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Anti-Finnish sentiment (sometimes known as Fennophobia) is the hostility, prejudice, discrimination or racism directed against Finns, Finland, or Finnish culture.
In recent[ when? ] years, anti-Finnish sentiment has grown in Estonia, particularly in areas with many Finnish tourists and residents.
Finnish tourists and residents have experienced verbal harassment and at times physical violence. [1]
Finns have been emigrating to Norway since at least the 11th century. There exists a Finnish minority in Norway, the Kvens. Speaking a Finnish dialect or a closely related Finnic language (their form of speech is now called Kven) was forbidden in Norway, and they experienced discrimination. [2] Before WW2, Norway feared mass immigration and invasion from Finland. This was used as an excuse to discriminate against Kvens. [3]
The Russian word chukhna ( чухна́ ) is a derogatory term for Finnish and Finnic people. [4] The ministry for foreign affairs of Russia called for Russians to not use the word. [5] [6]
Ingrian Finns were heavily persecuted in Soviet Russia, including being subject to forced deportations. [7] 8,000–25,000 Finns were killed during the Great Purge, including the Finnish Operation of the NKVD. (These numbers are estimates; official numbers might be much higher) [8]
Agnessa Haikara wrote a documentary book Who is Knocking at Your Door? about Murmansk Finns and Kola Norwegians repressed in the Soviet Union, for which she was prosecuted in Russia. [9]
During the 1960s and 1970s, there was a significant influx of Finnish economic migrants into Sweden. Between 1950 and 1980 the number of Finns in Sweden increased from 45,000 to over 300,000. [10] Attitudes towards Finnish immigrants were quite negative in Sweden. Derogatory expressions en finne igen ('yet another Finn') and finnjävel (equivalent to 'Finnish bastard' or 'Finnish devil') were commonly used. [11] [12] An anthology, Finnjävlar, was published, in which 15 Finns in Sweden describe their lives and lives of their parents in Sweden. [13] In Sweden the Tornedalians were also once seen as an inferior race and speaking Finnish was banned in school.
Both Finnish and Meänkieli (spoken in Meänmaa) became official minority languages of Sweden in 2000, and the Swedish state started an investigation into the historical treatment of Finns and Tornedalians in 2020. [14] [15]
Finnjävel (singular) and finnjävlar (plural) are derogatory terms used in Sweden for Finnish immigrants, mostly during the 1950s and 1960s. In this context, jävel or djävel, meaning something like 'bastard', is a generic strong insult. [16]
The prominent role of Finnish immigrants in the 1907 and 1916 Mesabi Range strikes in Minnesota led to blacklisting of Finns. It was a time of anti-Finnish sentiment in the area, and one could see signs "No Indians or Finns allowed". [17] When many Finns came to America they began to found schools, saunas and political unions, and their union involvement led to a bad reputation. The fact that the Finnish language is a Finno-Ugric language and not related to most other European languages was used as proof that the Finns were not European, and thus fair subjects of discrimination. [18] [19]
China Swede was a derogatory term used for Finnish immigrants in the United States during the early 1900s, [20] [21] particularly in northern Minnesota and Upper Michigan. [22] Another term was roundhead. [23] [24]
The term jackpine savage was used in northern Minnesota during the early 1900s, referring to the term Indian savage used for Native Americans. Finnish businesses were also harassed with the pretext that they were illegally dealing liquor to Native Americans. [25]
Sápmi is the cultural region traditionally inhabited by the Sámi people. Sápmi is in Northern Europe and includes the northern parts of Fennoscandia, also known as the "Cap of the North".
Sweden Finns are a Finnish-speaking national minority in Sweden.
Ingria is a historical region in what is now northwestern European Russia. It lies along the southeastern shore of the Gulf of Finland, bordered by Lake Ladoga on the Karelian Isthmus in the north and by the River Narva on the border with Estonia in the west. The earliest known indigenous European peoples of the region are the now mostly Eastern Orthodox Izhorians and Votians, as well as the Ingrian Finns who descend from the Lutheran Finnish immigrants who settled in the area in the 17th century, when Finland proper and Ingria were both parts of the Swedish Empire.
Kvenland, known as Cwenland, Qwenland, Kænland, and similar terms in medieval sources, is an ancient name for an area in Fennoscandia and Scandinavia. Kvenland, in that or nearly that spelling, is known from an Old English account written in the 9th century, which used information provided by Norwegian adventurer and traveler Ohthere, and from Nordic sources, primarily Icelandic. A possible additional source was written in the modern-day area of Norway. All known Nordic sources date from the 12th and 13th centuries. Other possible references to Kvenland by other names and spellings are also discussed here.
Kvens are a Balto-Finnic ethnic minority in Norway. They are descended from Finnish peasants and fishermen who emigrated from the northern parts of Finland and Sweden to Northern Norway in the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1996, Kvens were granted minority status in Norway, and in 2005 the Kven language was recognized as a minority language in Norway.
Finns or Finnish people are a Baltic Finnic ethnic group native to Finland.
The Ingrians, sometimes called Ingrian Finns, are the Finnish population of Ingria, descending from Lutheran Finnish immigrants introduced into the area in the 17th century, when Finland and Ingria were both parts of the Swedish Empire. In the forced deportations before and after World War II, and during the genocide of Ingrian Finns, most of them were relocated to other parts of the Soviet Union, or killed. Today the Ingrian Finns constitute the largest part of the Finnish population of the Russian Federation. According to some records, some 25,000 Ingrian Finns have returned or still reside in the region of Saint Petersburg.
Ingrian, also called Izhorian, is a Finnic language spoken by the Izhorians of Ingria. It has approximately 70 native speakers left, all of whom are elderly.
The Tornedalians are descendants of Finns who, at some point, settled to the areas of today's Northern Sweden near the Torne Valley district and west from there. Tornedalians are a recognized national minority in Sweden.
Greater Finland, was an irredentist and nationalist idea that was a subset of Pan-Finnicism which emphasized the territorial expansion of Finland. The most common concept of Greater Finland saw the country as defined by natural borders encompassing the territories inhabited by Finns and Karelians, ranging from the White Sea to Lake Onega and along the Svir River and Neva River—or, more modestly, the Sestra River—to the Gulf of Finland. Some proponents also included the Torne Valley, Ingria, and Estonia.
The Finnic or Baltic Finnic languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 million speakers, who live mainly in Finland and Estonia.
There are scattered descriptions of early Finnish wars, conflicts involving the Finnish tribes, some of which took place before the Middle Ages. The earliest historical accounts of conflicts involving Finnish tribes, such as Tavastians, Karelians, Finns proper and Kvens, have survived in Icelandic sagas and in German, Norwegian, Danish and Russian chronicles as well as in Swedish legends and in Birch bark manuscripts. The most important sources are Novgorod First Chronicle, Primary Chronicle and Eric Chronicles.
Russians in Finland or Russian Finns are a linguistic and ethnic minority in Finland. As of 2022, there are 93,535 Russian-speaking people, or 1.7% of population, in Finland. It is the largest linguistic minority in the country. However, many of Russian-speaking immigrants are ethnically Ingrian Finns and other Finno-Ugric peoples.
Forest Finns were Finnish migrants from Savonia and Northern Tavastia in Finland who settled in forest areas of Sweden proper and Norway during the late 16th and early-to-mid-17th centuries, and traditionally pursued slash-and-burn agriculture, a method used for turning forests into farmlands. By the late 18th century, the Forest Finns had become largely assimilated into the Swedish and Norwegian cultures, and their language, a variety of Savonian Finnish, is today extinct, although it survived among a tiny minority until the 20th century. Descendants of the Forest Finns still live in Sweden and Norway.
The Baltic Finnic peoples, often simply referred to as the Finnic peoples, are the peoples inhabiting the Baltic Sea region in Northern and Eastern Europe who speak Finnic languages. They include the Finns, Estonians, Karelians, Veps, Izhorians, Votes, and Livonians. In some cases the Kvens, Ingrians, Tornedalians and speakers of Meänkieli are considered separate from the Finns.
The Nordic diaspora may refer to:
The Finnic or Fennic peoples, sometimes simply called Finns, are the nations who speak languages traditionally classified in the Finnic language family, and which are thought to have originated in the region of the Volga River. The largest Finnic peoples by population are the Finns, the Estonians, the Mordvins (800,000), the Mari (570,000), the Udmurts (550,000), the Komis (330,000) and the Sami (100,000).
The Finnish Operation of the NKVD was a mass arrest, execution and deportations of persons of Finnish origin in the Soviet Union by the NKVD during the period of Great Purge (1937–1938). It was a part of the larger mass operations of the NKVD which targeted many minority nationalities in the Soviet Union. Different estimations range from 8,000 to 25,000 of Finns killed or disappearing during the repression.
"Ryssä" is a Finnish term for a Russian person, considered derogatory today. The term is also used to refer to Russia as a country and to the Russian language. The term was originally used to refer to the Orthodox, and particularly in compound words to East Karelian merchants, referred to as "reppuryssä" or "laukkuryssä". The term "pikkuryssä" was used to refer to the tropak dance.
