A Finnish Sauna on a lake shore
The Finnish culture can be seen as part of the Western culture which is strongly influenced by Catholic and Protestant Christian tradition. Although it is thought that the Finnish people and Finnish-speakers have lived in the geographical area of Finland for at least 5000 years, the impact of German and Swedish culture is very big in Finland, probably because Finland belonged to Sweden for 700 years between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries.
Russian influence has been equally important, as over a hundred years, Finland belonged to Russia until its divestiture in 1917. Despite the various influences, Finland is said to have a very typically “Finnish culture” that is often characterized, according to the Finns, by the sauna, the sisu (Finnish concept of stamina) and closeness to the nature.
In the Finnish culture there are variations according to geography and population groups. Today you can easily distinguish the various dialects spoken in different regions and the different customs of those regions, despite the fact that the populations of the different Finnish regions have been unified with time and have become very similar to each other in terms of beliefs and forms of expression.
The cultural minorities that stand out among the Finnish people, as the Gypsies, the Lapps (also called the Sami) or the Finno-Swedes still retain powerfully their own customs, creating highly significant subcultures within the panorama of the Finnish culture. For example the Finno-Swedes, Finns who have the Swedish language as their mother tongue, form the 5% of the entire population of Finland.
Since Finland is a country that was urbanized relatively late, a large part of the Finnish population is linked to the rural zones and peripheral residential centers. Also many of those living in large urban areas tend to spend their free time in the countryside, and more specifically in cottages on the shores of lakes, which is a very typically Finnish practice given the large number of lakes and miles of shoreline that the Finnish surface includes. For the Finns, their cottage is their summer home where one can escape and relax by taking a sauna and bathing in freshwater lakes.
It could be said, given the proximity of the Finns with the nature, that the Finnish culture is built on relatively ascetic realities of the environment, on traditional livelihood and a heritage of egalitarianism based on universal suffrage and rights of all citizens to use the common land called the “Everyman’s Rights”. Besides, the traditional ideal of self-reliance is widespread in Finland with the idea of “who works the land is who will enjoy it”. Surely these rights could be implemented in practice by the low estate of the Finnish people to the ranks of nobility, and therefore the absence of continued and hereditary profits on the lands.
Finland, having spent much of its history under the power of Sweden and Russia, could control their lands in an autonomous way the most times of invasion, having the possibility, after it’s independence, to have the power to declare all the lands free to visit and to walk by all the citizens regardless of individual ownership of each piece of land.
