Country Life and Politics in Finland, 1914
A glimpse into rural life in Finland in 1914, just before its independence, including its remarkably equal political system.
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“Country Life,” from Finland, A Little Land That is True to Itself, by Helen Gray, 1914.
Borga — Little Red Farm-houses — Homes of the Gentry — Dairying — Peasant Interest in Public Affairs — "Savijärvi" — The Finnish Bath — Peasant Proprietors — Electioneering — A Woman Candidate — Politics over the Tea-cups — How Woman Suffrage Came — The Kerchief Women.
At Borga there is a fine natural tower, a great boulder of granite, and there are many such places all over Finland. From them one may see many magnificent views, and there is a long, long road through a pretty farm country of firs and pines and birches, and there are stone-hills out of which the birches and pines and firs appear to be growing. There are stacks of hay and growing oats, and little red farm-houses, some with black roofs, some with red; and then there is the beautiful country home of a Swedish-Finn family, — “Savijarvi."
Life in a country home of the gentry class is the same in Finland as it is elsewhere. Perhaps there is more al fresco living in Finland, for the people literally live out of doors in their precious summer moments. The landscape shows a rolling country with boulders of rock and water pictures, and with birches and pines and firs crowded in. Then there are pretty flower beds, a park, and glimpses of busy haymakers.
Dairying being the second great industry of Finland, it was interesting to visit the stables where were to be found fine cattle and horses. The tenant system is practised here, and there is also the laborer who is paid for his work. Finnish peasants are fond of reading, and as I passed a circle of them sitting on the grass at the noon hour one was reading a newspaper to a responsive audience. We were on our way to a laborer's cottage where bread was being made, — Finnish bread, the prevailing kind used by the peasants, being in the shape of a big ring with a hole in the middle, to permit of its being strung across in the room. The bread is sometimes baked twice a week, but often it is baked only twice a year.
At ''Savijarvi" I made the acquaintance of the Finnish bath. Every house has its “sauna” or bath-house, which is arranged something like this: a fire is made in an oven which heats a pile of stones, over which water is poured; and the steam rising heats the bath-house to something like boiling heat. In the evening, after the harvest, come the peasants, — men, women, and children, some of them clothed only in their skins (the Finlanders are not ashamed of their skin), — and take their places on the tiers of benches along the walls. They switch themselves and each other vigorously with birch switches, dipped in steaming water to soften them, after which comes scrubbing and rubbing, — the massage, — and perhaps a run for a dip in the lake, or, if it be winter, a roll in the snow. I have not given a complete description. You must go over to Finland and sample the Finnish bath for yourself, and you will find that you have never been clean before; at least, that is what they say.
In summer the peasants bathe every evening; in winter, every Saturday. The family at the big house take their baths at other times, and heating the bath-house is quite a business.
One afternoon I learned what a ''peasant proprietor" is, and then I knew why a land is rich that includes many or any of the "bonder class" in its population. There is a satisfaction in the well-to-do air that pervades one of their farms, from the superior farm-house to the fine stable with its well-kept cows. A peep into the dwelling shows a spinning-wheel and a Grandfather's clock, and home-made things a-plenty, and tiled chimneys.
One of these peasant proprietors, although well-to-do and having a brother who follows a profession, always signs “peasant" after his name. He is proud of it. He is hale and hearty and peasant-faced, albeit he could buy you out mayhap. The other was proprietored by a widow. In the hall, hanging on the rack, I noticed a little white velvet cap with the laurel wreath and lyre. I was told that one of the daughters had been to a dairy school to prepare herself to take care of cows and the other to an agricultural school to prepare herself for caring for poultry.
Dairying is the principal business on these farms, although wood is sold from them, and vegetables are raised, — the same as we have: beets, potatoes, peas, onions, pie-plant, asparagus, tomatoes, and cabbages.
But electioneering is on in Helsingfors — all over Finland for that matter. I hadn't been thirty-six hours in the most northernmost little capital of Europe before I was talking politics over the teacups with a lady who was a candidate for election. I met a number of these fine women, so splendidly wide-awake, yet with no disagreeably antagonising assertiveness in their manners. Indeed, the Finland women are in the political world because the men found they couldn't do without them. Their being there came about naturally. In the early days of their sorrow, when the Russian Tsar intimated by manifesto his desire to destroy them, they showed such amazing capability that when the Tsar changed his autocratic mind, — changed it for a while, at least, — the women were already in the political world, and adult suffrage was a mere matter of happening, sanctioned by the Tsar of all the Russias.
The several political meetings I attended I cherish as among my most agreeable memories of Finland. Although the language was Greek to me, there was generally someone present who could give me the gist of the talk; and then there was in the atmosphere an indefinable something that said to me: ''It is well!"
Nothing interested me more at these meetings than to watch the keen, penetrating, — I may almost say analytical, — faces of the peasant women of Finland, — the Kerchief women, the women who go barefoot in their round of work, who wear cotton clothes, who put handkerchiefs over their heads and tie them under their chins. They are not pretty, these Kerchief women of Finland; there is nothing coy about them, nothing simple-minded, but better than that, they are strong in mind and body.
In a country district the person that makes speeches for a candidate is asked over and over again by these women, "Has she the courage to stand out against Russia!" And when they are satisfied that she has the courage to say "No" to Russia, then they decide to vote for her. One of them remarked that it seemed strange to her now that women did not always have the vote.
"What do you say to them?" I asked a candidate of the Swedish National party. She replied: "That we must first of all stand for our constitutional rights, fight for them; that if we once give way, it will be almost impossible to retrieve. If you build a house of five stories you must see to it first that the ground upon which you build it is safe. I tell them that the duty of every Finnish citizen is first of all to stand against Russian encroachments. And then I tell them that we, the Swedish-speaking Finns, must think of our nationality and send the best people to the Diet to defend our Swedish-speaking people."
Gray, Helen. Finland, A Little Land That is True to Itself. Neale Publishing, 1914.
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