Finnish alcohol culture (Finnish : suomalainen alkoholikulttuuri) refers to the drinking culture regarding beverages containing ethyl alcohol in Finland and to the manners and habits connected to the drinking culture.
In 2023, the total consumption of alcoholic beverages in Finland was 8.7 litres of 100% alcohol per capita, which was 2.4 percent less than in 2022. Consumption of alcohol has decreased since 2007. [1] The consumption of alcohol in Finland is the highest in the Nordic countries. [2] Since the early 1960s, the total consumption of alcohol has quadrupled [3] and negative effects of alcohol have increased. [4]
In Finnish culture, the state of alcohol intoxication has not been seen as shameful. On the contrary, it is praised and seen as a sign of sociality. [5] [6] As consumption of alcohol has become more mundane, it has not led to a decrease in alcohol consumption or drinking to intoxication, but has instead had the opposite effect. However, the Finnish intoxication-seeking drinking culture is not an exception in the world. Not counting European wine cultures, alcohol is usually used in the world as an intoxicant, not as nourishment. [4]
Alcoholic beverages have been produced and consumed in Finland at least since the Iron Age (500 BCE). [7] However, consumption of alcohol in its current scale is a new phenomenon - for example, even though beer (Finnish: olut) was consumed in the 15th century tens of times as much as nowadays, it was considerably milder than the beer of today. [8] Nowadays the consumption of alcohol in Finland is over four times as large than it was in the middle of the 20th century. The negative effects of alcohol in Finland are also historically large.
In the early 20th century, alcohol consumption in Finland was exceptionally small compared to other European countries. However, because of political reasons, many parties started to paint an image of alcohol consumption as a widespread problem in Finland and started seeking restrictions to the consumption of alcohol. [8]
The Finnish drinking culture was partly influenced by the Temperance movement (raittiusliike) and the prohibition (kieltolaki) from 1919 to 1932. On the other hand, smuggling and illegal sales of alcohol also increased. It has even been claimed that consumption of strong alcohol increased during prohibition.[ citation needed ] After prohibition ended, sales of alcohol were handled by the state-owned monopoly Alko, and so-called "alcohol cards" (viinakortti) were used from 1944 to 1956, restricting the sale of alcohol. [9] The "alcohol cards" were finally discontinued at the end of the year 1970. [10]
Traditional Finnish unfiltered beer is called sahti . Sahti is primarily made from barley malts. [11] [12] Sahti was registered as a traditional speciality in the European Union in 2002. [13] Beer expert Michael Jackson said that sahti was "a missing link in the history of beer brewing between Mesopotamia and current times", like "a glass full of anthropology". [14]
Recordings of Finnish folklore include bear songs ( Kalevala , poem 46, verses 547–606) and remembering of the dead. The bear songs tell of the peijaiset celebration held in honour of the killed bear, the "wedding of the bear", at the end of which the skull of the bear was taken in a "wedding convoy" back to the forest. There it was filled with festive beer and held on a sacrificial tree to preserve luck in hunting. Ancient traditions related to funerals have been recorded in Tver Karelia up to 1958. A reminiscent feast was held on the grave, where the deceased was also thought to participate. If the deceased had liked alcohol, it was also served on the grave. [15]
Consumption of alcohol among women has increased in Finland. In the 1960s, almost half of women from 30 to 49 years old said they did not drink alcohol, but in 2000 this had decreased to only four percent. Increased consumption has made the image of alcohol consumption more mundane and obscured the dangers related to it. There have been suggestions to reformat the classic Finnish slogan "Jos ajat, et ota" ("If you're driving, you don't drink") invented to combat drunk driving into "Jos odotat, et ota" ("If you're expecting, you don't drink") and to add it to labels of alcoholic beverages to warn against alcohol use during pregnancy. [16]
Increased consumption of alcohol has also decreased the number of alcohol-free areas. Torsten Winter asserts that this leads to pressure to start drinking alcohol among the youth. [17] However, not drinking alcohol has become more common among the youth. Unlike the viewpoint of the "wet generation" (märkä sukupolvi) in the 1960s, consumption of alcohol can be connected with annoying pretense instead of freedom. Possibilities for hobbies have improved among the youth and peer pressure for intoxication has decreased. [5] Knowledge of consumption and food has improved, and the unhealthy effects of alcohol - fattening, effects on the brain and so on - are more widely known. [18] : 31 The so-called straight edge movement has spread to some parts of Finland, which was born in the punk subculture to combat the self-destroying way of life and indifference in the world. [18] : 36
The significant increase in alcohol consumption has also been said to have resulted from the exceptionally low state of consumption in the 20th century. Although consumption of alcohol quadrupled from the 1960s to the 2010s, it was still only a little above the European average in the 2010s. [8]
Drinking culture is the set of traditions and social behaviours that surround the consumption of alcoholic beverages as a recreational drug and social lubricant. Although alcoholic beverages and social attitudes toward drinking vary around the world, nearly every civilization has independently discovered the processes of brewing beer, fermenting wine, and distilling spirits, among other practices. Many countries have developed their own regional cultures based on unique traditions around the fermentation and consumption of alcohol, which may also be known as a beer culture, wine culture etc. after a particularly prominent type of drink.
Timo Pekka Olavi Siitoin was a Finnish neo-Nazi, occultist and a Satanist.
Teuvo Peltoniemi is a Finnish writer, journalist, researcher, educator, and eHealth developer specialized on addictions. Since the 1970s he has been contributing by research and journalism to increase public awareness in Finland for many taboo societal problems, like general speed limits, family violence, sexual abuse of children, situation of children of alcohol abusing parents, and net addiction. After retirement he now writes about social issues in his blog at Iltalehti evening paper, and in science journals and books as well as maintains two sites on the Finnish Utopian Communities.
Mauno Jokipii was a Finnish professor at the University of Jyväskylä in history specializing in World War II. He was a thorough investigator and a prolific author. Among his works were studies of the local history of Jyväskylä and the university and historical province of Satakunta.
Finland has a long history of beer dating back to the Middle Ages. The oldest still-existing commercial brewery in Finland and the other Nordic countries is Sinebrychoff, founded in 1819. The Finnish Beer Day is celebrated on 13 October to commemorate the founding of the Sinebrychoff brewery and the birth of Finnish beer. The largest Finnish brewers are Hartwall, Olvi and Sinebrychoff. Most of the beers brewed in Finland are pale lagers. As of 2022, Finland's standing is 23rd in per capita consumption of beer: Finnish people consume 70.2 litres of beer annually per capita, while the total annual consumption is 393 million litres.
Ilmari Susiluoto was a Finnish political scientist, a professor at the University of Helsinki, a senior advisor at the Foreign Ministry of Finland from 1982, an expert in Russian and Soviet history, politics and society, and an author of a number of books in this field.
Johan Verner Weckman was a wrestler who was the first Finnish Olympic gold medalist.
Jalmari Verneri Sauli was a Finnish writer and track and field athlete who competed in the 1908 Summer Olympics.
Timo Juhani Vihavainen is a Finnish historian and a professor of Russian Studies at the University of Helsinki. He has written extensively on Russian and Finnish history. Vihavainen graduated as a Master of Philosophy in 1970, a Licentiate in Philosophy in 1983, a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1988 and a Docent in Russian history in 1992. He is a member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters since 2009. At the beginning of the 2000s he was among the contributors of the Kanava magazine.
Maria Lähteenmäki is a researcher of history, Jutikkala Professor at the University of Eastern Finland and Docent of Finnish and Scandinavian history at the University of Helsinki. She has produced many scientific monographs and textbooks and written a great number of articles.
Seppo Erkki Sakari Heikinheimo was a Finnish musicologist, music journalist, writer and translator.
Leif Rantala was a Finnish-Swedish linguist, and a specialist of Sami languages, cultures of history, especially of the Kola Peninsula.
Elina Haavio-Mannila is a Finnish social scientist and Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of Helsinki where she served as the Docent of Sociology (1965–1971), Assistant Professor (1971–1992), and Professor (1992–1998). She is known for researching gender roles and gender in Finnish life. Much of the research in the latter field was done together with Osmo Kontula. In 1958, she became the first woman in Finland to earn the Doctor in Social Sciences degree.
Chileans in Finland are people from Chile residing in Finland.
In Finland, the far right was strongest in 1920–1940 when the Academic Karelia Society, Lapua Movement, Patriotic People's Movement (IKL) and Vientirauha operated in the country and had hundreds of thousands of members. In addition to these dominant far-right and fascist organizations, smaller Nazi parties operated as well.
Teo Kaarlo Snellman was a Finnish Nazi, embassy counselor, translator, and vegetarian. From 1940 to 1944, Snellman headed the Finnish National Socialist Labor Organisation. Snellman was the grandson of Johan Vilhelm Snellman. Teo considered his grandfather Johan Vilhelm and Eino Leino, Väinämöinen and Mikael Agricola to be Finland's first National Socialists.
Niilo Vilho Rauvala was a Finnish engineer and the chairman of the far-right Lalli Alliance of Finland and the Nazi Party of Finnish Labor in the 1930s and 1940s.
John Rosberg was a Finnish engineer and technical director of the Helsinki Telephone Association who was involved in far-right activities in the 1930s and 1940s.
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