The Treaty of Fredrikshamn ( sv, Freden i Fredrikshamn; russian: Фридрихсгамский мирный договор), or the Treaty of Hamina ( fi, Haminan rauha), was a
peace treaty
A peace treaty is an agreement between two or more hostile parties, usually countries or governments, which formally ends a state of war between the parties. It is different from an armistice, which is an agreement to stop hostilities; a surr ...
concluded between
Sweden and
Imperial Russia
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. T ...
on 17 September 1809. The treaty concluded the
Finnish War
The Finnish War ( sv, Finska kriget, russian: Финляндская война, fi, Suomen sota) was fought between the Kingdom of Sweden and the Russian Empire from 21 February 1808 to 17 September 1809 as part of the Napoleonic Wars. As a res ...
and was signed in the Finnish town of
Hamina
Hamina (; sv, Fredrikshamn, , Sweden ) is a List of cities in Finland, town and a Municipalities of Finland, municipality of Finland. It is located approximately east of the country's capital Helsinki, in the Kymenlaakso Regions of Finland, reg ...
( sv, Fredrikshamn, links=no). Russia was represented by
Nikolai Rumyantsev
Count Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev (; 3 April 1754 – 3 January 1826), born in Saint Petersburg, was Russia's Foreign Minister and Chancellor of the Russian Empire in the run-up to Napoleon's invasion of Russia (1808–12). He was the son of ...
and
David Alopaeus (Russian ambassador to Stockholm), while Sweden by Infantry General
Kurt von Stedingk (former Swedish ambassador to Petersburg) and Colonel
Anders Fredrik Skjöldebrand
Anders Fredrik Skjöldebrand (14 July 1757 in Algiers – 23 August 1834 in Stockholm) was a Swedish count, lord of the realm, general, statesman and minister from the Skjöldebrand dynasty. He was also a knight of the Royal Order of the Se ...
.
In the treaty, Sweden ceded Finnish territories to Russia.
Terms
According to the treaty Sweden ceded parts of the provinces
Lappland and
Västerbotten
Västerbotten (), known in English as West Bothnia or Westrobothnia, is a province (''landskap'') in the north of Sweden, bordering Ångermanland, Lapland, North Bothnia, and the Gulf of Bothnia. It is known for the cheese named after the pro ...
(east of
Tornio River and
Muonio River),
Åland
Åland ( fi, Ahvenanmaa: ; ; ) is an Federacy, autonomous and Demilitarized zone, demilitarised region of Finland since 1920 by a decision of the League of Nations. It is the smallest region of Finland by area and population, with a size of 1 ...
, and all provinces east thereof. The ceded territories came to constitute 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 predecess ...
, to which also the Russian 18th century conquests of parts of
Karelia
Karelia ( Karelian and fi, Karjala, ; rus, Каре́лия, links=y, r=Karélija, p=kɐˈrʲelʲɪjə, historically ''Korjela''; sv, Karelen), the land of the Karelian people, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for ...
and
Savonia (later to be called ''
Old Finland''), were joined in 1812 as
Viborg County
Viborg Amt () is a former county ( Danish: ''amt'') in the north-central part of the Jutland peninsula in western Denmark. The county was abolished on 1 January 2007, when most of it merged into Region Midtjylland (i.e. ''Region Central Jutland ...
. Together with the
Diet of Porvoo (1809), and the Oath of the Sovereign,
the Treaty of Fredrikshamn constitutes the cornerstone for the
autonomous
In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ...
Grand Duchy, its own administration and institutions, and thereby a start of the development which would lead to the revival of Finnish culture, to equal position of the
Finnish language
Finnish (endonym: or ) is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish ...
, and ultimately in 1917 to Finland's
independence
Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the s ...
.
A reference to
Emperor Alexander Emperor Alexander may refer to:
* Alexander the Great (326-323 BCE), a Macedonian king who conquered the known world
* Alexander Severus (208–235), a Roman emperor (222-235) of the Severan dynasty
* Domitius Alexander, Roman usurper who declared ...
's promise to retain old laws and privileges in Finland was included, but the treaty overstepped any formal guarantees of the legal position of Finland's inhabitants. The Russians refused, and the Swedes were not in a position to insist. Similar clauses had been common in peace treaties, but they were also regularly circumvented. At the period of
Russification of Finland
The policy of Russification of Finland ( fi, sortokaudet / sortovuodet, lit=times/years of oppression; russian: Русификация Финляндии, translit=Rusyfikatsiya Finlyandii) was a governmental policy of the Russian Empire aimed at ...
, 90 years later, the Russian government argued that the treaty was not violated and hence no outside party had any right to intervene, the question being solely a matter of the
Emperor
An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother ( e ...
who had granted the original promise.
During the negotiations, Swedish representatives had namely endeavoured to escape the loss of the Åland islands, "the fore-posts of Stockholm," as
Napoleon rightly described them. The Åland islands were culturally, ethnically and linguistically purely Swedish, but such facts were of no significance at that time. In the course of the 19th century, it would also turn out that the Åland islands were a
British interest, which, 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 t ...
, led to the
demilitarization
Demilitarisation or demilitarization may mean the reduction of state armed forces; it is the opposite of militarisation in many respects. For instance, the demilitarisation of Northern Ireland entailed the reduction of British security and military ...
of the islands according to the
Åland Convention included in the
Treaty of Paris (1856)
The Treaty of Paris of 1856 brought an end to the Crimean War between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the United Kingdom, the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia.
The treaty, signed on 30 March 1856 at ...
. During the
War of the Sixth Coalition
In the War of the Sixth Coalition (March 1813 – May 1814), sometimes known in Germany as the Wars of Liberation, a coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, and a number of German States defeated ...
, Russia and Sweden concluded an alliance directed against France (5 April 1812). They planned to effect a landing in
Swedish Pomerania
Swedish Pomerania ( sv, Svenska Pommern; german: Schwedisch-Pommern) was a dominion under the Swedish Crown from 1630 to 1815 on what is now the Baltic coast of Germany and Poland. Following the Polish War and the Thirty Years' War, Sweden hel ...
, which had been overrun by the French. Russia promised to press
Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark
, establishe ...
into ceding
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
to Sweden. It was understood that
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
would join the treaty too, but that never came to pass. Other plans failed to materialise due to
Napoleon's invasion of Russia
The French invasion of Russia, also known as the Russian campaign, the Second Polish War, the Army of Twenty nations, and the Patriotic War of 1812 was launched by Napoleon Bonaparte to force the Russian Empire back into the continental block ...
.
Notes
References
* Похлебкин В.В. (1995) ''Внешняя политика Руси, России и СССР за 1000 лет в именах, датах, фактах: Справочник'', М.: Междунар. отношения —
:Pokhlebkin, V.V. (1995) ''Foreign policy of Russia, Russia and the USSR in 1000 years: the names, the dates, the facts: a reference book'', Moscow : International Relations,
External links
The Original Text of the Peace Treaty
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fredrikshamn, Treaty of
1809 treaties
Napoleonic Wars treaties
Peace treaties of Russia
Peace treaties of Sweden
Treaties of the Russian Empire
Treaty of Fredrikshamn
Treaty of Fredrikshamn
Treaty of Fredrikshamn
Treaty of Fredrikshamn
Treaty of Fredrikshamn