Talk:Österland

Vends
The text says:


 * An interpretation has been made that the part "Vend" in the later established titulary of Kings of Sweden (three crowns in the Coat of Arms, three kingdoms: Kings of Svears, Götars and Vends; Sveriges, Götes och Vendes Konung) means Finland, the form being akin to Findland, Vindland. As such, the Österland (=medievally inhabited parts of Finland) was the third kingdom and part of the realm.''

... which for me looks like peasants' etymology. What I've heard/read, the three crowns was either a symbol "borrowed" by the Swedish from the Danish, or the personal weapon of the Swedish king Albrecht of Mecklenburg, who got it from his parents in the "German" county of Mecklenburg. I don't know which is true, and it might be that the historicians don't know either...

But because of the three crowns' weapon, the crowns had to be individually explained by some mental construction. All such constructions are however after-constructions, proponed by the Swedish state. The name Vend in svea, göta och vende konung (as the original formulation was), is alleged to be a provocation against the Danish king, to answer to the Danish claim of being dane, gøte och vende konung. Vends refer to the Baltic Sea Vest Slavs, and was once conquered by the Danish Kings, but the gøte are the gautar of East and West Götaland, belonging to Sweden.

Sweden occupied Rügen and Vorpommern between 1648 and 1815, but the connection to the notion svea, göta och vende konung is very hard to perceive.


 * signatures are sadly missing from above postings. Danish kings listed Vends before Goths: dane, vende og gøte konge. Goths meants the island of Gotland to the danish monarchs, whereas it meant Väster- och Östergötland (mainland provinces) to Swedish kings. And, perhaps the fact that Danes and Swedes were peasants rather than aristocrats or scholars, explain why their crowns got such explanations. Such explanations are presented in literature, we just mention them. I have also heard an explanation that three crowns were to signify the three wise men of east. I would not go to guessing whether these wisemen were from Novgorod or Constantinople or Finland. Those early Sw kings who adopted the third, Vendes, explaimed sometimes it would come fromVandals which as people were conquered by Goths in antiquity. Mecklemburg was a lordship and a duchy but never a county.  Suedois 10:52, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

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Old Norse
In my opinion it's quite clear that old norse was spoken on Finland's coast. How could one otherwise explain that there are thousands of Germanic placenames? Quite a few of them look - or sound - like Finnish but that's mostly because Finnish has incorporated hundreds of old Norse words into its vocabulary. Why? Because most likely all or nearly all of these old Norse-speaking changed their language to Finnish during the late Iron Age.


 * Could you provide examples of place names and some references?


 * The early Germanic influence in the placenames in SW Finland is pre-Norse, apparently belonging to the Roman Iron Age. There is absolutely no archaeological proof of the Late Iron Age "Norse" culture or settlement in Finland outside the Åland Islands.217.112.242.181 14:49, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


 * How can you be so sure that old Norse did not incorporate finnish words?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by TommyJaasko (talk • contribs) 22:52, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The map
is of course an anacronism. It shows the borders of circa 1700 while the name Österland wasn't used after the 1400s. --88.114.235.214 02:09, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Number of provinces
The article states "The following seven provinces formed Österland:" and then mentions six. Historical provinces of Finland mentions eight. /Julle (talk) 12:50, 24 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I removed that list as these were no references and I could not figure out during which period of time there would have been six provinces. During the time period when Finland was called Österland, the administrative structure seems to have been based on slottsläns, with no provinces. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 09:39, 17 June 2024 (UTC)