Based on map by DigoPaul, Finland is located in northern Europe, bordering Norway, Russia and Sweden. Friends of the white sport get their money’s worth in the beautiful country, as do northern light hunters and nature lovers. Capital City Helsinki Size 338.448 km² Resident 5.503.000 Official Language Finnish, Swedish Currency Euro Time Zone UTC+2/+3 Telephone… Read More »
Communications. – Waterways are of utmost importance. The largest volume of traffic (that of raw timber) takes place in spring with the means of floating, permitted by law on all natural watercourses: therefore the network of floating routes (47.100 km.) Almost completely coincides with that hydrographic: only certain minor watercourses remain unused in the northernmost,… Read More »
Structurally, the Finnish territory is included in a larger region, called Fennoscandia, extended to all the lands north of the Baltic and NW. of the isthmuses between the Gulf of Finland, Ladoga, Onega and the gulf of the same name. It emerged already in the distant age as part of a northern continent, various, complex… Read More »
Music. – With the opening to the influence of European cultural currents in the aftermath of the conquest of national independence (1917), music also experiences, albeit with a certain delay, a period of development that reaches up to the mid-thirties. Both traditional and innovative composers contribute to this phase of regeneration of musical life, which… Read More »
The oldest form of Finnish folk music known to us consists of recitatives and improvisations, with a very narrow melody, typical of the regions of Ingria and northern Karelia. The second stage of evolution is represented by the melodies on which the verses of the Kalevalian type (ottonarî trocaici) are sung, melodies that rarely occur… Read More »
Finnish literature is among the youngest in Europe, counting just a century of life. And it presents the phenomenon, almost unique in literary history, of a rich and original “popular” or anonymous production of epic, lyrical, magical songs, of legends and ballads and short stories, which from the beginnings through the Middle Ages reaches up… Read More »
At the outbreak of the winter war (November 1939-March 1940), followed by the continuation war (June 1941-September 1944), the most prominent personalities of Finnish literature could call themselves FE Sillanpää (1888-1964) for fiction, VA Koskenniemi (1885-1962) as well as A. Hellaakoski (1893-1952) for poetry in the Finnish language, and E. Diktonius (1896-1961) for poetry in… Read More »
At the beginning of the twentieth century the personality (still partly neo- romantic) of E. Leino, one of the greatest Finnish poets (Tuonelan joutsen «The swan of Tuonela», 1896; Talviyö «Winter night», 1905) predominated. On the side of the Swedish speakers, A. Mörne, B. Gripenberg, E. Zilliacus stand out. The authors of the so-called workers’… Read More »
From the origins to the 18th century In Finland the first manifestations in some literary ways are neither in Finnish nor in Swedish but in Latin, and of a religious theme (Vita et miracula S. Henrici, Piae Cantiones) without counting purely liturgical works such as the Missale Aboense (1488). The first known scholar, however, already… Read More »
The increase in the war potential of Denmark and Norway, with their increased participation in the NATO system, caused the most serious crisis in Finno-Soviet relations in 1961 after years of loyalty to the Paasikivi line. The USSR’s request for urgent consultations (provided for by Article 2 of the 1948 Treaty) would have led to… Read More »
Finland Northern European state. From the beginning of the Christian era, the Lapps, the first residents of the territory, were pushed northwards by the Finnish populations who occupied the region between the Gulf of Bothnia and the White Sea. The tribes, called suomi, organized themselves into a network of farms, long exposed to the political-military… Read More »
During the World War, a large part of the Finns hoped for the victory of Germany, fearing that a success of Russia would cause new oppressions: while only 2000 Finns fought voluntarily in the ranks of the Russian army, an equal number, managed to pass to the abroad, formed a body of Finnish hunters in… Read More »
The beginning of the century XVII instead marked a strengthening of Swedish central power with Gustavo Adolfo (1611-1632). Administrative and financial reforms were introduced; the parliament (Riksdag) was reorganized, to which representatives of the four classes of the population were admitted. In 1616 the king summoned a Finnish diet to Helsinki. The uninterrupted wars with… Read More »
The first exact information on Finland dates from the mid-century. XII. In 1157 the Swedish king Erik the Holy entered the Esterland (Österland) with a crusade and found a group of Finnish tribes not yet united in a single state, which had taken the place of the Lopari, primitive residents of that country, occupying the… Read More »
The elections of 1 and 2 July 1948 had seen the consolidation of the internal situation of the Finland with the 56 seats won by the agrarian party of Urho Kekkonen, followed by the 54 won by the social democrats, the 38 seats of the popular democrats, controlled by the communists (which lost 11 seats)… Read More »
The war, for Finland, was practically over, even if on March 3, 1945 it declared itself at war with the dying Germany; even if in the months of October-November 1944 the country was still crossed by some flashes of the huge fire, many of the German units (especially the Edelweiss Alpine division) were very late… Read More »
On 1 July 1941 German and Finnish troops crossed the border; in mid-July, they advanced on both sides of Ladoga. In the Karelian Isthmus, advancing from Vipuri and Sortavala, the Finns occupied Pitkäranta on the eastern bank of the Ladoga; further north, more progress was made at the port of Kandalakša and Kem. The advance… Read More »
The gen. Mereskov, on December 19, moves again on the attack, massing between the Muola and Kankola lakes on a front of 30 km. Twelve divisions, in successive waves, are launched against the Finnish lines, but the result is scarcely profitable: the front forms a salient in the middle from Pärkijarvi to Sudenoja at 38… Read More »
The non-aggression pact with Moscow of 21 January 1932 did not prevent the fortification of the Åland islands from being undertaken in 1938, in agreement with Sweden, arousing protests from the USSR. The harbingers of the spread of the Second World War in Eastern and Northern Europe were felt in Finland since October 1939, when,… Read More »
There are few survivals of ancient Finnish customs and traditions. The national dress has almost disappeared and the ancient customs survive alone, tenacious and widespread in all the countryside, the sauna, the room for the steam bath, separated from the house. In the sauna, mothers go to relieve themselves, the sick seek relief and healing.… Read More »
Over the years, Finnish cinema has reflected the difficult identity of a country on the border between East and West, suspended between the cultural and civil atmosphere of Scandinavia and the influence of the Russian and then Soviet area. A country marked in the twentieth century by the succession of internal and external conflicts: the… Read More »
Finland A Nordic model of well-being and development Despite a recent independence, a long-term delicate international position, the many difficulties of a rigid climate, a non-homogeneous population, Finland has been able to develop an enviable social and economic organization. At the top of the rankings of well-being and social and cultural development, today Finland is… Read More »
While in the first decades after the Russian conquest (1809), official architecture flourished, painting and sculpture had to contend with enormous difficulties. The educated classes of the country seemed to have lost all interest in the visual arts. For lack of economic and even more moral support, the portraitist GW Finnberg (1784-1833), a distinguished colourist,… Read More »
Only in the 12th and 13th centuries, when pagan Finland was conquered by the Swedes and civilized by the Roman Catholic Church, did a national art begin to develop, to which the remote northern position, the harsh climate and poverty, the scarcity of colonization in the great virgin forests and, above all, the wars with… Read More »
Only between 12th and 13th century. a national art developed, with a rough and severe imprint (fortified castles of Turku and Viipuri). The medieval churches, mostly of Romanesque-Gothic style, generally have a rustic character and a massive structure; the 13th century Turku cathedral comes close to German and French Gothic examples. National and Swedish painters… Read More »
Architecture – The high quality of architectural production has always characterized Finland, the result of both the level of building legislation – which already in 1990 included sustainable development as a goal for all spatial planning plans (emblematic of the Eco-Viikki district, Helsinki, 1999-2004) – and the cultural environment (supported by the Finnish Architecture Museum and… Read More »
Architecture. – The birth of Helsinki, which became the capital of an autonomous Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire in 1812, coincides with the birth of the Finnish nation, which conquers its complete autonomy at the end of the First World War, and reconfirms it before, during and after the second. Between 1814 and 1918… Read More »
Demography and economic geography. – Northern European state. The Finland extends over a large but not very hospitable territory, with more than 60% of the total population (5,443,497 residents in 2014, according to an estimate by UNDESA, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs) living in the cities of the South or in the… Read More »
HUMAN AND ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY Northern European state. At the 2000 census the population was 5,181,115 residents, Rising to 5,223,440 at an estimate of mid- 2005: the demographic trend remains relatively lively for a developed country, where a birth rate of 10.4 ‰ (2006) against a mortality rate of 9.6 ‰ and an active migratory balance… Read More »
Population The population (5,154,000 residents according to an estimate of 1998) is growing moderately (4 ‰ annually between 1990 and 1997) and Finnish society does not yet show aspects of accelerated aging, as is the case for other countries of the European Union. Accession to the EU (which took place in 1995) introduced some constraints… Read More »