Grand Duchy of Finland

On March 29, 1809, having been taken over by the armies of Alexander I of Russia in the Finnish War, Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy in the Russian Empire until the end of 1917. In 1811 Alexander I incorporated Russian Vyborg province into Grand Duchy of Finland. During the Russian era, the Finnish language began to gain recognition. From the 1860s onwards, a strong Finnish nationalist movement known as the Fennoman movement grew. Milestones included the publication of what would become Finland's national epic – the Kalevala – in 1835, and the Finnish language's achieving equal legal status with Swedish in 1892.

The Finnish famine of 1866–1868 killed 15% of the population, making it one of the worst famines in European history. (The Irish potato famine 1845-1852 killed 1,000,000 of the population and caused another 1,000,000 to emigrate, reducing the country's population by 20-25%.) The famine led the Russian Empire to ease financial regulations, and investment rose in following decades. Economic and political development was rapid.[20] The GDP per capita was still half of that of the United States and a third of that of Great Britain.[20]

In 1906, universal suffrage was adopted in the Grand Duchy of Finland. However, the relationship between the Grand Duchy and the Russian Empire soured when the Russian government made moves to restrict Finnish autonomy. For example, the universal suffrage was, in practice, virtually meaningless, since the tsar did not have to approve any of the laws adopted by the Finnish parliament. Desire for independence gained ground, first among radical liberals[21] and socialists.

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