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If you read the Swedish-speaking writer Kjell Westö, "Där vi en gång gått", you realize this was very much a language war. All big landowners of arable land in

If you read the Swedish-speaking writer Kjell Westö, "Där vi en gång gått", you realize this was very much a language war. All big landowners of arable land in Finland were Swedish and even Mannerheim did not know much any Finnish at that time. Westö describes how a Swede was killed because he owned fishing rights on Baltic sea, and Finns could only fish in "mud and rocks". This is very much a taboo subject even today, because 25% of the financial elite in Finland are Swedes and cultural elite much more. So you cannot deal much of this subject before becoming Fennomaniac racist nazi, who does not deserve any government money.

mistrial9 5y ago
yes thank you -- by coincidence I was reading a bit about the Northern Crusades this week (in English) -- we do not learn this in school in the USA ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Crusades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Crusades
fifilura 5y ago
I am a Swede. Kjell Westö is my go to author if I want to read good prose in Swedish. Beats all those hundreds of crime novel authors we have in Sweden hands down when it comes to care about the language.
pavlov 5y ago
This is far too simplistic. A lot of the "whites" in the 1918 Civil War were Finnish-speaking and even Fennomaniac. In the preceding decades, there was this whole nationalistic boom where Swedish-speaking Finns translated their names to Finnish and adopted the language. Right-wing nationalists were united by ideology, not by language.
- timonoko 5y ago
  Totally so. But the lowest class did not see the bigger picture. Swedes and top hats were the masters, so better join our Russian comrades in total revolution. "Independent Finland" was a concept only few could afford. And those few were planning to establish "Kingdom of Finland". They also selected the King of Finland, some fuckup German Hapsburg Prince.
- mistrial9 5y ago
  The Fennoman motto attributed to Adolf Ivar Arwidsson was actually coined by Johan Vilhelm Snellman: "Svenskar äro vi icke, ryssar vilja vi icke bli, låt oss alltså vara finnar." "We are not Swedes, We do not want to be Russians, So let's be Finns." EN Wikipedia
dustintrex 5y ago
The website covers this: https://finlanddivided.wordpress.com/ethnolinguistic-conflict/ https://finlanddivided.wordpress.com/ethnolinguistic-conflic... But calling this only a language issue is a gross oversimplification. Neither is it really taboo, unless you start going overboard and claiming that all Swedes/Swedish-speakers are X and all Finns/Finnish-speakers are Y, which is racist pretty much by definition.

mistrial9 5y ago

yes thank you -- by coincidence I was reading a bit about the Northern Crusades this week (in English) -- we do not learn this in school in the USA ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Crusades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Crusades

fifilura 5y ago

I am a Swede. Kjell Westö is my go to author if I want to read good prose in Swedish. Beats all those hundreds of crime novel authors we have in Sweden hands down when it comes to care about the language.

pavlov 5y ago

This is far too simplistic. A lot of the "whites" in the 1918 Civil War were Finnish-speaking and even Fennomaniac. In the preceding decades, there was this whole nationalistic boom where Swedish-speaking Finns translated their names to Finnish and adopted the language. Right-wing nationalists were united by ideology, not by language.

timonoko 5y ago
Totally so. But the lowest class did not see the bigger picture. Swedes and top hats were the masters, so better join our Russian comrades in total revolution. "Independent Finland" was a concept only few could afford. And those few were planning to establish "Kingdom of Finland". They also selected the King of Finland, some fuckup German Hapsburg Prince.
mistrial9 5y ago
The Fennoman motto attributed to Adolf Ivar Arwidsson was actually coined by Johan Vilhelm Snellman: "Svenskar äro vi icke, ryssar vilja vi icke bli, låt oss alltså vara finnar." "We are not Swedes, We do not want to be Russians, So let's be Finns." EN Wikipedia

dustintrex 5y ago

The website covers this: https://finlanddivided.wordpress.com/ethnolinguistic-conflict/ https://finlanddivided.wordpress.com/ethnolinguistic-conflic... But calling this only a language issue is a gross oversimplification. Neither is it really taboo, unless you start going overboard and claiming that all Swedes/Swedish-speakers are X and all Finns/Finnish-speakers are Y, which is racist pretty much by definition.