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Woman Suffrage in Finland

1906

A hard land lying on the periphery of Europe and bordering on the Baltic Sea, in 1906 Finland became the first major European nation to extend women the right to vote and to stand for election.

Essentially flat, the average elevation of Finland is 400 to 600 feet; the highest point, Haltiatunturi, at 4,357 feet lies in the northwest corner near the Norwegian border. Lying near the Artic Circle, northern portions of Finland experience 50 days of eternal darkness and 50 days of eternal light each year. Due to the surrounding water, Finland is warmer than might be expected, the average temperature along Finland's southern coast is 60 F in July and 16 F in January with snow covering the ground four or five months per year.

Much of the land is forests although the southern coast has been turned into farm land. Sixty thousand lakes dot the Finnish woodlands. Throughout her history, Finland's main exports have come from the forests: animal pelts, wood, lumber, and wood products, such as tar and turpentine. Like other Baltic countries, shipping halts during the winter months when the Baltic Sea freezes.

Pagan Finland was slowly subdued by Christian Sweden after a papal bull of 1172 proposed that Sweden hold Finland by building a series of garrisons. During the next two centuries, the parts of Finland subject to Swedish control gradually increased with Swedish noblemen holding Finnish lands as fiefs. Swedish speaking farmers, fishermen, and merchants moved to Finland to provide the goods and services required by the Swedish nobility.

When Sweden broke with Rome and accepted the Protestant religion during the Protestant Reformation, Finland also converted from Roman Catholicism to Protestantism. The New Testament was translated into Finnish in 1548 by Mikael Agricola (1510-1557), the Bishop of Turku, who brought the Reformation to Finland and created written Finnish.

Finland, then, became culturally European, specifically Swedish, through its status as a Swedish fief. Finnish language, laws, religion, and customs are a mixture of Swedish imports and those indigenous to Finland.

During the constant warfare between Sweden and her neighbors between 1500 and 1809, except for a long duration of peace from about 1650 to 1750, Finland sent her sons to die on the battlefield for Sweden. The Finnish people, over-taxed by foreign nobleman, having sent generations of their sons die on foreign battlefields for a far off occupying force, had little love for their Swedish taskmasters. With little regret on the part of Finland, Sweden, after losing a war with Russia in 1809, ceded Finland to Russia, which guaranteed Finland autonomy as a Russian Grand Duchy.

The Russian Czar, as Finnish Grand Duke, was represented in Finland by a Governor General. The Finnish Minister, Secretary of State reported directly to the Czar, not to the Russian bureaucracy, enabling Finland to maintain its autonomy.

Nonetheless, as with many peoples in nineteenth-century Europe, nationalism gradually awakened in Finland as the century progressed. Unlike in other countries, nationalism did not take the form of loud pronouncements and strident claims. Rather, Finnish nationalism was a quiet, but effective, nationalism. More strongly opposed to the mostly Swedish – speaking elite (the nobility and the wealthy merchants and industrialists) than the then-current Russian administration, Finnish nationalism was most strongly rooted in the clergy, the peasantry, and the workers. Finnish language and culture were promoted, giving women, as mothers who taught their children their "mother tongue", a prominent position in the nationalist movement. The Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, was written by Elias Lönnrot in 1835, and, in 1863, Finnish became an administrative language of the Grand Duchy. Classes at the university were even taught in Finnish!

In the last quarter of the nineteenth-century, newly created social reform movements and self-help organizations spurred on nationalism. Schools were opened to teach the children of the workers and the peasants to read and to write, temperance societies created by the farmers and workers ameliorated the worst effects of demon rum, and the first trade union movements were formed.

In 1863, after a break of half a century, the Finnish four estate Parliament was convened. Finnish nationalism was widespread through all four estates: the peasantry, the clergy, the nobility, and the burghers. Parliament knew the rules, regulations, and laws and insisted on the Governor General "going through proper channels" to accomplish his goals.

To the consternation of Russian nationalists, by the end of the century, Finland was even more autonomous than at the beginning with its own Senate and its own Diet, its own local officials, legislation, army, currency and postage stamps. There was even an official border between Finland and the Empire! By the last decade of the nineteenth century, Russian policy was to "Russify" Finland – to decrease Finnish autonomy and bring Finland more firmly into the mainstream of the Russian Empire.

At the same time, Finnish workers and peasants were beginning to question their lot in life and to agitate for reforms. Among other reforms, they advocated universal suffrage – suffrage for all men and women. A small woman's suffrage movement, advocating extending the suffrage to women under the same existing conditions as for men, was supported mainly by middle and upper class women who met the property qualifications required of voters. Working - class men and women viewed woman suffrage under those terms as a means by which the upper class increased their domination over the working classes. However, working-class men and women supported suffrage for all women provided it was part of a package extending suffrage to all men and reforming the Four Estate system.

The Russian government's attempt to Russify Finland increased tensions between Helsinki and St. Petersburg, the capital of the Czarist Russian Empire located not far from Finland, resulting in the Finns seeking even greater autonomy. Then, in 1904, the Russian Navy was defeated by the Japanese, exposing the decay at the center of the Empire. In January 1905, Russian workers marched peacefully on the winter palace, requesting reforms. Government troops fired on the demonstrators, killing and wounding hundreds. Revolution swept the Empire and the Nicholas tottered on his throne.

Taking advantage of the situation, the Finnish Parliament drew up a new constitution, scraping the old Four Estate Diet and instituting a new unicameral Parliament elected by universal suffrage, where universal actually included both men and women. Only the Swedish-speaking nobility opposed woman suffrage. The Governor General sent the document, unchanged, to the Emperor. Facing revolution in Russia proper, the Emperor capitulated. The deed was done.

When the new parliament, the Eduskunta, met in 1907, nineteen of the new members were women, nine belonging to the Social Democratic Party and ten conservatives, including the Finnish suffragist best known to American women, Alexandra Gripenberg.

Because of their unique history, Finnish woman suffragists did not write moving tracts and make fiery speeches. Today's suffragist writing, 'The Great Victory in Finland', by Alexandra Gripenberg is a celebration of woman suffrage for Finnish women.

'The Great Victory in Finland'
Alexandra Gripenberg
29 June 1906, The Englishwoman's Review

The miracle has happened! On May the 29th the Finnish Diet agreed to an Imperial proposal from the Czar concerning changes in the constitution of Finland, which changes also include political suffrage and eligibility to the Diet for Women, married and unmarried, on the same conditions as for men. The earlier history of this wonderful reform is related in the April Review. I will now only add that the constitution committee in the Diet recommended Women's Suffrage and eligibility for the following reasons: the women in Finland get now-a-days exactly the same education as men, even in the same schools as men, since education has been adopted in wide circles. Women are in our time employed side by side with men in different lines of work. The experience from these dominions, as well as from women's participation in social work and philanthropy, is such that there is no reason to fear that women would not use their suffrage and fulfill their duties as citizens as well as men. Finally, the women themselves have shown a strong desire to get the suffrage.

It would be impossible to explain to foreign readers all the reasons which have led our law-makers to a decision, which will all at once place our little insignificant people – in a certain way – above the great countries of an old culture in Europe. But one thing is clear: the universal suffrage reform has made it easier for the women to bring forward their claims. Many men, who would not have agreed to a proposal for Women's Suffrage, have now supported it when it came in connection with a proposal for a universal suffrage for men, because the injustice against women showed itself clearer in this way. Even the women themselves would not so universally have manifested their desire to be enfranchised, if the reform had not been based on universal suffrage for men. For – as I wrote in an earlier letter to the Review – there was in the beginning a strong feeling among large groups of women that they wanted suffrage only in case that universal suffrage for men was established.

As this word with us is not understood exactly in the same way as in several other countries, I will shortly mention the following. According to the new law we shall henceforward in Finland have only one house in the Diet, to which members are elected by universal suffrage. Every man and woman above 24 years if age, married and unmarried, has the right to vote, with the following exceptions: soldiers, minors (that is, those who for some reasons have been put under guardianship although they are 24 years of age), those who, for other reasons than poverty, have not paid their taxes to the government the last two years, those who have not the last three years been registered as Finnish subjects, those who are inmates of workhouses or get aid from the Poor Law Guardian funds, those who have been committed to prison for crimes or for vagrancy, those who are in bankruptcy, who are condemned for a certain time "to be without the confidence of their fellow-citizens," and finally, those who have behaved dishonestly in the elections. All who have the right to vote are also eligible to the Diet.

The new election law is said to be very difficult to understand, so there are already objections against it. The social democrats are opposed to the reform because the age for voters is made 24, not 21, as they wanted. Whether the women belonging to this party will vote because of this objection is, I think, not yet settled. These and other difficulties are in our way, but of course no reform can be set in motion without disturbances in the beginning.

Our victory is in all cases great, and the more so as the proposal ha been adopted almost without opposition. The gratitude which we women feel is mingled with the knowledge that we are much less worthy of this great success than the women of England and America, who have struggled so long and so faithfully, with much more energy and perseverance than we. I use this occasion to bring the thanks from the women of Finland to our sisters all over the world who have, by their untiring work, educated public opinion and thus enabled us to gain our rights. May we be worthy of them!

Footnotes:

References:

Unless otherwise noted, geographical background information came from Microsoft Encarta 2002: Finland, 'Land and Resources'

Russian history information came from Encarta 2002: Russia, 'History'

'The Intelligentsia, the State, and the Nation' by Risto Alapuro in Finland: People, Nation, State, Max Engman and David Kirby (eds.) [Bloomington, In.: Indiana University Press, 1989] pp. 147 - 177

'The Women's Movement' by Irma Sulkunen in Finland: People, Nation, State, Max Engman and David Kirby (eds.) [Bloomington, In.: Indiana University Press, 1989] pp. 178-192

'The Great Victory in Finland' by Alexandra Gripenberg, The Englishwoman's Review, 29 June 1906, from Women, the Family, and Freedom: The Debate in Documents, Volume 2. 1880 – 1950, Susan Groag Bell and Karen M. Offen (eds.), [Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press, 1983] pp. 229-230

Websites:

Constitution of Finland: Political and Historical Background

Eduskunta Finnish Parliament

Finland - Geographical background, etc.

Finnish Maiden

Virtual Finland

A Web History of Finland

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last updated February 2003