This is a timeline of the Independence of Finland. Timeline starts from February Revolution and ends with membership of the League of Nations. Events take place in Saint Petersburg and Finland.
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The Finnish Civil War was a civil war in Finland in 1918 fought for the leadership and control of Finland during the country's transition from a Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire to an independent state. The clashes took place in the context of the national, political, and social turmoil caused by World War I in Europe. The war was fought between the Reds, led by a section of the Social Democratic Party, and the Whites, conducted by the conservative-based Senate and the German Imperial Army. The paramilitary Red Guards, composed of industrial and agrarian workers, controlled the cities and industrial centres of southern Finland. The paramilitary White Guards, composed of farmers, along with middle-class and upper-class social strata, controlled rural central and northern Finland.
Kyösti Kallio was the fourth President of Finland (1937–1940). He was a prominent leader of the Agrarian League, and served as Prime Minister four times and Speaker of the Parliament six times.
Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim was a Finnish military leader and statesman. Mannerheim served as the military leader of the Whites in the Finnish Civil War, Regent of Finland (1918–1919), commander-in-chief of Finland's defence forces during World War II, Marshal of Finland, and the sixth president of Finland (1944–1946).
Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg was a Finnish jurist and academic, who played a central role in the drafting of the Constitution of Finland in 1919. He was the first President of Finland (1919–1925) and a liberal nationalist.
Pehr Evind Svinhufvud af Qvalstad was the third President of Finland from 1931 to 1937. Serving as a lawyer, judge, and politician in the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland, he played a major role in the movement for Finnish independence. In 1917–1918, Svinhufvud was the first Head of State of independent Finland, first as Chairman of the Senate and subsequently as Protector of State or Regent. He also served as Prime Minister from 1930 to 1931.
The President of the Republic of Finland is the head of state of Finland. Under the Constitution of Finland, executive power is vested in the President and the Finnish Government, with the former possessing only residual powers. The President is directly elected by universal suffrage for a term of six years. Since 1994, no President may be elected for more than two consecutive terms. The President must be a Finnish citizen by birth. The Presidential office was established in the Constitution Act of 1919. Elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2018, the current President is Sauli Niinistö.
The Senate of Finland combined the functions of cabinet and supreme court in the Grand Duchy of Finland from 1816 to 1917 and in the independent Republic of Finland from 1917 to 1918.
Nikolai Vissarionovich Nekrasov was a Russian liberal politician and the last Governor-General of Finland.
Antti Oskari Tokoi, known by his middle name, (1873–1963) was a Finnish socialist who served as a leader of the Social Democratic Party of Finland. During the short-lived Revolution of 1918, Tokoi participated as a leading figure in the revolutionary government. Tokoi later emigrated to the United States of America, where he served as the long-time editor of Raivaaja, the newspaper of the Finnish Socialist Federation.
The Finnish Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Parliament of Finland on 6 December 1917. It declared Finland an independent nation, among nations ending its autonomy within Russia as its Grand Duchy of Finland, with reference to a simultaneously delivered bill to the Diet to make Finland an independent republic instead.
Finland declared its independence on 6 December 1917. The formal Declaration of Independence was only part of the long process leading to the independence of Finland.
Finland's Independence Day is a national public holiday, and a flag day, held on 6 December to celebrate Finland's declaration of independence from Russia in 1917.
The Kingdom of Finland was an abortive attempt to establish a monarchy in Finland following Finland's independence from Russia.
Carl Johan Alexis Enckell was a Finnish politician, diplomat, officer and businessman.
Real union is a union of two or more states, which share some state institutions as in contrast to personal unions; however they are not as unified as states in a political union. It is a development from personal union and was usually limited to monarchies.
The Finnish People's Delegation was a governmental body, created by a group of members in the Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP), to serve as the Government of the Red Guards during the Finnish Civil War. The chair of the Delegation was the former Speaker of the Parliament Kullervo Manner.
Events from the year 1917 in Russia
The Invasion of Åland was a 1918 military campaign of World War I in the Åland Islands, Finland. The islands, still hosting Soviet Russian troops, were first invaded by Kingdom of Sweden in late February and then by the German Empire in early March. The conflict was also related to the Finnish Civil War including minor fighting between the Finnish Whites and the Finnish Reds.
The Treaty of Peace between Finland and Germany, also called the Berlin Peace Treaty, signed in Berlin on 7 March 1918 ended the state of war that existed between Finland and the German Empire as a result of World War I. It paved the way for German intervention in the Finnish Civil War and the invasion of Åland.