Finland’s traces of human settlement date back to the thaw of the last Ice Age some 10,000 years ago. The Finns’ ancestors seem to have dominated half of northern Russia before arriving on the north of the Baltic coast well before the Christian era. By the end of the Viking Age, Swedish traders and chieftains had extended their interests throughout the Baltic region. Over the centuries, Finland has sat precariously between the Protestant Swedish empire and Eastern Orthodox Russia. For seven centuries, from the 12th century until 1809, it was part of Sweden.

Finland was blighted by constant battles with Russia and severe famines. From 1696-97, famine killed a third of all Finns. The 1700s were punctuated by bitter wars against Russia, culminating in the eventual loss of Finland to Russia in 1809. With nationalism beginning to surge during the latter half of the 19th century, Finland gained greater autonomy as a Grand Duchy, though new oppression and Russification followed, making Finns emotionally ripe for independence.

The downfall of the tsar of Russia and the Communist revolution in 1917 made it possible for the Finnish senate to declare independence on 6 December 1917. Demoralising internal violence flared up, with Russian-supported ‘Reds’ clashing with nationalist ‘Whites’ who took the German state as their model. During 108 days of a bloody civil war, approximately 30,000 Finns were killed by their fellow citizens. Although the Whites were victorious, Germany’s weakened position after WWI discredited it as a political model and relations with the Soviet Union were soon normalised. Political salves did little to heal the wounds of civil war, however, and stories of ‘peacetime’ massacres are still emerging from these dark days of Finnish history.

Further anticommunist violence broke out in the early 1930s and, despite the signing of a nonaggression pact in 1932, Soviet relations remained uneasy. The Soviet Union’s security concerns in the Finnish Karelian territory led to the Winter War in 1939. After months of courageous fighting, Finland lost part of Karelia and some nearby islands. Isolated from Western allies, Finland turned to Germany for help and slowly began to resettle Karelia, including some areas that had been in Russian possession since the 18th century. When Soviet forces staged a huge comeback in the summer of 1944, the Finns sued for peace. Finland pursued a bitter war to oust German forces from Lapland until the general peace in the spring of 1945. Finland’s war experience was not only an enormous military defeat; it was an economic disaster because of the burden of reparations imposed by the Soviets.

A weakened Finland took a new line in its Soviet relations, ceding the Karelian Isthmus and agreeing to recognise Soviet security concerns in defending its frontiers. The 25 years of Urho Kekkonen’s presidency (1956-81) were a clever balancing act: Kekkonen kept a tight grip on domestic power, and managed to strengthen ties with Scandinavian siblings without alienating the big huggy bear to the east.

The collapse of the Soviet Union came at a difficult time for Finland. Its right foot - bogged in the free market - had to endure the late-1980s slump, and its left foot - tied up by Soviet borrowings - encountered the dissolution of its debtor. Due to Finland’s generous social security payments, sudden rises in unemployment put intolerable pressure on government finances.

In the 1990s Finland’s overheated economy went through a cooling off period marked by the floating of the Finn markka. Finland voted to join the European Union in late 1994 and became a full member in 1995. In the 1995 elections a Social Democrat-dominated coalition ousted the right-wing coalition. A UN survey in 1998 rated Finland fifth in the world in terms of quality of life.

Since joining the EU, Finland has received considerable assistance from Brussels, and was one of the member countries to fully adopt the euro in 2001. In February 2000, Finns elected their first ever female president - left-leaning Tarja Halonen.

The Signal achievement of Finland has been its survival against great odds–against a harsh climate, physical and cultural isolation, and international dangers. Finland lies at higher latitudes than any other nation in the world, and the punishing northern climate has complicated life there considerably. Geographically, Finland is on the remote northern periphery, far from the mass of Europe, yet near two larger states, Sweden and Russia–later the Soviet Union, which have drawn it into innumerable wars and have controlled its development.

The most serious challenges to Finland’s freedom came during World War II, when the Finns twice faced attack by overwhelming Soviet forces. They fought heroically, but were defeated both times, and the Soviets were narrowly prevented from occupying and absorbing Finland. Since World War II, the Soviet Union’s status as a superpower has meant that it could at any time end Finland’s existence as a separate state. Recognizing this, the Finns have sought and achieved reconciliation with the Soviets, and they have tenaciously pursued a policy of neutrality, avoiding entanglement in superpower conflicts.

The long era of peace after World War II made possible the blossoming of Finland as a modern, industrialized, social-welfare democracy. By the 1980s, the intense social conflicts of previous decades were largely reconciled, and the nation’s relationships with other nations were apparently stable.
Conclusive archaeological evidence exists indicating that the area now comprising Finland was settled around 8500 BC, during the Stone Age, as the inland ice of the last ice age receded. The earliest inhabitants are thought to have been hunter-gatherers, living primarily off what the forests and sea could offer. Pottery is known from around 5300 BC. The existence of extensive exchange systems is indicated by the spread of asbestos and soapstone from Eastern Finland, and by founds of flint from South Scandinavia and Russia, chisels from Lake Onega, and spearheads from North Scandinavia. Currently it is considered probable that the speakers of the Finno-Ugric language arrived in Finland during the Stone Age, possibly even among the first Mesolithic settlers. The arrival of the Battle-Axe Culture (or Cord-Ceramic Culture) in Southern Finland around 3200 BC is considered as the start of agriculture. However, hunting and fishing continued to be important parts of the subsistence economy, especially in the northern and eastern parts of the country.

The Bronze Age (1500–500 BC) and Iron Age (500 BC–AD 1200) were characterized by extensive contacts with Scandinavia, Northern Russia and the Baltic region.

Old Scandinavian sagas and some historians like Danish Saxo Grammaticus and Arabian Al Idrisi tell that there have been Finnish kings before Sweden conquered Finland. Hversu Noregr byggdist saga for example tells about Finnish kings one of whom founded Norway. Another saga tells about Faravid, king of Kvenland, who became a friend and ally of his Norwegian colleague, with whom he arranged war parties. Whether there is any truth behind the stories is a disputed subject, however.

The beginning of Finland’s nearly 700-year association with the Kingdom of Sweden is traditionally connected with the year 1154 and the alleged introduction of Christianity by Sweden’s King Erik. Actually many of the Finnish pagans were already Christened hundreds of years before. Swedish became the dominant language of administration and education; Finnish chiefly a language for the peasantry, considered useful mainly for printing religious literature.

During the 18th century, virtually the whole of Finland was twice occupied by Russian forces (1714–1721 and 1742–1743), by the Finns known as the Greater Wrath and the Lesser Wrath. After that, “Finland” became the predominant term for the area — both in domestic Swedish debate and in Russian propaganda promising “liberation from Swedish oppression”.

In 1808, Finland was conquered by the armies of Russian Emperor Alexander I and thereafter remained an autonomous Grand Duchy in personal union with the Russian Empire until the end of 1917. To sever the cultural and emotional ties with Sweden, the Finnish language was ardently promoted by both the imperial court and the Finnish government and a strong nationalist movement, known as fennomania, since about 1860s. Milestones in this development were the publication of what would become Finland’s national epic, the Kalevala, in 1835; and Finnish getting a legally equal status with Swedish in 1892.

On December 6, 1917, shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, Finland declared its independence. The independence was recognised by Bolshevist Russia, but the following civil wars in Russia, in Finland and activist expeditions to White Karelia and to Aunus complicated the relations. The Finnish–Russian border was agreed on only with the Treaty of Tartu in 1920.

In 1918, the country experienced a brief but bitter Civil War that coloured domestic politics for many years. The Civil War was chiefly fought between “the whites”, supported by Imperial Germany, and “the reds”. The reds consisted mostly of propertyless rural and industrial workers who despite universal suffrage in 1906 had found themselves without political influence.

The social frontier between the ruling and the working classes has been broader in Finland than in most comparable countries. Into the 19th century there was a most obvious language barrier; then during the 19th century Finland developed a proud university-educated meritocracy that felt as being the true representation of “the people” since they spoke the people’s language and since a great deal of their ancestors really had been poor peasants.

During World War II, Finland fought the Soviet Union twice: in the Winter War of 1939–1940 and again in the Continuation War of 1941–1944 (with support from Germany). This was followed by the Lapland War of 1944–1945, when Finland forced the Germans out of northern Finland.

Treaties signed in 1947 and 1948 with the Soviet Union included obligations and restraints on Finland vis-à-vis the Soviet Union as well as further territorial concessions by Finland (compared to the Moscow Peace Treaty of 1940).

After the Second World War, Finland was in the grey zone between western countries and Soviet Union. The “YYA Treaty” (Finno-Soviet Pact of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance) gave the Soviet Union some leverage in Finnish domestic politics. Many politicians, like President Kekkonen (1956–81), used their relations with the Kremlin to solve party controversies, which meant that the Soviet Union got even more influence; other people worked single-mindedly to oppose the communists.

When the Soviet Union fell in 1991 Finland was surprised and suffered economically, but was free to follow her own course and joined the European Union in 1995, where Finland is an advocate of federalism contrary to the other Nordic countries that are predominantly supportive of confederalism.