[PRCo] Finland (OT from: SS Normandie (OT from: car restoration work))

[Donald Galt]

On 27 May 2003 at 12:48, Harold Geissenheimer wrote:

> He made an interesting point...only 3 capitols of Waorld War II
> participants were not occupied...London, Moscow and Helsinki. 

Some think that Washington is under occupation right now. But during WW2?

> Finns are wonderful people.  good friends of the USA.
> 
> But even they have a minority problem. About one eighth of the population
> is Swedish left over from the days of the Swedish King.  Its a dual language
> country.
> 

Indeed, we use the Swedish name for the country that the Finns call Suomi. 

But Swedish might have retained only the status of regional language comparable 
to that of Spanish in the USA  - though, by contrast, it had an elite 
constituency - were it not that Alexander I's defeat of Gustavus IV meant that 
when Finland finally gained independence it was from Russia rather than from 
Sweden. So establishment of Swedish as an official language twisted the tail of 
the ever-present Russian bear.

Don