This document discusses the era of Tsarist Russian rule over Poland and Finland from several perspectives: - Poland and Finland both lost independence but took different paths - Poland embraced nationalism while Finland pursued compromise. Both established constitutions as models for reform in Russia. - As autonomous states in the Russian Empire, Poland had more rights like its own army but uprisings led to crackdowns, while Finland retained autonomy through cooperation despite participating in suppressing Polish revolts. - Cultural interactions increased over time but national stereotypes differed - Poles saw Finland as loyal while Finns saw Poles as rebellious. Both gained independence after World War 1 but relations were briefly cooperative before diverging again.

1. The Era of Tsarist Russian
Rule in Polish and Finnish
Historical Perspectives
Jussi Jalonen, Ph. D,
Baltic Sea Youth
Dialogue,
November 2017
The Shared Experience of Imperial Past

2. From Enlightenment to the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress System: Loss of
Independence, Elevation to Nationhood
• Insurrectionalism, republicanism and principal rejection of foreign domination as cornerstones of the
emergent Polish nationalism in the late 18th century. Calculated opportunism, status quo and
willingness to accommodate and compromise with the interests of the conqueror become
predominant in Finnish statecraft.
• Constitutionalism as a common factor shared by both nations. Polish and Finnish constitutional
establishments as possible blueprints for reform in Russia proper.
• Tadeusz Kościuszko’s brief visit in Turku after his release from St. Petersburg in 1796-1797.

3. Grand-Duchy of Finland and Congress Kingdom of Poland as
constitutional, autonomously governed states within the Russian Empire
• Finland: government on ad hoc basis, under the old Swedish constitutional acts;
after their first session in 1809, the estates are not convened by the Emperor before
1863; no independent military establishment and no currency of its own; the
former Karelian territories annexed by Russia in 1721 and 1743 are re-attached
with the newly-established Grand-Duchy.
• Poland: progressive constitution, established and regular parliamentary
governance, separate national armed forces, currency based on gold standard,
nominal international guarantee under the Congress of Vienna; but the former
Kresy, the eastern territories annexed by Russia in the Polish partitions and the
Treaty of Tilsit, are not united with the Congress Kingdom.

4. November and January Rising as the Turning-Points underlining the
contrasts between Finnish and Polish experiences
• November Rising of 1830 and the Polish-Russian War of 1831 as a practical
demonstration of Polish insurgent aspirations and Finnish loyalism. Finnish Guard
participates in the suppression of the Polish uprising and receives recognition from
the Emperor.
• The year 1863 as another culmination point: Grand-Duchy of Finland retains and
extends its autonomy under Alexander II’s reforms, while another uprising breaks
out in Poland. Practically the entire class of Hamina Cadet School is sent to Poland
upon graduation, and as a result, every single regimental commander in the Russian
6th Army is a Finnish officer.

5. Uprisings and conciliation, resistance and compromise: Poland as a warning
example for Finland, Finland as an example to be followed for Poland?
• The conciliatory shift in Polish politics following the 1863 Uprising. Warsaw Positivism and the
“Organic Work” movement adopts the Grand-Duchy of Finland as a potential model to emulate.
Eliza Orzeszkowa’s correspondence with Maila Talvio, who publishes her books in Finnish.
• Conservative Fennoman politician Yrjö Sakari Yrjö-Koskinen portrays the Polish “rebellions” as
“pointless gamble undertaken at the instigation of mad agitators, whom the true patriots were unable
to constrain” (1831) and “the wildest possible insanity” (1863). Published in 1900, a year after the
Tsarist February Manifesto, Yrjö-Koskinen’s treatise on Polish uprisings can be seen as a warning
against premature and futile resistance.

6. Interactions in Culture and Politics; Changing Attitudes by Fin-de-Siècle
• Transcultural encounters. Polish 19th century war memoirs and traveler’s books. Prince Stanisław
Jabłonowki’s memoirs from the War of 1831 and his recollections of loyalist Finnish officers among the
“Muscovite” prisoners. Teodor Tripplin’s journeyman’s accounts from Scandinavia and Lapland. Finland as
an little-known exotic country on the edge of Europe.
• Russian impressions on Poland and Finland. Dostoyevski’s references to the Polish insurgents in Siberia and
Finnish domestic servants in St. Petersburg. Imperial national stereotypes of the people in the borderlands;
specific pan-Slavism coloring the impressions of the Russian intelligentsia on Poland, garden-variety
Imperial attitude coloring the impressions on Finland.
• Finnish impressions on Poland as a rebellious borderland threatening the stability of the Empire based
mainly in the experiences of Finnish officers and bureaucrats in Imperial Russian service in the Vistulaland
provinces. Anders Edvard Ramsay participates in the suppression of both Polish uprisings, rising from the
rank of Colonel to General of Infantry. General Major Carl Edvard Krook is assassinated in Warsaw by
Polish malcontents while serving as the City Commandant in 1887. General lieutenant Waldemar
Schauman serves as the Chief of Staff in the 7th Infantry Regiment in Radom; his son, Eugen Schauman,
assassinates Governor-General Bobrikov in Helsinki in 1905.
• Johan Jacob Ahrenberg’s novella Anor och Ungdom (“Heritage and Youth”, 1891); a positive portrayal of
Polish uprisings, with the central character of Finnish officer as a darkly tragic figure.

7. 1905-1917: Revolution, Reaction and… Cooperation?
• Tsarist February Manifesto of 1899, seeking to integrate Finland closer to the Imperial administration and
gradually phasing out the Finnish autonomy, is interpreted in Poland as the proof of the ultimate failure of
conciliatory politics and the Warsaw Positivist camp.
• The first contacts between the nascent Finnish anti-Tsarist resistance during the revolutionary years 1905-1907.
Contradictions and misunderstandings: Konni Zilliacus, the foreman of the Finnish activists, establishes talks with
Roman Dmowski and assists him on his trip to Japan, while Józef Piłsudski participates Kirkkonummi Conference
in 1907. Leon Wasilewski’s ”Greetings to the Finnish working class” published in the Social Democratic newspaper
Työ in Viipuri in 1907.
• The outbreak of the First World War thrusts both Finnish and Polish independence activists in simultaneous
cooperation with the Central Powers. Finnish Jäger Movement and the Polish Legionary Movement as examples of
trans-national war volunteering and militarized separatist nationalism.
• The revolutionary years 1917-1918. Edvard Valpas-Hänninen, a socialist MP, references the Finnish participation in
the suppression of Polish uprisings in his speech opposing the establishment of national military in 1917. The
”Polish Legion in Finland” during the Finnish Civil War.

8. From Borderlands to Successor States
- Shared suspicions towards Bolshevik Russia in the aftermath of the First
World War and the early years of independence. Cooperation with Poland
enjoys brief popularity among the Finnish centrist politicians, but loses out
to the desire to profile Finland as a neutral, Nordic country. The right-wing
Finnish conservatives prefer to retain cultural and eventually also political
links with Germany; Finnish social democrats remain equally lukewarm
towards Poland.
- The briefly converged paths diverge again in the 1920s and the 1930s, while
Poland slides to authoritarian rule and Finland manages to avoid it.

9. The Past as a Burden, or the Past as an Advantage?