Hello! I'm a HWS Ambassador for the Republic of Finland, which is where I'm from. I will try my best to be active and answer asks as fast as I can! Feel free to ask me anything and I'll do my best to provide an accurate answer!
Well, here we are. If I remember correctly exactly one year after I made this sideblog. And now the two powerhouses who have swept the entire tournament are facing off against each other!!
The undefeated champs, the unstoppable forces of nature that are both in a style I'm not at all used to drawing, are you guys ready?
OMG, I don't even care about anthropomorphic animals, but I need Krtek to win so bad I can't even say it.
One, yeah, definitely one of the most recognizable cartoon characters of all time, are you even kidding me. But also. With how US-centric Tumblr always is, can you IMAGINE how nice it would be for an Eastern cartoon to win a favorite poll?!
On this day in 1917, Finland formally declared its independence from Russia. Located in-between Sweden and Russia, Finland had long been the object of these two major powers’ imperial machinations. In 1809, Sweden ceded Finland to Russia, with Finland’s nominally automonous government now subject to final approval by the tsar. The first years of Russian rule were relatively peaceful, with the Finns accepting Russian initiatives such as the relocation of the capital to Helsinki. However, there was evidence of an incipient Finnish nationalism, though this did not reach the mainstream until Finland was dragged into the Crimean War on Russia’s side. The Finnish government became increasingly assertive, issuing its own currency and introducing universal suffrage, making Finland the first European country to grant full political rights to women. Popular grumblings against Russian rule found a convenient outlet when Russia was rocked by communist revolution in October 1917. Seizing on the tumult in Russia, and inspired by the Bolsheviks’ professed support for self-determination, Finland formally declared independence on December 6th, 1917. The new Bolshevik government of Vladimir Lenin soon recognised the nation’s independence, though the path to autonomy was not entirely peaceful, as a year later Finland descended into a bloody civil war. The war was fought between the working class Reds, who desired a socialist revolution like Russia’s, and the conservative, nationalist Whites. Aided by Germany, the Whites were victorious, and swiftly established a monarchy led by a German prince. However, Germany’s defeat in the First World War led Finland to embrace a republican system of government. This anniversary, celebrated in Finland as Independence Day, marks a pivotal moment in Finnish history, beginning the process towards the free and independent Finland of today.
“The century-old desire for freedom awaits fulfilment now; Finland’s people step forward as a free nation among the other nations in the world”
- Finnish Declaration of Independence
My region (Kharkiv oblast) is one of the most mine-pollen. Apart from risks that come with the mines themselves, it’s also a huge disaster for our local economy and environment. Mines on fields and in forests = no wheat, no sunflower & other crops = their shortage = prices go up EVERYWHERE in the world (Ukraine is a huge wheat & sunflower seed oil supplier) AND the land itself becomes toxic for new crops FOR AGES
Finland used to have the “speak softly and carry a big stick” approach to Russia, which meant that official rhetoric was cautious but at the same time Finland maintained high defence capability mainly directed at a potential threat from Russia.
The threat perception has been indeed very consistent and even in the “optimistic years” in the early 2000’s, the possibility of armed attack (by Russia) against Finland was never completely excluded in Finnish government’s foreign, security and defence policy reports.
Since Finland’s policy was to keep quiet about the threat analysis and not to make noise about the preparedness policy either, this has come as a surprise to many outside of Finland now that the country has been in the focus of unusual attention due to the NATO accession.
In 2007, Finland’s then-defence minister Jyri Häkämies said in a speech during a visit in D.C. that given Finland’s geographical location, the 3 main security challenges are Russia, Russia and Russia.
It was typical for the Finnish public discourse on Russia that the statement by Häkämies caused a scandal, not because there was disagreement on what he said, but because it wasn’t politically correct to say it out loud.
But below the surface, the threat perception has been quite well and alive. E.g. the Finnish Defence Forces (FDF) used to call the enemy “the yellow state”, but somehow the enemy always came from the east (or as the joke goes: if it comes from the west, it’s flanking).
Another anecdote: I always struggle to remember the names of ordinal directions in Finnish (southwest, northeast etc) because they have weird, unintuitive names. An FDF officer once told me “just call it the threat direction (southeast), then everyone knows what you mean”.
P.S. last year, Finland’s threat analysis increased to 5x Russia.
In a speech [on 22 August 2022], Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto outlined 5 reasons why Finland is joining NATO:
1. Russia
2. Russia
3. Russia
4. Russia
5. Russia
Rediscovering a buried history of working-class feminism
Contrary to the myth that socialists have always ignored gender oppression, full women’s suffrage was first won by socialist feminists — and working-class revolt.
There are a lot of different ways to discredit working-class politics. As the continued promotion of the “Bernie Bro” myth illustrates, one of the most popular today is to claim that socialists ignore women’s oppression. Elaborate versions of this argument fill the news-media, Twitter, and academia. By focusing only on economic issues and class, we are told, the socialist movement has always marginalized women and their specific demands for equality.
Like all good liberal myths, these arguments rely on bad history. Working-class feminism has a long and rich legacy. For over a century working women fought for their own liberation through the socialist movement.
Few cases better illustrate this point (or have been more buried by history) than that of turn-of-the-century Finland. In 1906, through a mass general strike and working-class insurgency against the Russian Empire, it became the first nation in the world to grant full universal suffrage — i.e. the right to vote and run for office. Socialists were at the forefront.
The Finnish Buildup
Of all the lands of the tsarist empire, Finland had throughout the nineteenth century been allowed the most self-government and political freedom. Annexing Finland from Sweden in 1809, the Tsar granted its new dominion extensive autonomy, though the Russian regime maintained ultimate authority. Finland preserved its own constitution and most state functions were governed by Finns through their autonomous Senate. In 1863, a new Finnish parliament was established, though only a small percentage of the population was allowed to participate in its election.
A crucial turning point in Finnish history came in 1899. In February, the Tsar began to eliminate Finland’s special autonomous status, attempting to bring it under the same forms of administration as the rest of the empire. Soon a major Finnish national protest movement emerged against this “Russification.”
1899 also marked the emergence of the Finnish labor movement as an independent political force. After a string of labor strikes, the Finnish Workers Party was founded in July 1899. Whereas socialist parties across the Russian empire were banned and forced underground, the relative political freedom prevailing in Finland allowed the Workers Party to exist as a legal organization.
Though virtually all labor leaders in Finland supported the reestablishment of Finnish autonomy, the question of whether to collaborate, and on what basis, with the Finnish liberal “constitutionalists” against Russification became a major debate. While the constitutionalists essentially fought for a return to the pre-1899 status quo, the labor movement tied the national struggle to popular demands, such as improved conditions for urban and rural workers, the prohibition of alcohol, and the expansion of the vote.
One of the central points of contention between workers and constitutionalists was the issue of suffrage, from which all working people — both men and women — were excluded at that time. Constitutionalists refused to support universal suffrage. The conservative Association of Finnish Women led by women’s rights activist Alexandra Gripenberg, for example, argued that lower-class women were ignorant and prone to vice, therefore they had to be guided by their morally superior upper-class sisters.
In contrast, the Workers Party from its inception demanded suffrage for all: the right to vote and to run for office irrespective of wealth, gender, or nationality. In 1900, it helped found the socialist-led League of Working Women to involve working-class women in the labor movement, to develop their leadership capacity, and to help raise their demands.
Socialist leader Hilja Pärssinen, the working-women movement’s main theoretician, advocated a strict class-against-class perspective along the lines set out by the German Marxists August Bebel and Clara Zetkin. Pärssinen’s 1903 pamphlet on women and the vote made the case for irreconcilable class conflict: bourgeois women wanted only equality with upper-class men, while women workers wanted the vote to pass laws to improve their material conditions.
That same year, the Workers Party adopted a Marxist program, renamed itself the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and announced that if its suffrage demands were not met, it would resort to a general strike to win them.
The Great Strike of 1905
The Bloody Sunday massacre of unarmed protestors in St Petersburg on January 9, 1905 sparked revolt across the entire empire. This upheaval, more often than not under socialist leadership or influence, demanded better working conditions, political freedom, and a democratic republic — and it came close to toppling the increasingly discredited tsarist regime.
The revolution arrived relatively late in Finland. Inspired by the general strike in central Russia, Finnish railway workers walked off the job on October 29, 1905, setting into motion the “Great Strike.” By October 30, all of Finland was on strike, and effective power passed into the hands of strike committees and armed guards. The event radically transformed the consciousness of urban and rural working people. And perhaps nowhere was this transformation more pronounced than among women workers.
Palvelijatarlehti (The Maids’ Paper) noted:
The strike week was a wake-up week for the rights of women. … As soon as the strike began, women started to hold special meetings in which they debated their economic position, and these meetings were flooded by people. It was as if it took the breakout of the general strike to make women realize that it would depend on themselves whether the status of women improved or not.
Miina Sillanpää, the influential socialist leader of the maids’ association, noted that the week of the general strike accomplished among the maids “more than what could have been promoted in ten years of peaceful conditions.” Bourgeois society was particularly scandalized by the participation of their servants in the action, which shattered paternalistic notions of maids as members of the host family and represented the direct intrusion of the labor movement into their homes. In daily mass meetings in a Helsinki elementary school courtyard, thousands of servants came together to formulate their demands.
The call for full suffrage was legitimized by this mass female participation in all arenas of the strike, including in its top leadership; the Tampere Strike Committee, initially composed only of men, was quickly reorganized to include ten women and twelve men.
“We live in a wonderful period of time,” wrote Alma Malander in the SDP newspaper Kansan Lehti (The People’s Paper) in December 1905:
Peoples who were humble and satisfied to bear the burden of slavery have suddenly thrown off their yoke. Groups who until now have been eating pine bark, now demand bread. The oppressed demand justice! … Women, who have always been subordinate, suddenly get the idea that they really are equal with the other sex.
Faced with the imminent overthrow of the regime by a paralyzing labor strike, peasant rebellions, and army mutinies, the Tsar was forced on October 30 to promise civil liberties and a parliament for the whole empire. On November 4, the Tsar’s “November Manifesto” repealed the Russification of Finland, reestablishing the pre-1899 status quo — without guaranteeing that the new Finnish Parliament would be elected by the whole population.
Though constitutionalists and socialists had closely collaborated during the first days of the November Great Strike, this tenuous alliance quickly broke down into open conflict. After the Tsar’s “November Manifesto,” the constitutionalists pushed for an end to the strike, as their main demand — the restoration of pre-1899 “constitutional legality” — had been achieved. In contrast, the workers’ movement continued to demand universal suffrage and a unicameral parliament.
Having felt their power to shut down society, Finnish workers were determined to continue mobilizing. Immediately following the strike, the SDP began organizing mass demonstrations and building for a new general strike to ensure their political demands. The next half-year witnessed an unprecedented number of strikes, the rapid spread of socialist influence among tenant farmers and workers in the countryside, the creation of a workers’ Red Guard, and closer Finnish socialist collaboration with Russian Marxists. It was during this upsurge that the campaign for women’s suffrage reached its highest peak.
The Suffrage Struggle
Following the Great Strike, there was considerable and justifiable concern that women would be excluded in the upcoming elections. During the April 1905 suffrage reform bill discussions in the Finnish parliament, only the Peasants Estate had supported women’s suffrage, while other estates and the various constitutionalist parties all favored giving the vote only to men. The chair of the Parliamentary Reform Committee chosen in November 1905 to draft the new suffrage rules was liberal leader Robert Hermanson, an outspoken opponent of women’s suffrage. Women, he felt, were by nature emotional creatures prone to extremism and ill-suited for politics.
In this context, League of Working Women leaders argued that working-class women had to take the initiative to ensure that their demands were met:
We [working women] have to shout to the world that we are demanding the right to vote and to stand for election, and that we are not going to settle for anything less. Now is not the time for compromises, because if we are excluded now, we can be sure that it will remain that way for a long time.
By the end of 1905, the League, with the support of the whole Finnish Social Democracy, had organized 231 suffrage meetings across the nation with 41,333 participants. It called for a new general strike in the case that women were excluded from the vote, and it established a special women’s committee to start preparations.
It was announced that any male party members who opposed women’s suffrage would be denounced as collaborators of the bourgeoisie. Some female workers threatened to go on a cooking strike at home to force skeptical husbands to support their struggle. And there were even public statements made that if women were left out of the vote, women workers would, if necessary, strike on their own, even against the opposition of the other party members.
The influx of women into political life challenged traditional gender roles. Miina Sillanpää called on men to stay at home and watch the children to enable their wives’ participation in political meetings.
Perhaps the most powerful actions of the suffrage campaign were its mass demonstrations. On December 17, 1905, the League organized protests for women’s suffrage in sixty-three towns across the nation, bringing together over 22,000 demonstrators. A “National Women’s Declaration” written by the League’s leadership was sent out to be adopted by each rally.
The fate [of Finland] concerns us just as much as men. Is it any wonder that tens of thousands of us rise up to call for our rights, to demand for ourselves equality with men. A powerful cry is echoing across our country at this moment, from the large cities to the villages, showing that the majority of citizens support the heartfelt wishes of women. The demand of women for the vote and to run in elections will be silenced only when it is granted. The right to vote is a means for us to shut off the flow of alcohol, to raise the proletariat from material and psychological distress, to prepare the way for light and freedom.
The rallies continued into 1906 and the Finnish Social Democratic Party did not waver on demanding suffrage for all. But a new general strike did not ultimately prove necessary to win this demand, as the Parliamentary Reform Committee eventually announced that all women would be allowed to vote and run for office, despite considerable controversy within the Committee over the latter point in particular.
How can we explain this decision by a Finnish political elite that until then had consistently opposed universal suffrage? Put simply, they were forced into it. The pressure of the workers’ upsurge during and following the Great Strike of 1905, and the real threat of a new general strike, proved greater than elite opposition to universal suffrage.
That the suffrage decision had been imposed from below was openly admitted at the time. The influential banker and politician Emil Schybergson told the Parliamentary Reform Committee that the revolution had forced them to rush through a decision that might otherwise have waited another fifty years. Indeed, it took many more decades for other countries to grant full suffrage, including France (1944), Italy (1946), and Switzerland (1971).
The Tsar’s acceptance of the Finnish suffrage proposal on July 20, 1906 was similarly a victory imposed by revolutionary struggle. Such an act would have been inconceivable without ongoing mass rebellion across Russia, which flared up again that summer in a new wave of peasant revolts and army mutinies. Through this concession, the embattled tsarist regime hoped to quell unrest in Finland in order to concentrate its forces on putting down the revolution in the rest of the empire.
The suffrage campaign lasted all the way through 1907. In January, the League sent out a memorandum to its local branches, calling on them to ensure that the SDP electoral slates include a sufficient number of women candidates. By this time, over 18,000 women had joined the party, close to a quarter of the total membership.
The 1907 elections were swept by the Finnish Social Democracy. It won 37 percent of the vote — the highest of any party — and of the nineteen women in the new Parliament, nine were socialists. The latter were a remarkable group, all leaders of the League and most from humble backgrounds. Anni Huotari, Maria Laine, Maria Raunio, and Sandra Reinholdsson were seamstresses; Jenny Kilpianen was a weaver; Mimmi Kanervo was a maid, as had been Miina Sillanpää; Ida Ahlstedt was a baker and boarding-house operator; and Hilja Pärssinen was a school teacher.
Prominent feminists were, at best, ambivalent about the suffrage victory. The Finnish Women’s Association’s top leaders still stressed that Finnish working-class women were too backwards and unprepared for full suffrage. Alexandra Gripenberg declared to a 1907 women’s congress in Vienna that the entry of uneducated, plebeian women into Parliament was a “horrible” embarrassment. Most of the socialist MPs, Gripenberg lamented, were “formerly servants, factory hands, or seamstresses. … It was a mistake that so few really able and suitable women for the work in the Diet [Parliament] were elected. … If we had women lawyers, merchants, physicians, scientists, and so on, women’s words would have weighed more.”
Hilja Pärssinen, in contrast, traveled abroad to present the Finnish struggle as an unqualified victory and a vindication of a strict class-versus-class political perspective. She argued in the British newspaper Justice that “women who have to fight together with their men comrades for the abolition of the present capitalist system and the private ownership of the means of production cannot work together with women who support this very system.” In an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, she declared:
I should very much like through your paper to send a message to the American people, and to ask them why they have not yet granted the suffrage to women, and to urge upon them, out of a considerable practical experience of its value, the importance of making this great, and ultimately necessary, political change.
Pärssinen’s perspective was shared by the workers’ movement in Russia and beyond. For August Bebel, the German SPD leader and author of the influential work Women and Socialism, the events in Finland represented “the triumph of international socialism.” Similarly, Alexandra Kollontai at the 1908 First All-Russian Women’s Congress pointed to Finland to show that “in those countries where unlimited political rights for women have been achieved, this has been done only with the help of the social-democrats.”
🚫 The Saami Council demand Square Enix to immediately remove the Final Fantasy XIV costume set “Far Northern Attire”!The Saami Council has in a letter to, the media company, Square Enix demanded that they immediately remove the Final Fantasy “Far Northern Attire”, and engage in meaningful dialogue with the Sámi people.
🟧 This is not about sensitivity or whether the depiction is appropriate. These elements are Sámi property and Square Enix has infringed on our rights, says President of The Saami Council, Áslat Holmberg.
👉 For more information: https://www.saamicouncil.net/…/the-saami-council-demand…
I found this great article about “saamenpuvut” - the national dresses of the Saami people, who are indigenous people living in Northern Europe in the Nordic parts of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia - and decided to translate it since there is fairly little information available about the nations in English. The article can be found here in Finnish.
The saamenpuku is a dress that its every wearer has a personal relationship with. Here are 13 suits and 13 stories.
Anna, 28
I’ve been going through an inner struggle of whether I should dress really traditionally and according to all of the norms. However I still want to be proudly Skolt and allow my own personality to show through.
Traditionally the hair of Skolt women shouldn’t show from under the headdress, but I didn’t feel comfortable with that. So I have decided that I want to feel at home in my dress.
I have never seen snowflakes in anyone elses dress. They feel personal because of my last name. I decided that would be my trademark from now on and that all of Saami dresses would have snowflakes from now on.
Oula, 24
We use Saami dresses a lot as performance outfits on our bands geeks. They wear out quite quickly - they can get stains and tear while touring around. Especially the audiences in Central Europe find our suits to be spectacular, because they have never seen Saami dresses before.
My suit is a traditional Utsjoki (the northernmost city in Finland) suit, but a small “risku” [a piece of jewelry used on a womans scarf] is a new thing for men. I thought that hey, I could use it as well!
When I put on the Saami dress I feel like I am representing more than myself. In the suit I represent my area, my family and the Saami language. That is something I do not take lightly.
Maria, 21
I studied sewing the Saami dress in the training centre of the Saami area at the same time when I was in high school. It’s good that I know how to make Saami handcrafts, because it promotes Saami culture. These are skills that must be cherished and passed on to future generations.
As my diploma work I wanted to make a modern Saami dress for and Utsjoki woman, using a bit more unusual materials. When I found this fabric with small sequins and flower embroidery the idea was born. I also made the “risku”. I think it fits the altogether look, because the ornament is also modern.
I feel a bit like an outsider when I go to a party without wearing my dress when everybody else is wearing theirs. The suits bring unity.
Anniina, 31
Many times I’ve heard that you should always wear a scarf with a Saami dress [applies to women]. Without the scarf on my shoulders I feel a bit bare. Is it because the surrounding culture expects me to wear a scarf? I’m a feminist and I want to make my own choices. Right now, in this photoshoot and in this gákti I want to present myself with no scarf.
I have made dozens of Saami dresses and of course I recognize them. I know how to make Saami dresses even in my sleep and I know how to teach the skill to others.
This Karasjoki and Utsjoki dress is made using collage fabric, that has been printed on, and the lower part of the helm is denim and cotton. I made this dress as a festical gákti for Ijahis Idja, but I haven’t used it much since. It felt too white for the polar nights.
The Saami dress is the most visible part of the Saami culture. It’s a part of a tradition that binds us all to previous generations and to the fact, that we still exist. I still want to be a part of this group, so leaving the scarf out is a bit worrying for me.
Uula, 4 years old
I wore a blue gákti for the Saami national day. It’s nice.
Jussa, 18
My suit is an Inari Saami suit, but it also shows influences of the Partako style from the Northern end of the Inarilake. A traditional Inari Saami suit would be black, with a zig-zag pattern on the collar.
I got this suit for my confirmation ceremony. Everybody else in the church was wearing albs, but we Saami people got to wear our national suits. I thought that was great, because the suit was more decorative.
At my uncles wedding in Helsinki [capital of Finland far South] I was the only one with a Saami dress. I was proud of my dress.
Rita, 21
I have lived my whole life in the South, but my mom hails from Utsjoki. I had a Saami dress as a child, but I didn’t really wear it at parties.
I moved to Lapland [North Finland] one and a half years ago. Only here I have learned to use the Saami dress.
I made my dress from start to finish last autumn. It’s a traditional example of an Utsjoki dress, but I chose colours that are a little less traditional, because I like them. Gray, lilac and mustard yellow.
Sammeli, 20
I was supposed to go to an event in a Saami dress after this one autumn celebration thing, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I looked for it everywhere in my home and after a week I became convinced, that someone must have nicked it.
The suit was missing for months. On the Saami national day on February the 6th I found it stuffed in a bag inside an opening table. The gákti, sisna shoes, belt and everything. I sighed out of relief.
You don’t ski everyday to watch over the reindeer anymore these days. That kind of culture is gone. There should be more days within a year when it would be okay to use a Saami dress. Every Sunday for instance?
Riikka, 19
Over the last autumn and winter I wore the Saami dress a lot. The Saami youth section of the Saami government had this project called Ofelaš, when I toured around the schools of Lapland to tell people about what being Saami means. I got to be visible and represent the Saami people. The questions were sometimes a little funny: Do you wear Saami suits all the time? You speak Finnish?
As kids we were once in Helsinki’s city centre as a group wearing our national costumes. It was unpleasant, when total strangers took pictures and stared at us. Nowadays people are more tolerant than before and know more about our culture.
Traditionally the Inari Saami suit is black, but mine is white. My aunt sewed it for me for my confirmation ceremony. My risku is bought from Norway, where there is much more of wider a collection of different silk scarves and fabrics.
Ville-Riiko, 21
My suit is traditional and it has nothing additional to it. The piece of jewelry on my collar is a trout. I’m not from a reindeer-owning-family, so the fish fits just fine.
Even though most Saami people have a Saami dress, only few have a Skolt dress. In my own high school graduation ceremony I was especially proud to bear my Saami dress. I was the first one to do my matriculation exams on Skolt Saami as a native tongue. That was so cool.
Sara, 23
This is my first Skolt dress. It was exciting to design it with my grandma and it stirred up a lot of emotions within me. Violet is my favourite colour, and I have designed the patterns the pearl decorations myself.
At first I would have wanted a light gray dress with purple pearl embroidery, but my grandma said that gray was too grimm for a dress. Skolt clothing is supposed to be colourful and the only occasion for a gray dress would be a funeral.
A Skolt dress is one way to bring out your own character and identity as a Skolt. When I put the dress on, I feel connected to other Saami people.
Nothing pisses me off like seeing somebody wearing a fake Saami coat as a joke. It’s like a punch against my face.
Sunna, 21
I’m comfortable being in this dress - it’s beautiful! My golden Utsjoki dress reminds me of my own personal success and the good moments, I’ve experienced with my friends. I know the person who made the dress, my friend made the belt and I got the risku from my ahku [northsaami for grandmother]. All of that brings more meanings to the dress. My dress is so personal to me that is difficult for others to understand.
This suit was for my high school graduation ceremony. It was a great day. My dad made a speech in our high school, and I cried. Three relatives from my moms side came to the party surprisingly in their North-Ostrobothnia national dresses. It felt like they were honouring my celebration in a special way.
I remember when I was a little girl and my dad helped me put on the silk scarf and tie the embroided laces around my shoes. When I learned to do that myself I was so proud. I want to pass Sami culture forward. I try to talk Saami with my brothers two children and hope that they would also wear the Saami dress someday.
Linda, 21
This is my grandgrandmothers from the 1970′s. I got this from my grandma a few years ago and my mother remade some Utsjoki parts for the dress. Still it’s amazing how well the dress has survived the test of time. My grandgrandmothers sister made this dress for her 70th birthday. When I first put the suit on, it just slipped on me. It’s rare for the suit of another to fit someone else. My grandgrandmother and me are wilted from the same tree [Finnish expression].
I am proud to wear this dress. I have never seen any fabric like this. At my friends party their grandmother suddenly realized that this was my grandgrandmothers dress. She remembered seeing it on her some decades ago!
Only yesterday I read a good quote: “Respect, what you have, and be proud of it.”
Original article: “Minä ja saamenpuku” in Uusi-Inari
Pictures by: Antti Sepponen
Original text: Vilma Ruokoski
HELP ME SAVE MY MAJOR AND THE FUTURE OF CLASSICAL STUDIES IN FINLAND
The University of Turku is planning to shut down my major's, Classical Languages and Ancient Culture, professorship once our current professor retires.
The university is in the middle of budget negotiations at the moment, and is cutting funds from education and laying off staff and teachers left and right. The cuts are especially targeted towards humanities (what a surprise), and smaller majors within the faculty (another victim is for example ethnology which will be merged with cultural studies).
Now they are specifically about to nuke my major - not immediately, but the professorship would end complerely once our current professor retires. Unfortunately that probably means the end of my field, classical studies and philology, in all of Finland. This has been the trend for the last couple years: every other university has shut down their classics majors, only Turku and Helsinki remaining, and I firmly believe that if my university goes through with this, the Classics major in Helsinki will be in danger as well, and ultimately the final nail in the coffin. There are also news of other universities shutting down even the minors in Classical Studies all over the country. Turku has the last professorship of Latin as well as the last Classical Archeology program in Finland. Our alumni have also played a not-insignificant role in Classical Studies abroad: think of the Finnish Institutes of Rome and Athens, as well as Finnish researchers, teachers, and archaeologists working abroad - the field of Classics is intrinsically international, something the University of Turku claims it values and promotes.
The university claims that our major is not profitable, and to a degree this is true: few students graduate on time, which affects the amount of funding each major receives. However, this is a direct result of our university systematically cutting our funds more and more each year, driving our teaching staff of three people to the point of exhaustion. This has then lead to less in-person teaching and an ever increasing amount of independent study for students, which is exhausting in itself - our major has a very high level of burnout and drop-outs due to insufficient education as a direct result of the actions of the university administration. The University of Turku is directly responsible for our major's currents situation and tries to shift the blame on the overworked staff and students.
I would be more than grateful if you could sign the petition to save Classical Studies in Turku (link in the header and below). I don't know if the petition will have any real effect, our university is going to cut costs no matter how many signatures this gains, but at least it would expose the university of their hypocrisy of boasting about their values of embracing culture and internationality while shutting down the very tools that give them access to international research and academia. If nothing else, we want to thoroughly humiliate the University of Turku one last time before we fade out of existence.
