Revista Economia n. 13.pmd - Faap

Historically, Russia and Sweden have waged with each other over a dozen
major wars. Finland was badly ravaged by these wars and in the 18 th century
Helsinki, for instance, was occupied twice by the Russian forces. Finns had also
to provide men, horses, and materiel to the Swedish army, often more than the
mother country itself supplied for the war effort. Thirty Years War in 1618-1648
imposed a particularly heavy toll as most of the fighting took place in Central
Europe which at that time was very far away from Finland.
Russia conquered Finland in the 1808-1809 war that was closely associated
with the great-power politics of the Napoleonic wars. Such politics came to the
Finnish shores also in the 1850s when the British fleet, as a part of the operations
connected with the Crimean War, bombed the coastal cities of the country.
Even before that the Swedish empire had started to construct heavy marine
fortifications at Suomenlinna to protect Helsinki against Russian attacks. After
the conquest of Finland in 1809, this “Gibraltar of the North” fell under the
Russian control.
The Russian rule in 1809-1917 was, for the most part, a good period for
Finland. The long peace lasting until World War I saved the country from the
physical destruction and loss of human life. As a Grand Duchy, Finland had a
rather wide-ranging political autonomy that was strengthened by the political
reforms in the 1860s during the rule of Alexander II. These reforms included
the establishment of a four-estate parliament for Finland and of its own currency,
markka, separate from the Russian ruble. The new currency and monetary policy
were managed by the new Bank of Finland. The political liberalization in the
19 th century was accompanied with the first steps of Finnish industrialization in
the form of saw mills that were run by the ample hydro power available in
Finland. The integration of the country as a more coherent political and
economic entity was fostered by the construction of the first railways from the
1860s on. Yet, Finland remained a poor and underdeveloped country in which
most population lived in the subsistence agricultural economy where the failure
of harvest meant hunger and disease. The worst famine occurred in 1866-67
when 150,000 people perished, accounting for close to 10% of the population.
The political and economic progress in Finland faced new challenges in
the turn of the 20 th century. Panslavist and nationalist forces gained ascendancy
in Russia and they started to undo the reforms that had been introduced in the
second half of the 19 th century. On the other hand, Russia itself was facing
revolutionary pressures from below which came to the surface in the general
strike of 1905. The weakening of the Czarist power system was further fostered
by the military defeat in the hands of Japan in 1904-1905. The general strike
also spread to Finland where both the working class and the nationalist
movements were mobilized for the first time. At that time one could hear the
first organized demands for the independence of Finland. In the general strike,
the Russian authorities lost temporarily the political control of the Finnish society,
although they were able to restore it for some ten more years.
The general strike of 1905 was an important event for the reason that, in
the connection of the duma reform in Russia, Finland received its own unicameral
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Revista de Economia & Relações Internacionais, vol.6(13), 2008