatever reason) or Sweden caved and agreed to the continental system (unlikely), they don't lose Finland to Russia.

My main question is this: When does Finland get independence than? Does Finland get independence at all? Finland had been an integral part of Sweden for over 500 years when it was lost to Russia, so it could be theoretically possible that Sweden and Finland exist in harmony. At the same time though, the rise of nationalism throughout Europe would unlikely pass by Finland, so they agitate for some sort of Finnish state, whether a new kingdom in union with Sweden or simply sharing a royal family, or separating completely and becoming a republic or a monarchy under a different royal family (probably German).

Follow-up question: What would the border be between Sweden and Finland (possibly also between Finland and Norway, depending on Norway's fate in this TL)? Would it still follow the Torne River? Or would a new, more complex border be drawn, featuring more Swedish speakers staying in Sweden rather than Finland and vice versa (maybe even including Sami with the Finns)?

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Maybe 1905, together with Norway?

 

[ben0628]

Well Finland didn't get independence from Russia until Russia collapsed on itself in 1918 so I doubt Finland could get independence by itself.

Perhaps a continuation of the Swedish Empire means another war with Russia or perhaps Sweden joins WW1.

Maybe a more powerful Swedish state protects Denmark in it's second war with Prussia and manages to unite Scandinavia in a federalized democratic union?

 

[Lalli]

I doubt that Finland can gain independence. Some kind of autonomy is possible but even that is bit questionable.

 

[funnyhat]

Well Finland didn't get independence from Russia until Russia collapsed on itself in 1918 so I doubt Finland could get independence by itself.

December 1917, actually.

 

[Pischinovski]

Maybe 1905, together with Norway?

Sweden got Norway because it had lost Finland.

 

[Aphrodite]

I thought the Swedes made a deal with the Russians of Finland for Norway. Bernadette understood that Sweden could never rival Russia again and it was impossible to hold Finland against them.

That said, a tripartite Sweden in interesting. Finland and Norway together may have had enough power within the union to keep the Swedes in check and make the system work. On the other hand Russia in OTL, habitually played the Finns off against the Swedish nobility so there were tensions between the two groups

 

[DrakonFin]

I'd argue, like I have done before, that if Finland stays a part of Sweden past 1809, gaining independence would be significantly more difficult than IOTL. With a POD as a late as the early 19th century, Finnish nationalism couldn't be averted, so there would be a movement or several striving to make Finland an independent nation. ITTL, Finnish nationalism would be built explicitly in opposition to Swedish nationalism, so if Sweden tries to hold on to Finland and sees strangling Finnish nationalism in its cradle or at least keeping it in the fringes as a movement as a desirable idea, in effect "Swedifying" the Finnish provinces, things might escalate into some pretty nasty developments. Britain and Ireland is a good reference point, I think, with the difference that the ethnic Finns would make a bigger proportion of the Swedish realm's population than the Irish ever made of the total population of Great Britain and Ireland. Finns would make up about 20-30% of the entire national population, and a 65-80% majority in the eastern provinces. Things could get serious if disagreements escalate to the point of conflict: if Finnish nationalism really takes off, putting that big a part of the nation down by force would be quite costly and difficult for Stockholm.

Generally, though, whether Finland ITTL is an independent nation by 2017, or still a part of Sweden (autonomous or not), or maybe a part of Russia of some sort, would be very much connected to the overall developments of European history in the last two centuries. Russia, for example, would have a vested interest in breaking Finland off from Sweden, as a part of Russia, a satellite or an independent buffer state, and the effort of holding on to Finland might be too much for Sweden in the face of growing Russian power.

So, without knowing how Europe and the Nordic area and Russia specifically have developed in the TL in question, it is pretty much impossible to know what the Finnish fate would be. We can try to think a decent approximation for how the Finnish areas and how the Swedish realm in general could develop in comparison to the OTL, but the internal developments would be just a small part of the package, as it were.

As for borders: if Finland breaks away as in independent nation, I wouldn't entirely discount the possibility of Sweden holding on to a coastal exclave in southwestern Finland, the part of the Finnish mainland that would have a Swedish-speaking majority, along with Åland. Again, we could think of it as a a semi-analogue to Northern Ireland. In the north, the Torne/Tornio River is as good a border as any, though we need to remember that there has been a significant number of Finnish/Finnic people living also west of it in the OTL Norrbotten County. Then again, the issue of borders is also so much down to many possible developments since 1809 that things are hard to predict. Just one example: two centuries could see a lot of internal migration, voluntary or state-encouraged, and even forced population transfers inside TTL's Sweden, for example, and that would have an effect on the borders.

 

[Michele]

Given how WWI was a border shaker, that would be a convenient moment to verify whether Sweden gets to keep Finland, especially if Sweden gets involved, possibly against its will, in that war.
Failing that, it might happen, a few years earlier (1890to 1905), that Czarist Russia deems it convenient to stir up trouble in Finland, even for its own (Russia's) internal reasons.
OTOH I don't see Finland being able to become independent on its own. The population base is too small and the control of the area too convenient for a bigger Sweden to relinquish. The Finns might probably rise up in 1848 with everyone else, or later, and almost certainly gain broad autonomy. But I doubt they'd gain independence short of external pressure on Sweden.

 

[pompejus]

Would it be possible for Finland to develop an identiy similar to the Frisians in the Netherlands? Yes they speak another language, yes they are different from other Dutch people, but they are still Dutch. So The Fins are Swedish, even though they speak a different language and want autonomy from the rest of Sweden, but not independence. To be fair, that would realy depend on how the Swedes treated the Fins. The Frisians were considered equal to the rest of the Dutch and were allowed to use and develop their own language (to be fair, this was in a time when most of the population spoke several Dutch dialects, so the Frisians weren't alone). I guess the Swedes have to accept that for the Fins.

 

[DrakonFin]

Would it be possible for Finland to develop an identiy similar to the Frisians in the Netherlands? Yes they speak another language, yes they are different from other Dutch people, but they are still Dutch. So The Fins are Swedish, even though they speak a different language and want autonomy from the rest of Sweden, but not independence. To be fair, that would realy depend on how the Swedes treated the Fins. The Frisians were considered equal to the rest of the Dutch and were allowed to use and develop their own language (to be fair, this was in a time when most of the population spoke several Dutch dialects, so the Frisians weren't alone). I guess the Swedes have to accept that for the Fins.

It might be doable, but I think the onus would be on the ruling political and cultural group of the realm, the Swedish, and especially the national elite, to come up in the 19th century with "Swedishness" as a composite identity that is not dependent on language but rather being a subject of the Swedish Crown and a citizen of the realm. In other words, the Finnish language and customs, etc, would have to be accepted as a part and parcel of being a loyal Swedish citizen, and that would mean a permissive attitude towards (nearly inevitable) Finnish demands of language and cultural rights, at first, and specifically Finnish political rights (as in Finnish autonomy) later. If Swedish nationalism rises in the 19th century as emphasizing the Swedish language, and trying to sideline Finnish language nationalism as essentially "secessionist" in nature, this could lead into a self-reinforcing spiral of escalation between the two main ethnicities of the realm.

IOTL, traditional Swedish thought saw the Finnish language as lesser than Swedish, a "peasant tongue", and the Finns as a politically lesser group as well, for historically never having a state of their own. Towards the end of the 19th century, according to the novel racial ideas doing their rounds in Sweden as well, the Finns were also seen among Swedish nationalists as members of a lesser race, as "Asiatics". If Swedish nationalism develops this way ITTL as well, there is a risk of Swedish nationalists adopting an ideology based on Swedish superiority over the coarse, less civilized Finns. If that happens, things would not look good for reconciling Swedish and Finnish nationalisms.

 

[Neoteros]

Would it be possible for Finland to develop an identiy similar to the Frisians in the Netherlands? Yes they speak another language, yes they are different from other Dutch people, but they are still Dutch. So The Fins are Swedish, even though they speak a different language and want autonomy from the rest of Sweden, but not independence. To be fair, that would realy depend on how the Swedes treated the Fins. The Frisians were considered equal to the rest of the Dutch and were allowed to use and develop their own language (to be fair, this was in a time when most of the population spoke several Dutch dialects, so the Frisians weren't alone). I guess the Swedes have to accept that for the Fins.

The Frisians are a small minority, however. The Finns would be a sizeable minority in the Swedish monarchy as a whole and a majority in their own half of the Swedish realm.

The relationship between Finns and Swedes in this ATL would be less like that between the Dutch and the Frisians and more like that between the Flemish and the Walloons, in my opinion. Maybe Helsinki could become a Swedish-speaking city just like Bruxelles became a French-speaking city, maybe the borders of Finland could change - with the Meänkieli area being granted to the Finnish subdivision of a federalized Swedish realm in exchange for Åland and a couple of coastal strips in Western and Southern Finland - but Finnish nationalism would be a huge issue in Sweden, an issue that could lead to tensions or even war with Russia later on.

And this is the best case scenario, Sweden could very well decide to wipe out Finnish culture altogether, since the Finns were regarded as barely civilized in the 19th century.

 

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

Maybe Helsinki could become a Swedish-speaking city just like Bruxelles became a French-speaking city,

Helsinki/Helsingfors was a Swedish-speaking town from the start, I think, but it would not be dominant since Turku/Åbo would remain the central city in Finland.

The Finnish-language status is said to have been a major political question in Sweden after 1800, but this became moot after 1809, so we do not know what decision would have been made. OTL Sweden post-1809 has been very harsh on local languages, and it did wipe out Western Finnish already in the 1600s, but on the other hand Finnish did expand in Finland in the 1700s under Swedish rule, so both developments are possible.

I heard on the radio a few days ago a historian say that Finland would never have become independent if Sweden had not lost it in 1809.

A fun thought might be that the area east of the 1743 border together with eastern Karelia had become TTL Suomi, independent in 1917/1918 with its capital in Viipuri/Viborg. That state would then have suffered the same fate as Estonia, and been occupied 1940-1991, but independent nowadays. Finnish nationalists might have migrated to Russia in the 1800s to escape Swedish rule, so Karelia could have had a larger population. It could have had the Kola peninsula too.

 

[DrakonFin]

I heard on the radio a few days ago a historian say that Finland would never have become independent if Sweden had not lost it in 1809.

I sometimes feel that historians who don't dabble in alternate history do very poorly when it comes to imagination and predicting alternate outcomes. I guess alternate historical thinking is a muscle one needs to train constantly for it to get stronger. Like I wrote above, Finland becoming independent would be less likely than IOTL, but depending on various circumstances beyond the control of Stockholm, Finnish history might again turn towards a track eventually leading to independence sometime before 1850, say. One thing we can't assume, for example, is that through a Swedish victory in 1808-09 the Russians would abandon the idea of conquering Finland for any longer than a handful of years.

Generally, I think people tend to underestimate the butterflies caused by Finland staying as a part of Sweden. It would affect Finland and Sweden, sure, but also Russia in a significant way. People from Finland had an important input into the development of Russia already from the beginning of the 19th century, for example as officers in the different branches of the Russian military. This is something that of course Russian historiography doesn't like to emphasize, with its tendency to downplay the role of the minority nationalities. The changes in the ATL are unknowable, but certainly say the world wars as we know them would be averted/changed, among other things.

 

[mattep74]

I Think Sweden would be a bilangual nation with the two languages sharing the status as official language. Schoolchildren would have to learn both languages so they could communicate.

 

[Roland Traveler]

I'd argue, like I have done before, that if Finland stays a part of Sweden past 1809, gaining independence would be significantly more difficult than IOTL. With a POD as a late as the early 19th century, Finnish nationalism couldn't be averted, so there would be a movement or several striving to make Finland an independent nation. ITTL, Finnish nationalism would be built explicitly in opposition to Swedish nationalism, so if Sweden tries to hold on to Finland and sees strangling Finnish nationalism in its cradle or at least keeping it in the fringes as a movement as a desirable idea, in effect "Swedifying" the Finnish provinces, things might escalate into some pretty nasty developments. Britain and Ireland is a good reference point, I think, with the difference that the ethnic Finns would make a bigger proportion of the Swedish realm's population than the Irish ever made of the total population of Great Britain and Ireland. Finns would make up about 20-30% of the entire national population, and a 65-80% majority in the eastern provinces. Things could get serious if disagreements escalate to the point of conflict: if Finnish nationalism really takes off, putting that big a part of the nation down by force would be quite costly and difficult for Stockholm.

Generally, though, whether Finland ITTL is an independent nation by 2017, or still a part of Sweden (autonomous or not), or maybe a part of Russia of some sort, would be very much connected to the overall developments of European history in the last two centuries. Russia, for example, would have a vested interest in breaking Finland off from Sweden, as a part of Russia, a satellite or an independent buffer state, and the effort of holding on to Finland might be too much for Sweden in the face of growing Russian power.

So, without knowing how Europe and the Nordic area and Russia specifically have developed in the TL in question, it is pretty much impossible to know what the Finnish fate would be. We can try to think a decent approximation for how the Finnish areas and how the Swedish realm in general could develop in comparison to the OTL, but the internal developments would be just a small part of the package, as it were.

As for borders: if Finland breaks away as in independent nation, I wouldn't entirely discount the possibility of Sweden holding on to a coastal exclave in southewestern Finland, the part of the Finnish mainland that would have a Swedish-speaking majority, along with Åland. Again, we could think of it as a a semi-analogue to Northern Ireland. In the north, the Torne/Tornio River is as good a border as any, though we need to remember that there has been a significant number of Finnish/Finnic people living also west of it in the OTL Norrbotten County. Then again, the issue of borders is also so much down to many possible developments since 1809 that things are hard to predict. Just one example: two centuries could see a lot of internal migration, voluntary or state-encouraged, and even forced population transfers inside TTL's Sweden, for example, and that would have an effect on the borders.

Wouldn't it be better for Russia to ally Sweden and forget Finland than try to take it? In one fell swoop they protect St Petersburg by putting friendly troops north of it and turn the Baltic into (at the very least) a highly contested zone that no sane person would ship troops through. Hell, practically their entire northern flank is secure because the Artic Ocean isn't exactly conducive to invasions and the Swedes can bombard any ship trying to get through the straights between Denmark and Sweden, leaving only Norway, a mountainous country that's easily blocked if the Swedes are neutral and easily overrun if they're friendly, as a potential hole (assuming Sweden doesn't subsume them). Not to mention cutting off its iron-ore from Germany (OK, that'd be a bit down the line, but it keeps iron from rival states in general).

 

[DrakonFin]

Wouldn't it be better for Russia to ally Sweden and forget Finland than try to take it? In one fell swoop they protect St Petersburg by putting friendly troops north of it and turn the Baltic into (at the very least) a highly contested zone that no sane person would ship troops through. Hell, practically their entire northern flank is secure because the Artic Ocean isn't exactly conducive to invasions and the Swedes can bombard any ship trying to get through the straights between Denmark and Sweden, leaving only Norway, a mountainous country that's easily blocked if the Swedes are neutral and easily overrun if they're friendly, as a potential hole (assuming Sweden doesn't subsume them). Not to mention cutting off its iron-ore from Germany (OK, that'd be a bit down the line, but it keeps iron from rival states in general).

In retrospect, Russia allying with Sweden seems like a good idea. But then let us remember that the two nations were constantly at war between each other in the 17th and 18th centuries, and after the Russian "maritime shift" during Peter the Great's reign and the building of the new imperial capital at the end of the Gulf of Finland, the Finnish mainland gained even more strategic significance for Russia than before. Quite simply direct military control over Finland was much more enticing and less problematic in terms of St. Petersburg and the safety of the empire than trusting the goodwill and loyalty of a traditional enemy nation. If we ask if Russia would have been better off allying with Sweden, we may well ask if 18th century Britain would have been better off allying with France and 19th-20th century France better off allying with Germany. Eventually that alliance might happen, but big ships turn slowly, like they say, especially if there is a history of enmity and obvious bones of contention. We should also remember that by the early 19th century, Russia was undeniably on the rise and Swedish power waning. Reducing Sweden to the western side of the Gulf of Bothnia was a perfectly feasible and strategically prudent long term goal from the Russian perspective.

I think it is rarely noted, here or elsewhere, that IOTL Finland passing to Russia in 1809 and this being the last nail in the coffin of Swedish pretensions to being a great power on the Baltic Sea was what made it possible for a century of almost uninterrupted peace in the northern Baltic Sea to be realized. The Finnish War's outcome created the groundwork for traditional Swedish neutrality, it made Russia into a sated power in this area (a fact seen by Russia's lenient treatment of the Finnish Grand Duchy - the area was seen as no longer a pressing defensive problem for the Russian state for some time after 1809) and allowed for the peaceful development of Sweden, Finland and Russia all. Furthermore, I think that this long period of peace following the Napoleonic Wars in the north allowed the Nordic states to gradually develop into the modern, affluent nations we know and love - with the leading position of neutral Sweden and of Norway in union with it. It allowed the development of Scandinavianism, as an increasingly significant part of it all. Had Finland stayed a part of Sweden, a traditional spiral of war in the north might have well continued.* If so, the generally peaceful and beneficial OTL development in the Nordic area would have been torpedoed - for better or for worse, but on balance I'd say mostly for worse.

From this perspective, we might say that in 1809 Finland was sacrificed on the altar of Russian great-powerdom, and surprisingly peace and progress in the north was one of the main results. It was a chain of events that in fact helped all involved, in the long term - and, as it turned out, it was also crucially beneficial for Finland itself.


* In fact some time ago, I wrote a short AH horror piece with this exact premise.

 

[KarneeKarnay]

Finland might not want to. In theory the butteflies caused by this could given Sweden a better position for encouraging the pan-Scandinavian movement in the 1850s. Then depending on how Denmark deals with Prussia you could see a unified Scandinavia.

 

[DrakonFin]

Finland might not want to. In theory the butteflies caused by this could given Sweden a better position for encouraging the pan-Scandinavian movement in the 1850s. Then depending on how Denmark deals with Prussia you could see a unified Scandinavia.

Or, like I argued above, a significantly worse position. The crux, IMHO, is how Swedo-Russian relations develop ITTL post-1809. IOTL, that Sweden could become a rising economic power and a unifying force in the Nordic area in the 19th century was tied to the fact that it had the chance of staying out of any wars in the Baltic or on the continent past 1809 - there was room for peaceful economic development for many decades, and historically this was a rare chance for any European nation. Neutrality towards the major powers and blocs gave Sweden an independent, flexible chance of finding itself a niche as an innovative, industrializing state. If Sweden continually is in hostile relations with Russia over Finland, however... Then it might spend too much of its resources for holding on to Finland (and for being a power unto itself in the Baltic Sea) and paying for a military too big for itself, squandering much of the resources it had for internal development IOTL.

Being bigger is not always better. Sometimes cutting your losses might be better than throwing good money after bad, as it were.

 

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

I think it is rarely noted, here or elsewhere, that IOTL Finland passing to Russia in 1809 and this being the last nail in the coffin of Swedish pretensions to being a great power on the Baltic Sea was what made it possible for a century of almost uninterrupted peace in the northern Baltic Sea to be realized. The Finnish War's outcome created the groundwork for traditional Swedish neutrality, it made Russia into a sated power in this area (a fact seen by Russia's lenient treatment of the Finnish Grand Duchy - the area was seen as no longer a pressing defensive problem for the Russian state for some time after 1809) and allowed for the peaceful development of Sweden, Finland and Russia all. Furthermore, I think that this long period of peace following the Napoleonic Wars in the north allowed the Nordic states to gradually develop into the modern, affluent nations we know and love - with the leading position of neutral Sweden and of Norway in union with it. It allowed the development of Scandinavianism, as an increasingly significant part of it all. Had Finland stayed a part of Sweden, a traditional spiral of war in the north might have well continued.* If so, the generally peaceful and beneficial OTL development in the Nordic area would have been torpedoed - for better or for worse, but on balance I'd say mostly for worse.

Sweden did go the neutral way already in the 1680s, and the great power politics were abandoned after 1721. With Norway, Sweden had the same size as with Finland, and in both cases the country was too small to get involved in major wars, as shown in the Napoleonic wars where Denmark and Sweden both were crushed by the great powers.

I do wonder what the Finnish awakening would look like in this case, and what policies the Swedish government would make.