These images show the medal that the Russian army minted to commemorate the 1831 conquest of Warsaw. You can occasionally still find these in Finnish antique shops; this one was provided courtesy of Jani Tiainen’s Finnmedals in Helsinki.
Before we leave behind the Finnish soldiers who fought on behalf of Russia in Poland back in 1831, there are a few questions left to be answered. What were the consequences of the war for Finland? What were its effects on Poland? In the short term, the Polish campaign of 1831 undoubtedly strengthened the Grand-Duchy of Finland. In the context of the politically incendiary situation in 1830-1831, the Finnish Guard’s participation in the Polish campaign played an important role in securing Imperial favor for the Grand-Duchy’s autonomous status. At a time of crisis, Finland demonstrated to the Russian Empire that (unlike Poland) she could be trusted.
For the Finnish officers who had distinguished themselves on the front, the campaign marked the beginning of some splendid careers. Adolf Aminoff, the young lieutenant from the painting in the fourth part of the story, rose to the rank of General of Infantry and ended his career as an adjutant of Alexander III. Henrik Lyra, whom the Poles captured at Długosiodło, became a General Major. The young Casimir von Kothen became the adjutant for Governor-General Aleksandr Sergeyevich Menshikov, and later the governor of the province of Viipuri. And finally, Colonel Ramsay, the commander of the Guard, became General of Infantry and a member of the Russian Imperial War Council. In short, over the decades preceding the Crimean War, the government of the Grand-Duchy of Finland was in the hands of officers who had earned their ranks on the battlefields of Poland.
For the common people of the Grand-Duchy, the Guard’s campaign of the became the first concrete example of a developing Finnish patriotism that put love for the Finnish fatherland and loyalty towards the Russian Emperor into one and the same breath with no sense of contradiction. A belief in the virtues of the Finnish soldier instilled a special sense of devotion and enthusiasm, celebrated in popular broadside ballads that proclaimed the willingness of the younger generations to follow the example of their predecessors and take up arms under the banner of the Finnish Guard in defense of Finland and the Empire:
Sotamieheks' mielelläni lähden aivan totta,
jos waan minut Keisarini Suomen Kaartiin ottaa.
Minä menen soltaatiksi, menen aivan wissiin,
Suomen eestä henkenikin panen myös alttiiksi.
Minussa on elämä, ja minussa on henki,
enkä tahdo olla minä talonpojan renki.
Iloinen on luontonikin, wereni myös juoksee,
sydämeni haluaakin Suomen Kaartin luokse.
I will leave to be a soldier, I will do it gladly
if just to the Finnish Guard my Emperor will take me
I shall be a soldier, and a soldier I’ll be truly
For Finland, I shall risk my life, and always faithfully
My heart, it throbs with life, and a strong spirit is in me
I will not remain as a mere farmhand in the country.
Always merry is my nature, and animate my blood
and only to the Finnish Guard my heart desires to go.
Two decades after the Polish campaign, these feelings reached their height during the Crimean War, when Finland had to defend itself against a British maritime assault. The Finnish willingness to fight against the enemies of the Russian Empire made a lasting impression on Nicholas I, who commended the northwestern borderland in his political testament with the words: “Leave Finland alone; all through my long reign, it has been the one and the only part of my Empire that has never caused me one sleepless night.” For the next forty-four years — until the February Manifesto of Nicholas II marked the first step in the abrogation of the Finnish autonomy — his successors to the Russian throne followed this advice.
As noted in the third part of the story, many Poles did not fail to notice the participation of the Finnish soldiers in the suppression of the insurrection. Adam Mickiewicz briefly mentioned the obscure northern nation in his lectures on the Slavonic literature in Paris. The Polish national poet regarded the Finns as one of the barbarous foreign peoples who, together with the Tatars, had corrupted the original Slavonic character of Russia. In Mickiewicz’s opinion, the Finns were “born as slaves, loving their yoke and blindly following orders.”
Other Polish authors rendered more favorable judgments. Bołesław Prus, who became one of the leading advocates of conciliation with Russia, promoted Finland as an example to be followed. He reasoned that since collaboration with the Imperial master had brought benefits for Finland, a similar policy could bring comparable benefits to Poland. (Was he wrong? —NM) Simultaneously, a certain dualism emerged in Finnish opinions vis-à-vis the Polish insurrection, based on the silent admiration of the enemy that was still a standard feature of the romantic concept of warfare. (I have to disagree with you on this, Jussi. It is a standard feature of most non-romantic modern views of warfare as well. —NM)
In 1891, a Swedish-speaking Finnish novelist Johan Jakob Ahrenberg recalled the 1831 campaign in his novel Anor och ungdom. (“Heritage and Youth.”) The protagonist, the young officer Carl Alexander Stjernstedt, is left emotionally scarred when he is ordered to supervise the execution of Polish insurgents. The memory of their shouts “Vivat Poloniae” echo in his ears long afterwards. In addition to being probably the first description of post-traumatic stress disorder in Finnish literature, Ahrenberg’s novel managed to nicely capture the ambivalence behind the Finnish participation in the Polish campaign and epitomized how the sense of pride slowly gave way to feelings of futility, frustration and guilt in the Finnish historical memory.
Over the years, the memory of the Polish campaign gradually faded to oblivion, apparently at least partly due to a deliberate amnesia. In 1899, the February Manifesto asserted the right of the tsarist government to rule Finland without consulting either the Finnish Senate or the Diet. In response, the Finnish novelist August Schauman recalled that the Russian Empire continued to owe a debt of honor to the Finnish soldiers who had fought and bled in the defense of the Empire. He had little effect. Russification continued until the 1905 Revolution, and after a brief setback resumed in 1908. By the time the 1917 Revolution broke out, the bonds linking Finland to the Empire had frayed.
When the Guard’s Battalion celebrated its 1925 centennial in the newly-independent Republic of Finland, the Polish campaign was glossed over by a simple statement: “It is not pleasant today to remember that Finnish soldiers were helping to suppress a people fighting for its liberty, but one has to take into account that opinion was different back then.” The Polish campaign, once celebrated as a fulfillment of patriotism and loyalty, was practically erased from history. Adam Mickiewicz’s famous description of Poland as the betrayed Christ, the Messiah of the Nations waiting for the Resurrection, can thus be matched by a description of Finland as the Roman centurion who dutifully follows his orders, participates in the crucifixion and impales the body of the Savior, but who nonetheless also acknowledges the executed Christ as the Son of the God at the moment of his death.
But these matters no longer belong to the story of the Finnish Guard’s campaign in Poland in 1831. Simply put, the end result was that for better and for worse, the November Rising and the 1831 campaign determined the fates of Poland and Finland within the Russian Empire for the rest of the 19th century. The Polish attempt to regain independence by force of arms was crushed, resulting in eight decades of repression under Russian rule, followed, after a quarter-century hiatus, by 4½ more.
In contrast, the contribution of the Finnish guardsmen to the suppression of the Polish uprising ensured that the Grand-Duchy of Finland could secure self-government for seven decades. The irony of history was that the survival of Finnish autonomy depended on the destruction of Poland, and the further strengthening of Finland’s autonomous status during the 19th century took place at Poland’s expense. Less ironically, perhaps, it all turned out to be temporary in the end.
Comments