Swedish Finns
With Swedish Finnish ( Swedish : sverigefinnar ; Finnish : ruotsinsuomalaiset or ruosut ) refers to the Finnish minority in Sweden , which is usually estimated at from 300,000 to 550,000 people, and of whom speak about 260,000 Finnish. The Swedish Finns are officially recognized as a national minority in Sweden . The Finnish of the Swedish Finns is called Swedish Finnish (Finnish: ruotsinsuomi , Swedish: sverigefinska ).
The Swedish Finns are among the oldest migrant groups in Sweden. This also includes the Finns who immigrated from the 16th century, such as the forest fins (Swedish: skogsfinnar ). After this part of the Swedish Finns had meanwhile assimilated with the majority society, new Finnish-speaking groups came to Sweden, especially in the second half of the 20th century.
Disambiguation
Swedish Finns are often mistakenly confused with the Finnish Swedes , the Swedish-speaking population in Finland . If, on the one hand, a distinction is made between the Finnish population and the Finnish-Swedes, who refer to the Finnish and Swedish speakers in Finland, then in Sweden, on the other hand, the overarching technical term Sverigefinländare ("Swedish Finns ") is used for all Immigrants from Finland to Sweden and then differentiates between the Swedish Finns and the Finland Swedes in Sweden , who also refer to themselves as Sverigefinlandssvenskar ("Schwedenfinnlandschweden").
Number of Swedes
The total number of Finns or Finnish speakers is difficult to determine in Sweden because the state does not register their mother tongue or ethnicity . The Swedish company Radioundersökningar AB (RUAB for short) surveyed a representative 30,000 Swedes in October and November 2005; it showed that around six percent of those surveyed had knowledge of Finnish or Meänkieli . That would correspond to about 470,000 people of the total Swedish population.
According to a study published by Statistics Sweden in April 2009, approximately 675,000 people have a third generation Finnish background, i.e. at least one maternal or paternal grandparent who was born in Finland.
According to an estimate by Eric De Geer from the Finnish Language and Culture Center of the Mälardalen University of Applied Sciences in 2004, the number of Finnish-speaking Finns in Sweden is around 260,000, which corresponds to 2.9% of the population. De Geer estimates that 85% of those born in Finland speak Finnish, and that 75% of children with two Finnish parents and 40% with one Finnish parent speak Finnish.
Of primary school students, 8,488 (1.0%) have a right to have native language lessons in Finnish. That means Finnish is the sixth largest minority language among primary school children in Sweden.
History of the Finns in Sweden
Middle Ages and Modern Times until 1809
From the beginning of the 13th century until 1809, Swedes and Finns formed a common state in which the inhabitants of Finland and Sweden could move relatively freely for about 650 years. From the middle of the 16th century, Finns hired themselves mainly in Swedish mining and metallurgy , and between the 16th and 17th centuries the so-called forest fins immigrated to wooded areas in the west and north of the country and created new agricultural areas through slash and burn . It was only a few decades ago that the last inhabitants of Värmland to the west died out who still spoke the old Finnish. Even today, in many parts of Sweden, old Finnish place names are reminiscent of the time of Finnish settlement, and the Finnish ancestry can be genetically proven for many residents in the Swedish part of Finnmark .
Parts of the country were subject to strict trade restrictions in the Middle Ages and modern times. In return, Stockholm developed into the most important export port in the common empire, so that even Finnish goods were mainly traded through the state capital. Many Finns moved to Stockholm because on the one hand they could import and export goods in the capital and on the other hand they could pursue a wide variety of professions. By 1809, a significant part of the Swedish army was made up of Finnish recruits, which helped spread Finnish in Sweden.
A Finnish parish was founded in Stockholm as early as 1533. Finnish was even spoken at the Swedish royal court, as the service staff consisted mostly of native Finns. King Gustav I Wasa even insisted that his sons learn Finnish and hired a Finnish clergyman as a tutor. In the 16th century, his son, Duke Carl, ordered that numerous Eastern Finnish farmers should relocate to the forest areas of Dalarna and Värmland.
After Finland ceded to Russia in 1809 until World War II
After several wars, Sweden had to cede Finland to Tsarist Russia in 1809. In spite of this, contacts between Swedes and Finns were maintained, especially in academic circles. Despite having their own universities in Finland, Stockholm and its university continued to be an important link between the two peoples for many Finnish students and academics. Also because the coast of Finland had been Swedish-speaking since the beginning of their common history, relations between Swedes and Finns broke down Russian time of Finland does not depend. When Russia's political pressure on Finland increased towards the end of the 19th century, a large number of the oppressed and persecuted fled to Sweden. Many Finns also sought refuge in Sweden during the Finnish Civil War from 1917 to 1918 and during World War II . In the Winter War (1939–1940) and the Continuation War (1941–1944) around 72,000 children were sent from Finland to Sweden. Many of the so-called “Finnish war children” (Finländska krigsbarn) stayed in Sweden or returned there in the post-war years.
After the Second World War
In the 1950s, Finland-Swedes still accounted for half of the Finnish citizens who emigrated to Sweden, until their share leveled off to a quarter from the 1960s to the 1990s and the Finns eventually made up the majority of emigrants.
The influx of Finnish emigrants to Sweden remained constant until the early 1970s. Then hundreds of thousands of Finns, some of whom were recruited by large companies, moved to the more affluent neighboring country to escape the severe economic crisis in their homeland. This new wave of Finnish immigrant workers brought Finnish-language services to the table and the Finnish-language infrastructure was expanded. Already in the 1950s created new Finnish associations, until finally in the fall of 1957, the "National Association of Finns in Sweden" ( English : National Association of Finns in Sweden , shortly NAFS; Swedish: Sverigefinska Riksförbundet shortly SFRF; Finnish: Ruotsinsuomalainen Keskusliitto , RSKL for short) was founded to coordinate the Swedish-Finnish activities nationwide. Today the association has 15,000 members in 130 local associations in 100 municipalities.
Since 2007, the minority has represented itself externally through the unofficial flag of the Swedish Finns .
National minority status
The Swedish Finns received their minority status on April 1, 2000. This status gives everyone the right to use Finnish and Meänkieli in authorities and courts, in the regions where the language is still used to an adequate extent by tradition. The authority has to reply in Finnish. Operation in preschools and elderly care should also be guaranteed in Finnish.
The Finnish administrative area (Finskt förvaltningsområde) in Sweden originally comprised five municipalities in the province of Norrbotten : Gällivare , Haparanda , Kiruna , Pajala and Övertorneå .
On January 1, 2010 the area was expanded to include the following eighteen municipalities in southern Sweden: Botkyrka , Eskilstuna , Hallstahammar , Haninge , Huddinge , Håbo , Köping , Sigtuna , Solna , Stockholm , Södertälje , Tierp , Upplands Väsby , Upplands-Bro , Uppsala , Älvkarleby , Österåker and Östhammar . On May 1, 2010, three more municipalities were added: Borås , Surahammar and Västerås .
This means that there are a total of 26 municipalities in the Finnish administrative area.
Finnism and its historical groups in Sweden
Finnism in Sweden has existed for a long time and in many forms. While most of the Swedish Finns have only recently immigrated, the Tornedalers settled in northern Sweden long ago . Nevertheless, the minority status implies that the Swedish Finns are not necessarily viewed as immigrants , but as part of the historically resident population.
The Finns in Sweden can be divided into five different historical groups:
- The Tornedal Finns in Sweden are not a migrant group or Swedish Finns who have immigrated from Finland, but a Finnish-speaking ethnic group of Swedish citizens. Your variant of Finnish is called Meänkieli or Tornedal Finnish. Since many of them are Swedish or bilingual, they tend to refer to themselves as Tornedaler (Tornedalingar) .
- Finns who emigrated to Sweden before 1809 are not strictly speaking immigrants, as Sweden and Finland formed an empire at the time. The Finnish language disappeared after a few generations. Structural changes in rural areas, urbanization and the Swedish language policy are believed to be the cause. Until the late 20th century, only a few people spoke the so-called fäderneärvd finska (German: Finnish inherited from their fathers). Even among the descendants of the forest fins, very few speak Finnish these days. Still, they are considered a part of Finnish culture in Sweden. There was also a Finnish-speaking population in the Mälardalen area, but they assimilated more quickly.
- Only the Finns who immigrated to Sweden after 1809 can be called immigrants. They make up the majority of Finnish speakers in Sweden today. Most of them immigrated after 1954, when passport controls were lifted in the Nordic countries and free job choice was introduced for Scandinavian citizens.
- The Finnish war children who were evacuated during World War II and their descendants.
- A fifth, smaller group consists of speakers of Finnish who immigrated to Sweden from the historic province of Ingermanland and the Russian part of Karelia . Even if they did not live in Finland, they belong to the ethnic group of Finns. Although they are not Swedish-Finns in the strict sense, they can be called Swedish-Finns. Their ancestors before 1721 may also have been Swedish citizens.
Distribution of the Swedish Finns
The Swedish Finns are generally found all over Sweden. In this respect they differ from the Finnish Swedes, who are mainly concentrated in Svenskfinland ("Sweden- Finland "). However, the majority of Swedish Finns have settled in the industrial belt from Stockholm via Mälardalen to Gothenburg . Some also live in smaller industrial towns in Dalarna , Västmanland and Norrbotten .
Regions with people with Finnish and Meänkieli knowledge
The average proportion of the population with knowledge of Finnish or Meänkieli in Sweden is around six percent. The following regions are above average:
| region | Members of the minority | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | in percent | |
| Norrbotten County | 60,000 | 27.7% |
|
Sjuhärad (a part of the Västra Götalands län ) |
12,000 | 7.0% |
| Södermanland | 16,000 | 7.0% |
| Västmanland County | 14,000 | 6.5% |
| Stockholm County | 102,000 | 6.4% |
| Västerbotten County | 13,000 | 5.7% |
| Dalarna County | 13,000 | 5.6% |
| Uppsala län | 14,000 | 5.6% |
| Gävleborg County | 13,000 | 5.3% |
Sweden-Finland in the municipalities
Most of the Swedish-Finnish countries count the following cities:
| No. | city | Members of the minority |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Stockholm | 46,927 |
| 2. | Gothenburg | 20,372 |
| 3. | Eskilstuna | 12,072 |
| 4th | Västerås | 11,592 |
| 5. | Södertälje | 10,722 |
| 6th | Borås | 9.210 |
| 7th | Uppsala | 8,838 |
| 8th. | Botkyrka | 8,408 |
| 9. | Huddinge | 7,729 |
| 10. | Haninge | 7,015 |
Finnish language media
Finnish-language newspapers are Haparandabladet , which publishes in both Finnish and Swedish, and the weekly Ruotsin Suomalainen , which is published in Stockholm. There was also the Ruotsin Sanomat newspaper , which went bankrupt in 2005. An internet newspaper is Ruotsi.se . In Eskilstuna the newspaper Yks'Kaks is published ten times a year . A Swedish-Finnish cultural magazine is Liekki . In addition, a large number of Swedish daily newspapers in areas with a high Finnish-speaking population also publish news in Finnish.
On weekdays, SVT's Swedish public television broadcasts a Finnish-language news magazine called Uutiset . SVT also distributes the Finnish children's program Karamelli .
The public radio broadcaster Sveriges Radio broadcasts national as well as regional programs for the Finnish-speaking minority on the Sisusradio channel .
See also
Web links
- Ratten till mitt språk - förstarkkt minoritetsskydd Report of the Regeringskansliet on the Finnish and South Sami language (Swedish)
- Ruotsinsuomalaisten Keskusliitto, RSKL Web presence of the Swedish-Finnish National Association (Finnish, Swedish, English)
- Ruotsinsuomalaisten valtuuskunta delegation of the Swedish-Finnish countries (Finnish, Swedish, English)
- Sveriges Radio Sisuradio Finnish-language radio channel from Sweden's public radio SR (Finnish)
Footnotes
- ↑ Eric De Geer from the Finskt språk- och culture center : Den finska närvaron i Mälarregionen ( Memento of the original from August 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Swedish; PDF; 5.6 MB), report by the Finnish Language and Culture Center from 2004, accessed on May 18, 2010
- ↑ Sweden's Ingermanland Reichsverband: Ruotsin Inkeri-Liitto (RIL) / Sveriges Ingermanländska Riksförbund (SIR) (Swedish), accessed on May 18, 2010
- ↑ Sverigefinska Riksförbundet ( Memento of the original from December 19, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Swedish, Finnish), accessed May 18, 2010
