Finland

Almost 700 years of association of Finland with the Kingdom of Sweden began in 1154 with the introduction of the christianity for the king Erik IX of Sweden. Though originally he was the Swedish thedominant language of the administration, the Finn recovered his relevancy during the nationalistic reappearance of 1842, after the publication of the national epic of Finland, the Kalevala, forElias Lönnrot (1802-1884).

In the 15th century, Novgorod was annexed to the principality of Moscow and again the conflict exploded with the Kingdom of Sweden, called “War Ingria between 1610 and 1617,which it left to Sweden as dominant power of the Finnish territory.
Between 1700 and 1721 there developed the so called Great War of the North, in which Sweden lost territories and influence inthe Finnish territory, which happened to form a part of Imperial Russia. Nevertheless, the military conflicts with Sweden continued.

During the Second World war, Finland fought against the SovietUnion in two occasions the War of Winter (1939-1940) supported on small measure for volunteers of Sweden, as response to the aggression and invasion on the part of the Soviet Union that was seeking toexpand after invading the Baltic republics, and again in the War of Continuation of (1941-1944) with considerable support of Germany Nazi, after having being left on the part of the countries alliedin his fight against the Soviet Union. To this conflict it followed the War of Lapland (1944-1945) in which Finland expelled the Germans of Finland of the North.

The agreements signed in 1947 and1948 with the Soviet Union took as a consequence a series of political commitments, as well as territorial concessions. Finland lost more than 10 % of his territory and his second city, Viipuri. Inaddition, a considerable number of persons had to be evacuated and rehoused in other parts of the country (Carelo-Finnish Soviet saw Socialist Republic). In spite of the political and territorial...