25 - Suur Suomi

Finland gained independence from Russia right after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. A civil war ensued, along the lines of the post-revolution conflict in Russia itself: ‘Reds’ against ‘Whites’. The conservative ‘White’ forces won out, thanks in part to support of the Germans.

An outgrowth of this conservative victory was the birth of an irredentist, ‘Pan-Finnish’ movement, claiming a ‘Greater Finland’ (Suur Suomi) composed of all areas inhabited by Finns or by people ethnically related to Finns. This irredentism was in large part aimed at areas still under control of the fledgling Soviet Union.