Core Citizens, Imagined Nation: Historical Security Practices of the Majority and Strategies of the Minorities in Finland; An Introduction to the Issue

Abstract

Scandinavism was a political idea in the nineteenth century that strived to unite the Scandinavian countries into one state. In Finland, Scandinavists were few in number but formed networks with Scandinavists in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, networks that have been largely ignored hitherto in Finnish historiography. This article focuses on the Finnish Scandinavist Emil von Qvanten, who proposed a Nordic federal state including Finland in 1855 in the pamphlet "Fennomania and Scandinavism" (von Qvanten 1855a). Moreover, his correspondence reveals an influential exiled Finnish patriot, who became a Nordic politician and a trusted person to the Swedish King Karl XV. Von Qvanten corresponded extensively with the Finnish architect Nestor Tallgren, European dissidents such as the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, the Russian socialist Alexandr Herzen, and Polish separatists like Josef Demontovicz and Walerian Kalinka, as well as Swedish and Danish politicians and Scandinavian intelligentsia. An alternative option of Finland having a Scandinavian political dimension during the age of autonomy will be discussed here with a focus on the letters that Nestor Tallgren wrote to Emil von Qvanten.

Addressing Hostile Attitudes in and through Education—Transformative Ideas from Finnish Youth

“…These include, for example, the way education continues to be dominated by European-and Western-centered perspectives that have ignored or silenced the experiences and voices of minorities ( [19,27]; for a critical review, [28]). Eurocentric and Western narratives have been central in Finnish history textbooks [29] and geography textbooks [30] and reproduced national "others" that have typically included ethnic minorities, such as the Tatars, the Sami groups, and the Roma [31]; people from developing countries [30]; and communists and immigrants [32]. The stereotypical ways to depict people in teaching and learning materials are one of the key ways in which education (un)intentionally reproduces imaginaries about "us" and "them" [33,34].…”