Talk:Russification of Finland

Russification or Imperialization?

I propose that the name of this article be changed to Imperialization of Finland, which is more commonly used in today's scholarship. This is because Russification carries some connotations which aren't quite accurate: the purpose of the Russian Empire was not to suppress Finnish culture at the expense of Russian culture as "Russification" would suggest. The Language Manifesto was about integrating administration in Finland to that in Russia, rather than affecting Finnish language politics in other ways. So Russification is a misleading term and indeed we don't use it in Finnish. --Grapesofraph (talk) 19:44, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Untitled

Cleaned up and expanded the article. I had a hard time parsing the last sentence, so, hopefully:

However, public opinion in Finland still emphasizes the literal wording of international treaties and considers references to "changed conditions" as proof of low moral standards.

adequately represents the original editor's intent. Ahasuerus 20:42, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Text from the Civil War article:

This text was included in the main article in a hidden (commented out) form. I removed it and placed it here. -- Petri Krohn 04:58, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

The background of the Civil War can be traced to political polarization due to a major conflict between Imperial Russia and the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, which commenced in 1889 as an outcome of Russian Pan-Slavism, and was intensified in 1899 with the attempted Russification of Finland. As one consequence Finland's army was abolished. Until then, Finland's Senate had successfully pursued a Conservative-Loyalist policy towards Russia, aiming at securing Finland's vital national interests through domestic autonomy. It was widely recognized, that "the people" must be hindered from radical outbursts, which could disturb the imperial court in Saint Petersburg. As this policy collapsed, both the Left and the Right started to radicalize.

The Rightist radicalization was in response to attempts at Russian cultural and constitutional hegemony, and would ultimately lead to covert collaboration with Imperial Germany, that had emerged as a new Great Power in the Baltic region after 1871.

The Leftist radicalization was chiefly a reaction to the emergence and growth of a propertyless peasantry, i.e. without land of their own to cultivate, which the Finns had no traditional experience of, being used to being a people of poor but independent farmers, with no other lords than the king and his civil servants. In addition the Industrial Revolution had started to affect southern Finland. It was a good time for trade, and the rift between rich and poor widened.

Public Opinion was, naturally, dominated by the educated classes, and had during the 19th century become used to seeing Finland's problems in terms of: Culture, Language, Education and the Constitution. The threat from the common enemy Russia veiled the deepening rift between the classes, but when the Russian oppression was mitigated, a frightening conflict surfaced:

Stub?

It this article really still a stub? I'm not sure it could be expanded much more, in which case it may prove a suitable candidate to merge with the History of Finland article- any thoughts?

EvocativeIntrigue _{TALK | EMAIL} 00:10, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

"Freedom fighters" (a POV issue)

The article originally referred to the nationalist Finns as "freedom fighters." I've changed that to "rebels" since "freedom fighters" seems way too sympathetic. To my mind, "rebels" is NPOV (think of Star Wars, for instance, or the way the term is applied when speaking of the American Civil War), but others may not think so. Should I change it to "nationalists?" Brutannica 20:31, 26 March 2007 (UTC)