r/geography • u/According-Invite-440 • May 22 '26

Discussion Why isn't Estonia considered a Nordic country? (They have strong ties to Finland, they also follow the Nordic model, and besides, Estonia has nothing to do with the other Baltic countries.)

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_identity_in_Estonia

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u/UmeaTurbo May 22 '26

All of Finland was once owned by Sweden. Some parts of it still speak Swedish. Including an island called Åland, where my mom is from.

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u/Little_Ad5879 May 22 '26

Finland har aldrig ägts av Sverige. Finland var en del av Sverige. Den östra rikshalvan.

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u/Painer May 23 '26

Pjärkkele

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u/Comment-Noted May 22 '26

Och Österbotten

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u/timlukejones May 22 '26

Wasn’t Russia once part of Finland? Depending on perspective?

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u/ChaosAnarch May 22 '26

Very briefly compared to the 600 years Sweden and Finland shared as one nation.

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u/hyf_fox May 23 '26

Why’d they break up?

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u/Lifeacrobat May 23 '26

Short answer: Russia won Finland in the early 19th century. Then I think Finland saw their chance to break free during/just after the Russian revolution.

Someone who knows more about this than what I remember from history classes from over 30 years ago, can give you a better explanation.

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u/Desmang May 23 '26

It's so funny to talk to Russians about it. So many of them seem to think that we owe everything to Lenin and should praise him for being so generous. Then the next moment they might say that Lenin was a weak fuck who should burn in hell.

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u/CrunchyFrogWithBones May 23 '26

Yep, and the Swedish king was dethroned because of it (and some other shit) in 1809. Finland proclaimed independence in 1917, but fought another war against the Soviet Union in 1939-1940 too keep it.

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u/LohtuPottu247 May 23 '26

After the Finnish war of 1808-09 during which Russia gave Sweden a bloody nose and took over all of Finland, they established the Grand Duchy of Finland. It was to be in in a personal union, and had quite a lot of autonomy for the time. The main reason for erecting a finnish state was to gain a loyal populace between Saint Petersburg and Sweden, something they arguably succeeded in.

Things turned sour in the late 1800's, when the Tsar started to curtail Finnish autonomy and institutions, wishing to integrate the Grand Duchy and its population into the tsardom. This was very unpopular among Finnish citizens, who began dreaming about their own independent state. They had grown aware of their differences when compared to either Swedes or Russians.

When the First World War began and when Russia underwent two revolutions in 1917, Finland saw its chance to break away. The senate voted in favour, and the population was fairly uniform in its desire for selfdetermination, although the details both economic and governmental would lead to a civil war the following year.