Synopsis
The Russo-Finnish Border in the Eighteenth Century
On 16/29 March 1809, Alexander I summoned representatives of Finland's social estates to Porvoo (Borgå), a medieval Swedish town midway between the Russo-Finnish border, as drawn in the peace treaty of Turku (Åbo) in 1743, and Helsinki, Finland's future capital. The Tsar established his sovereignty over the newly-annexed territory in Porvoo's Lutheran church by famously pledging to maintain Finland's existing laws, privileges and institutions. In response, each of the estates paid respect and homage to the Tsar by pledging an oath of loyalty and allegiance to the new sovereign.
This homage ceremony at the Diet of Porvoo became a subject of heated debate between Russians and Finns in the late nineteenth century. Notwithstanding their conflicting views, however, both sides agreed that, in granting Finland its special legal status, the right to practise its religion freely, and its own central administration, Alexander I created the foundation for Finland's transformation into a modern nation state. Ever since, the Diet of Porvoo is widely regarded as the formative moment that brought the Finnish state into existence.
Such a view, which defines the Diet of Porvoo as the origin of Finland's state and nationhood, largely overlooks the fact that this assembly of the Finnish estates also marked the end of a long struggle over the jurisdictional, political and territorial control of the territory that later became the Finnish state. Arguably, since medieval times, neither the Swedish crown nor the Muscovite tsars had any political interest in the Finnish lands, which had been an integral part of the Swedish empire since the thirteenth century. From the time of the reign of Gustav Vasa (1523-1560), however, Sweden's expansionist policies resulted in an increasing awareness on the part of both the Swedish and Russian governments of the need to control of land and the people of this region. The frontier between Sweden and Russia in Finland gradually became part of the Russo-Swedish rivalry in the Baltic region. Russia's annexation of Finland in 1809 had its origins in this long-standing rivalry.
The eighteenth century witnessed the culmination of this struggle for supremacy in Finland and the Baltic region more generally. Russia’s rise in the region, symbolized by the foundation of St. Petersburg in 1703, and the weakening of Swedish power changed the nature of the Swedish relationship with Finland. The Great Northern War (1700-1721) and the Russo-Swedish War (1741-1743) brought hardship to the population of Finland, including military occupation and the need to supply conscripts and supplies for the invading armies; the two wars also led to the annexation of relatively heavily-populated territory by Russia.
Finns, in particular the mainly Swedish-speaking members of the elite, began to consider their future during a period of Swedish attempts at cultural and linguistic assimilation and Russian military offensives. When, in 1742, the empress Elizabeth raised the possibility that Finland could become a Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire, the idea of Finland as some form of geographical entity between Russia and Sweden emerged for the first time, albeit without any proposed measure of self-determination. Henceforth, Finland's separation from Sweden became an option that was advocated from several sides – Russian, Swedish and Finnish – and at several key moments during the second half of the eighteenth century. While both the Russian and Swedish governments sought to identify, define and thereby secure the shifting military border, at least some leading Finnish individuals began to express their desire for autonomy in order to defend their local interests. In this way, the Finns can be said to have played a role role in Russia's annexation of Finland in 1809.
Goran Magnus Sprengtporten, a Swedish-speaking Finnish nobleman, played a central role in the history of the Russo-Finnish border in the eighteenth century and in the creation of the Grand Duchy of Finland by Alexander I. Born near Porvoo in 1740, Sprengtporten received his first education in the cadet training school in Stockholm. As a schoolboy, he witnessed at close quarters the uprising of the Swedish riksdag against King Adolf Friedrich (1751-71) in 1756, which was followed by the execution of his teacher and the closure of his school. Sprengtporten then returned to Finland, where his education continued under the tutelage of Augustin Erensverd, the chief architect of the fortress of Sveaborg, who trained him as an engineer in the fortress. The two men subsequently fought together as officers during the Seven Years’ War.
After the war, Sprengtporten returned to Finland and devoted himself to military history, drawing and music for several years. Simultaneously, and in concert with Sweden's increasing interest in the region, he first reconnoitred the whole length of the Russo-Finnish border in 1765 and then, during the summer of 1767, the entire Norwegian-Finnish border. Thus at 27, the young Sprengtporten was a highly competent soldier who had most thoroughly explored Finland's eastern and western borders by foot, and with a compass and measuring equipment, and who was, by training, fully cognizant with command of the latest technical knowledge in fortification science.
As a Finnish nobleman and army officer, Sprengtporten was unavoidably involved in Sweden's internal political turmoil during the period. He proved his unconditional loyalty to the Swedish King during the revolution of 1772 when – together with his brother – he helped to restore royal power in a bloodless military coup. Gustav III rewarded him by supporting a project that Sprengporten then turned into a most successful and promising enterprise. He was given command of the Savolax brigade on the eastern frontier of Sweden, initially as a colonel and then as a brigadier. Thus, having exhaustively studied the border’s physical dimensions in the 1750s, Sprengtporten was responsible for organising defensive barriers along its entire length to the east that he had put in place by the mid 1770s.
In the Savo region, Sprengtporten distinguished himself as an extraordinary organiser and administrator. Neither Savo nor Karelia, both of which directly bordered Russia, had a single fortress to protect the border. A considerable number of disparate troops had first to be trained and then to be dispersed at regular intervals along the border in order to build up an effective line of defence. Sprengtporten also encouraged the intellectual development of his officers by setting up a library and by assigning written or topographical exercises for them. His educational efforts culminated in the foundation of a cadet school in Hamina (Fredrikshamn) in 1779, which became the Finnish cadet school.
Gustav III could not have chosen a better expert to secure Sweden's eastern border. Sprengtporten, a brilliant soldier and military engineer trained at the fortress at Sveaborg, reconnoitred the border, trained the troops in Savo, and was, not least, a Finnish nobleman, and one of the leading contemporary experts on the border. But Sprengtporten fell out with the Swedish King. By 1780, Sweden's political climate had changed and Gustav's conservative policies had fostered a growing mood of discontent and opposition within the officer corps, and in particular amongst the Swedish-speaking Finnish nobility. When the King launched another war against Catherine II in 1790, Finnish officers were willing to relinquish their loyalty to Sweden by instead serving the Russian tsarina and identifying themselves with Russia.
Sprengtporten, most significantly, developed specific plans for Finnish resistance against Sweden. In part influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution, he made several proposals for separating Finland from Sweden. Already during the period 1783-4, rumours in Finland had suggested that the King would negotiate with Russia to place Finland under Russian rule while Sweden would be compensated with Norway – this, of course, is what finally happened at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In 1784, Sprengtporten proposed that a future Grand Duchy should be ruled by Karl Suderman, Gustav III’s brother, but Karl rejected the offer. Finally, in 1786, Sprengtporten approached the Russian representative Stepan Kolychev in Holland, and raised the idea of a Finnish republic under the protection of Russia, with Sprengtporten himself as protector of the republic. Kolychev assured Sprengtporten of the support of the Russian court and the project was sent to St Petersburg. One year later Sprengtporten entered Russian service.
Sprengtporten quickly changed from an ardent adherent of the Swedish King to being the chief advisor on Finnish affairs to Catherine II and, subsequently, to Alexander I. During the Russo-Swedish war (1788-1790), he led Russian troops against Sweden, including against the soldiers from Savo, who he had once trained. Moreover, crucially, he supported over 100 leading Finnish military officers in an extraordinary conspiracy against Gustav III. However, after the war, the pre-existing boundaries were confirmed. During the 1790s, the question of Finnish separation from Sweden was not discussed further.
As a Swedish traitor, Sprengtporten was sentenced to death by a court in Turku and thus preferred to stay in Russia. After inspecting fortifications in the Russian south, he re-emerged on the international stage as Alexander I's advisor on the Finnish question in 1806. This time, he was charged with administering the population rather than with leading troops. But he was crucially involved in initiating and organising the diet of Porvoo and was eventually appointed as Finland's first governor-general in 1808, a post that he held only for one year, however.
Sprengtporten’s career illustrates the long and complex process of territorial annexation, which led to the treaty of Hamina (Fredrikshamn) between Russia and Sweden in September 1809. Within the political frameworks of the two empires, Sprengtporten (and others) investigated and helped to construct, as well as protect, Sweden's border to the east, alongside an emerging sense of Finnish identity. In order to secure the fundamental protection of Finnish lives, including his own, Sprengtporten, became the key advisor to the Russian tsars on the Russo-Finnish border and implemented an old idea of Finland as a unified territory, as distinct from Sweden.
- Charlotte Henze, Kantonsschule Hohe Promenade, Zurich (Switzerland)
charlotte.henze@kshp.ch
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