Östra Finlands Nation (ÖFN) is one of the 15 student nations at the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

, Swedish-speaking and established in 1924. The nation is formed to represent the interests of Swedish-speaking students coming from Eastern Finland, nowadays interpreted as the community of

Sipoo Sipoo (; ) is a municipality of Finland. It is part of the Helsinki metropolitan area. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . The administrative center of the municipality i ...

and any place more to the east of it. While the official language of the nation is Swedish and most members are students at the University of Helsinki, any student (including international degree or exchange students) studying at any university or applied university in the Helsinki region is welcome as a member.

History

Historically, this nation was split off in 1924 from one of the original nations of the university, "Wiborgs nation", that is nowadays known as " Wiipurilainen osakunta" and was originally established in 1654 for students coming from the region of the city of

Vyborg Vyborg (; , ; , ; , ) is a town and the administrative center of Vyborgsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It lies on the Karelian Isthmus near the head of Vyborg Bay, northwest of St. Petersburg, east of the Finnish capital H ...

. Hence the nation maintains the memory and traditions of the city of Wyborg as its heritage.

Current activities

In the current day, the nation represents the interests of Swedish-speaking students coming from Eastern Finland in the University community. It also provides a meeting place for leisurely and academic activities for its members at its premises, "Nypolen", at the new student house of the

student union A students' union or student union, is a student organization present in many colleges, universities, and high schools. In higher education, the students' union is often accorded its own building on the campus, dedicated to social, organizatio ...

. It also regularly arranges excursions to Eastern Finland and

, as well as friend

nation A nation is a type of social organization where a collective Identity (social science), identity, a national identity, has emerged from a combination of shared features across a given population, such as language, history, ethnicity, culture, t ...

s in Sweden. It also participates in the joint activities of all the Nations at the university of Helsinki.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ostra Finlands Nation Student nations in Greater Helsinki