Talk:Finland–Sweden relations

Neutrality
Hi i am a finn, and i feel this article is not quite as encyclopedic and non biased as it should be. I noted tehre is a text warning about the table being biased, but still, that's not encyclopedic now is it? I set the article as NPOV on 23.12 2005 and hope no one removes that until it has been made a bit less biased against the Swedes. Reading it it looks like the swedish would have treated finland like crap for a thousand years, you can't really say this is true. You can take any neighbouring countries and pick out tens of times when one of those countries treated the other one bad.

Also why is this only an article about how sweden treated us finns? where's the swedish perspective?

I can understand the little-brother complex we have here in Finland, i don't want to get into a historical debate here (nor is wikipedia the place for that) but comparing the other choise of neighbour, Russia, i'd say Sweden has been quite friendly.

Gillis 00:30, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I think you must differ between how the area now known as Finland was handled by Sweden and how the Finnish cultural identity was handled.
 * The area was treated as a natural part of Sweden from the 11:th-12:th century and on, just take Sweden's second university as example, it's in Turku.
 * But the cultural identity was clearly suppressed, just like basicly all ethnic minorities in most countries at that time. It wasn't nearly as bad as the 'swedeification' of Scania, where people could be executed for speaking Danish, but Finnish culture and language was basicly ignored in hope that it would disappear.
 * It should be noted that there's never been single war between Sweden and Finland, unless you count Swedish vikings and crusaders fighting Fennoman chieftains.
 * It has always been a war of culture, nowadays reduced to Nokia vs. Ericson, Finnish Lions vs. Tre Kronor and Finnkampen. Hdw 12:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Regarding the cultural war, well put.
 * I would think that it is pretty hard to hold a kingdom together if you speak 2 non mutually understandable languages in it, especially back in the days when education was not a commodity. Would it not be pretty natural to try to standardize traditions and language to bring people closer together?


 * Truth is that Swedes have many neighbours and I think that Swedes naturally are not as interested in their neighbours Norways and Finlands affairs as these 2 are with Swedens. Also one must remember that the main bulk of Swedens population lives closer to Denmark, making the proximity between the countries partly an illusion. So regarding Sweden's point of view, maybe it would be "Finland is to the east and they never did us any harm". Sweden always seemed more preoccupied with fighting the Danes anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.199.128.156 (talk) 17:32, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

POV table
I have removed Ruhrjung's totally POV table. --Adamrush 18:00, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

"Was supressive", not "felt supressive"
My Finnish nationalism is non-existant. I'm not raised Finnish and I have quite a few prejudices about Finns, but I think there's quite a difference between saying that Sweden actually was suppressive and that Finns felt supressed. There's really no doubt that Sweden acted more or less like a colonial power and supressed Finnish identity do a great extent. Using the wording "by the Finns often seen" about this situation is very similar to saying "Britain's conduct towards Ireland was often seen as supressive by the Irish"; technically true, but also an attempt to downplay obvious attempts to dominate and forcibly assimilate other peoples/cultures.

Peter Isotalo 13:26, 17 February 2006 (UTC)


 * You are right, i agree that the wording should be changed, but of course it should be worded so that it doesn't seem as if Sweden has been especially harsh as a "colonial power", since it throughout history seems more as a rule than an exception. Also i did some changes to emphasize the common "finnish missconseption" that a sovereign Finland existed before the swedish rule that was "conquered" in some way, Finland was in fact much a part of sweden in the way Scania is (and has indeed been that for a shorter period than Finland has). And someone swedish could write a Swedish POV into this article and stop it from becoming a Finnish bigotry-article.Gillis 23:16, 17 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I am Swedish, but I wouldn't want a Swedish POV more than I want a Finnish one. I want it to be NPOV.
 * Peter Isotalo 18:05, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Well casically then let's call the article "What Finns think about Sweden". Gillis 22:01, 20 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Are you being sarcastic? If so, about what? Please be more straightforward.
 * Peter Isotalo 17:02, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Well partly yes i am being sarcastic, but this article really just speaks about what Finns think about sweden, not so much about the general relation. Also i'm a bit unaware of there really being such a big difference in how we view eachother as the article states. Gillis 18:44, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I was assuming a historical perspective, and historically Sweden has been the dominant and supressive part, even if it's been far from the relationship between true colonies and colonial powers in Europe and the rest of the world. You're right that the situation is different today, though. I think both could fit in the same article. I think you should keep writing and see what happens. Keep in mind that Ruhrjung's POV was pretty intense in its anti-Swedishness, but he's not active any more so I doubt the old table-ranting will come back to haunt us.
 * Peter Isotalo 20:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for revised setup of article
The article is an interesting one, but I feel it's not very well organized at the moment.


 * History of Finnish-Swedish relations: Since most of the historical stuff is covered in the History of Finland and History of Sweden articles, I think it would be good to refer to those somewhere in the introduction. For the rest I think it could be good to state that Swedish kings expanded into Finland in the 13th century in contest the Novgorod state; that it remained an integral part of the Swedish state until 1809 (e.g. the Finnish regions had the same representation in the Swedish parliament as the 'Swedish regions'). Follow up by relations during the Finnish civil war, the Åland crisi and WWII).

I think the rest of the article should focus on current Finnish-Swedish relations. Perhaps the article could be divided into sections based on different facets of the relationship between Sweden and Finland: trade/economics/business; political cooperation; cultural issues (including language issues); migration.

What do you think about this proposal? Anyone interested in helping me? Osli73 21:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)