The Svecoman ( sv, Svekoman, , ) movement was a

Suecophile A Suecophile is someone with a great interest in the Swedish culture and the Swedish language. The term is most often used when this interest is held by a non-Swede. An individual like this is also sometimes referred to as a ″Sweaboo″. In th ...

or pro-

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

nationalist movement that arose in the

Grand Duchy of Finland The Grand Duchy of Finland ( fi, Suomen suuriruhtinaskunta; sv, Storfurstendömet Finland; russian: Великое княжество Финляндское, , all of which literally translate as Grand Principality of Finland) was the predecessor ...

at the end of the 19th century chiefly as a reaction to the demands for increased use of

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

vigorously presented by the

Fennoman The Fennoman movement or Fennomania was a Finnish nationalist movement in the 19th-century Grand Duchy of Finland, built on the work of the ''fennophile'' interests of the 18th and early-19th centuries. History After the Crimean War, Fennoman ...

movement. The Fennoman nationalist movement had demanded that

be replaced by Finnish in public administration,

court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance ...

s, and

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...

s. At the time, Finnish and Swedish were spoken by about 85 and 15 percent respectively of the duchy's population.outlines of Finnish history''
/ref> The ideas of the "Svecomans" were an important part of the public debate of the 1870s and 1880s that was evoked by the reinstatement of the

Diet of Finland The Diet of Finland (Finnish ''Suomen maapäivät'', later ''valtiopäivät''; Swedish ''Finlands Lantdagar''), was the legislative assembly of the Grand Duchy of Finland from 1809 to 1906 and the recipient of the powers of the Swedish Riksda ...

, which now convened every third year.

History

Finland had been a part of

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

from the early Middle Ages until the

Finnish War The Finnish War ( sv, Finska kriget, russian: Финляндская война, fi, Suomen sota) was fought between the Gustavian era, Kingdom of Sweden and the Russian Empire from 21 February 1808 to 17 September 1809 as part of the Napoleonic ...

of 1808–1809, when it was ceded to Russia and made a

Grand Duchy A grand duchy is a sovereign state, country or territory whose official head of state or ruler is a monarch bearing the title of grand duke or grand duchess. Relatively rare until the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the term was oft ...

within the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

. Although Finnish was the language of the majority of the new Grand Duchy, a significant minority was Swedish-speaking. Swedish had been the language of administration and in educational institutions when Finland was part of the Swedish realm. The Svecomans promoted the idea that

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

harbours two peoples, or

nation A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective identity of a group of people understood as defined by those ...

s, speaking different languages, with different cultures, and originating from separate parts of the country. In accordance with contemporary science, these two peoples were consequently denoted as members of different " races". This idea was radically new. Until then, the Swedish-speaking rural population had been mostly ignored, but now this minority was considered important and directly associated with the

elite In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. D ...

of Finland. The

language strife Finland's language strife ( sv, Finska språkstriden, lit=Finnish language dispute) ( fi, Suomen kielitaistelu, lit=Finnish language struggle) was a major conflict in mid-19th century Finland. Both the Swedish and Finnish languages were commonly u ...

between Fennomans and Svecomans in these decades also mirrored more general political divisions: * The Fennomans were favoured by the Russian authorities, while the Svecomans channeled the remaining fear of the Russians and the cultural attachment to their old enemy

. * After the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

, when the Swedish-speaking towns on Finland's south coast and the merchant fleet had been severely damaged,

neutralist A neutral country is a state that is neutral towards belligerents in a specific war or holds itself as permanently neutral in all future conflicts (including avoiding entering into military alliances such as NATO, CSTO or the SCO). As a type of ...

views received strong support among educated Eastern-Swedish. * The Fennomans were chiefly dominated by the

clergy Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

, the Svecomans by

industrialist A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...

s and academics from other faculties besides the theological one. The spiritual leader of the Svecomans was the linguist

Axel Olof Freudenthal Axel Olof Freudenthal (12 December 1836 – 2 June 1911), was a Swedish-speaking Finnish philologist and politician. He was born in Siuntio, and studied at the University of Helsinki where the nationalistic movement struggle between the Fenn ...

, who also had claims of racial supremacy. The feeling of unity between the Swedish-speaking rural population and the (remains of the) Swedish-speaking elite is the lasting legacy of the Svecoman movement, and this became the core idea of the

Swedish People's Party The Swedish People's Party of Finland ( sv, Svenska folkpartiet i Finland (SFP); fi, Suomen ruotsalainen kansanpuolue (RKP)) is a list of political parties in Finland, political party in Finland aiming to represent the interests of the minority ...

, which was founded after the introduction of equal and common suffrage in 1906.

References

{{Refimprove, date=March 2007 Swedish-speaking population of Finland Finnish nationalism Swedish nationalism