Treaty of Fredrikshamn
The
Treaty of Fredrikshamn (
Freden i Fredrikshamn in
Swedish and
Haminan rauha in
Finnish ) was a
peace treaty concluded between
Sweden and
Russia on
September 17,
1809. The treaty concluded the
Finnish War and was signed in the present-day
Finnish town of
Hamina.
According to the treaty Sweden ceded parts of the provinces
Laponia and
Västerbotten (east of
Torne River and
Muonio River),
Åland, and all provinces east thereof. The ceded territories came to constitute the
Grand Duchy of Finland, to which also the Russian
18th century conquests of
Karelia including small parts of
Nylandia and
Savonia (later to be called
Old Finland) were joined in
1812 as Province of Viipuri.
Together with the
Porvoo Diet (
1809), and the Oath of the Sovereign [
1], the Treaty of Fredrikshamn constitutes the cornerstone for the
autonomous Grand Duchy, its own administration and institutions, and thereby a start of the development which would lead to the revival of Finnish culture, to equal position of the
Finnish language, and ultimately in
1917 to Finland's
independence.
A reference to
Tsar Alexander's promise to retain old laws and privileges in Finland was included, but the treaty overstepped any formal guarantees of the legal position of Finland's inhabitants. The Russians refused, and the Swedes were not in a position to insist. Similar clauses had been common in peace treaties, but they were also regularly circumvented. At the period of
Russification of Finland, 90 years later, the Russian government argued that the treaty wasn't violated and hence no outside party had any right to intervene, the question being solely a matter of the
Tsar who had granted the original promise.
Also for Sweden, the treaty turned out to be ultimately beneficial. Instead of the
Åland islands, Sweden came to retain vast areas in the far North, already conquered by the Russians, where later important
iron ore and
hydropower were to constitute the basis for Sweden's rapid
20th century industrialization.
During the negotiations, Swedish representatives had namely endeavoured to escape the loss of the Åland islands, "the fore-posts of Stockholm," as
Napoleon rightly described them. The Åland islands were culturally, ethnically and linguistically purely Swedish, but such facts were of no significance at that time. In the course of the
19th century it would also turn out that the Åland islands were a
British interest, which after the
Crimean War led to the
demilitarization of the islands according to the
Åland Convention included in the
Treaty of Paris (1856).
During the
Second War against Napoleon, Russia and Sweden concluded an alliance directed against Imperial France (
5 April,
1812). They planned to effect a landing in
Swedish Pomerania, which had been overrun by the French. Russia promised to press
Denmark into ceding
Norway to Sweden. It was understood that
Great Britain would join the treaty too but this never came to pass. Other plans failed to materialise due to
Napoleon's invasion of Russia.
*
The original text of the peace treaty in French -Finnish, Swedish and Russian version also available
