Anssi Halmesvirta The British conception of the Finnish 'race', nation and culture, 1760-1918 Societas Historica Finlandiae Suomen Historiallinen Seura Finska Historiska Samfundet Studia Historica 34 Anssi Häme svida The British conception of the Finnish 'race', nation and culture, 1760 1918 SHS / Helsinki / 1990 Cover by Rauno Endén "The Bombardment of Sveaborg" (9-10 of August, 1855). A drawing by J. W. Carmichael, artist from the Illustrated London News ISSN 0081-6493 ISBN 951-8915-28-8 GUMMERUS KIRJAPAINO OY JYVÄSKYLÄ 1990 Contents PREFACE 7 INTRODUCTION 8 1. THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY IMAGE OF THE FINN 29 1.1. Some precedents 29 1.2. The naturalists' view 36 1.3. The historians' view 43 1.4. Travel accounts 53 2. ON THE NORTH-EASTERN FRONTIER OF CIVILIZATION: THE EVOLUTION OF THE FINNS 81 2.1. The science of race 81 2.2. The place of the Finn in British pre-evolutionary anthropology, 1820-1855 88 2.3. Philology, ethnology and politics: the evolution of Finnish 111 2.4. The political and cultural status of Finland, 1809-1856: British perceptions 130 2.5. Agitation, war and aftermath 150 3. ARYANS OR MONGOLS? — BRITISH THEORIES OF FINNISH ORIGINS 167 4. THE FINNS, THEIR KALEVALA AND THEIR CULTURE.. 191 5. COMPARATIVE POLITICS AND BRITISH PERCEPTIONS OF THE PROGRESS OF THE FINNS, 1860-1899 209 5 6. BRITISH RESPONSES TO THE FINNISH-RUSSIAN CONSTITUTIONAL CONTENTION, 1899-1918 239 6.1. Immediate reactions 239 6.2. The Finnish question: variations on a Liberal theme 253 6.2.1. The constitutionalist argument 253 6.2.2. A compromise 266 6.2.3. Racialist interpretations of relations between the Russians and the Finns 272 6.2.4. Liberal impressions of the Finnish race and culture at home 282 CONCLUSION 299 BIBLIOGRAPHY 306 INDEX OF NAMES 322 6 Preface This study has arisen out of the need to understand how the British envisaged an alien 'race', the Finns, and of the urge to gain a new historical perspective from which to reassess the rise of the Finns from a province to independence. The idea of this kind of research was first conceived as I worked for a project investigating foreign attitudes to and notions of the Finnish 'race'. Professor Aira Kemiläinen at the University of Jyväskylä asked me to join in and she has ever since encouraged me to go on. Having completed my basic studies in Finland, I was generously given a grant by the Oskari Huttunen foundation, the British Council and Finnish Academy for further studies at the University of Sussex. In the years 1984-87 I worked there with the guidance of my supervisor, Professor J.W. Burrow, who constantly gave me valuable criticism. The courses in intellectual history at Sussex provided me with the basic understanding of the methods of the history of ideas without which this study could not have been written. The source material was mainly deposited at the British Library and Sussex University Library but I have also consulted the Public Record Office and Åbo Academi's Library in Turku, Finland — to all these institutions I express my gratitude. The English language was carefully corrected by Anthony Melville and Steven Saletta, to whom I am indebted. My thanks go also to the Institute of History at the University of Jyväskylä where I found a work-place to complete the final version. With the aid of Teppo Vihola and Ilkka Nummela the printer ran smoothly. After the process of study, it is an honour to have my study included in the publications of the Historiallinen Seura. Anssi Halmesvirta 7 Introduction I The main task of this thesis is to examine the British conception and perceptions of the Finnish 'race', nation and culture from the end of the eighteenth century to 1918, the year the Finns waged a Civil War. Only recently have historians of ideas begun to study racialist, nationalist and organicist notions concerning the evolution of man and society in their proper politico-historical and cultural contexts. The notorious concept of race in its more recent political and cultural uses in particular seems to have been remote from their interests; even if its theoretical foundations have been thoroughly studied and its nationalist associations shown, the complex connections between the racialist, political and cultural arguments that were, in their day, generally presented as scientifically based, have not been the subject of close scrutiny. Certainly this is the case with the image of the Finns and their society as perceived by British observers. The perceptions of the Finns by the British intellectual aristocracy and its reading public in the Enlightenment, and the Victorian and Edwardian eras would not make sense without reference to race and its discourse, so deeply did it permeate the British notions of the Finn. The purpose here is to clarify the manifold meanings of race in political language and in evolutionary and progressive thought in general, and to analyze the political and historical insights the British gained and the lessons they learned. A detailed account of the development, interconnections and variations of the key concepts the British used in describing the Finns is attempted by studying the various 8 contexts where these concepts play a significant role. The key concepts of the title of this thesis need definition. In modern scientific discourse 'race' is a biological concept, referring to the frequences of certain hereditary factors (genes) which mark human population difference. Cultural and social anthropologists have abandoned the term altogether because no conclusions concerning culture can be drawn from such biological propensities, preferring the term 'ethnic group' since the 1930s1. Before the invention of the Mendelian concept of population the term 'race', although vague, was quite indiscriminately and forcefully used. In anthropology it was typically deployed in postulating theories about racial hierarchies; in amateur and political circles it was called on to identify cultural and intellectual differences between peoples and in trying to explain conflicts and rivalries between social classes, nationalities, and even empires. The explanatory force of race appeared tempting and able to answer many questions. 'Racism' that developed from the 1850s onwards, was a theory based on the assumption that populations could be divided into distinct "higher" and "lower" stocks, the "higher" being capable of "high" cultural achievements, the "lower" lagging behind2. Under the concept of racialism one can gather together arguments, attitudes and stereotypes that exploited the concept of 'race' either without specifying it in a very elaborate way or by giving it a specific historical and political meaning. The second key term, 'nation', is more complex than that of 'race'. By 'nation', one generally means a large community of people living within a particular territory, speaking the same 1. Julian S. Huxley, A.C. Haddon, We Europeans. A Survey of Racial Problems (London, 1935, 4th pr., 1936), pp. 29-31, 106-08. For recent developments in the field, see Nancy Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science; Great Britain 1800-1960 (London, 1982), pp. 175-79. In Finland scientists have also dropped the idea of race and shifted to studying the peculiarities (blood groups and hereditary diseases) of the Finnish genetic heritage of the Eastern- Baltic area. See Pauli Kajanoja, A Study in the Morphology of the Finns and Its Relation to the Settlement of Finland. Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennica Medica. Ser. A, 146 (Helsinki, 1971); H.R. Nevanlinna, 'Suomalaisten juuret geneettisen merkkitutkimuksen valossa'. Suomen väestön esihistorial- liset juuret. Bidrag till kännedomen av Finlands Natur och Folk, 131 (Helsinki, 1984), pp. 170-1, 174. 2. C.C. Eldridge, 'Introduction'. British Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century. Ed. by C.C. Eldridge (London, 1984), p. 17. 9 language, having a common religion, history and some common political aspirations. The creation of 'nation' in the early half of the nineteenth century involved a process of historical 're- construction' in which intellectuals (historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and folklorists) sought to 'rediscover' their communal past by presenting it as an organic historical reality. Following the model of natural science, they imposed the trajectory of growth, decline and rebirth on history. What emerged was an idealized past ('golden age', 'poetic space') to which a people should "return" in order to be born again3. This imagery was widely used by the intellectuals of small Eastern European (especially Slavic) nationalities and it was also adopted by Finnish scholars to invigorate the Finnish national revival, first, under the pressures of Swedish-speaking culture, and later, against the threat of Russification. In contrast, in Britain where national cohesion had already been achieved, nationalism developed in two directions. Studies of Anglo-Saxon — Norman antagonism in particular, and of British origins in general were pursued in the spirit of Whiggish nationalism which prevailed since the collapse of Napoleon4. Later on, in the imperialist era, the expansionist and racialist nationalism (originated in studies of German history) hardened, and enchanted even the lower social classes5. It developed into an ideology that attempted to create consciousness and adulation of the British nation by studying the origins and propagating a mission for the Empire. Racialist ideas were powerfully associated with ideas of the nation and the Empire, and they were defined mainly by their racial composition, not only by their linguistic, religious, ethnic or other characteristics. 'Nation' sometimes became subordinate to 'race', although usually it was the ideas of national unity and cohesion that were emphasized. One version of 3. Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford, 1987), pp. 181-3, 192-97, 269-70 nn. 52, 54, 271-2 nn. 69, 70. 4. For the definition of nationalism, see John Plamenatz, 'Two Types of Nationalism'. Eugene Kamenka (ed.), Nationalism. The Nature and Evolution of an Idea (London, 1976), pp.