Finland had been a part of
Sweden from the Middle Ages until the
Finnish War of 1808–1809, when it was ceded to Russia and made a
Grand Duchy within the
Russian Empire. Although Finnish was the language of the majority of the new Grand Duchy, a significant minority was Swedish-speaking. Swedish had been the language of administration and in educational institutions when Finland was part of the Swedish realm. The Svecomans promoted the idea that
Finland harbours two peoples, or
nations, speaking different languages, with different cultures, and originating from separate parts of the country. In accordance with
contemporary science, these two peoples were consequently denoted as members of different "
races". This idea was radically new. Until then, the Swedish-speaking rural population had been mostly ignored, but now this minority was considered important and directly associated with the
elite of Finland. The
language strife between Fennomans and Svecomans in these decades also mirrored more general political divisions: • The Fennomans were favoured by the Russian authorities, while the Svecomans channeled the remaining fear of the Russians and the cultural attachment to their old enemy
Sweden. • After the
Crimean War, when the Swedish-speaking towns on Finland's south coast and the
merchant fleet had been severely damaged,
neutralist views received strong support among educated Eastern-Swedish. • The Fennomans were chiefly dominated by the
clergy, the Svecomans by
industrialists and academics from other faculties besides the theological one. The spiritual leader of the Svecomans was the linguist
Axel Olof Freudenthal, who also had claims of racial supremacy. The feeling of unity between the Swedish-speaking rural population and the (remains of the) Swedish-speaking elite is the lasting legacy of the Svecoman movement, and this became the core idea of the
Swedish People's Party, which was founded after the introduction of
equal and common suffrage in 1906. == See also ==