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Swedish was the dominant language of the nobility, administration, and education; Finnish was chiefly a language for the peasantry, clergy, and local courts in predominantly Finnish-speaking areas. During the Protestant Reformation, the Finns gradually converted to Lutheranism.[43]
In the 16th century, a bishop and Lutheran Reformer Mikael Agricola published the first written works in Finnish;[44] and Finland's current capital city, Helsinki, was founded by King Gustav Vasa in 1555.[45] The first university in Finland, the Royal Academy of Turku, was established by Queen Christina of Sweden at the proposal of Count Per Brahe in 1640.[46][47]
The Finns reaped a reputation in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) as a well-trained cavalrymen called "Hakkapeliitta".[48] Finland suffered a severe famine in 1695–1697, during which about one third of the Finnish population died,[49] and a devastating plague a few years later.
In the 18th century, wars between Sweden and Russia twice led to the occupation of Finland by Russian forces, times known to the Finns as the Greater Wrath (1714–1721) and the Lesser Wrath (1742–1743).[50][49] It is estimated that almost an entire generation of young men was lost during the Great Wrath, due mainly to the destruction of homes and farms, and the burning of Helsinki.[51]
The Swedish era ended in the Finnish War in 1809. On 29 March 1809, having been taken over by the armies of Alexander I of Russia, Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy in the Russian Empire with the recognition given at the Diet held in Porvoo. This situation lasted until the end of 1917.[50] In 1812, Alexander I incorporated the Russian Vyborg province into the Grand Duchy of Finland. In 1854, Finland became involved in Russia's involvement in the Crimean War, when the British and French navies bombed the Finnish coast and Åland during the so-called Åland War.[52]
Though the Swedish language was still widely spoken, during this period the Finnish language began to gain more recognition. From the 1860s onwards, a strong Finnish nationalist movement known as the Fennoman movement grew. One of its most prominent leading figures of the movement was the philosopher and politician J. V. Snellman, who pushed for the stabilization of the status of the Finnish language and its own currency, the Finnish markka, in the Grand Duchy of Finland.[52][53] 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. In the spirit of the notion of Adolf Ivar Arwidsson (1791–1858) – "we are not Swedes, we do not want to become Russians, let us therefore, be Finns" – a Finnish national identity was established.[54] Still there was no genuine independence movement in Finland until the early 20th century.[55]
The Finnish famine of 1866–1868 occurred after freezing temperatures in early September ravaged crops,[56] and it killed approximately 15% of the population, making it one of the worst famines in European history. The famine led the Russian Empire to ease financial regulations, and investment rose in the following decades. Economic development was rapid.[57] The gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was still half of that of the United States and a third of that of Britain.[57]
From 1869 until 1917, the Russian Empire pursued a policy known as the "Russification of Finland". This policy was interrupted between 1905 and 1908. 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, universal suffrage was, in practice, virtually meaningless, since the tsar did not have to approve any of the laws adopted by the Finnish parliament. The desire for independence gained ground, first among radical liberals[58] and socialists, driven in part by a declaration called the February Manifesto by the last tsar of the Russian Empire, Nicholas II, on 15 February 1899.[59]