Treaty of Fredrikshamn

September 17, 1809

Defeated in a winter war, Sweden ceded Finland to Russia after seven hundred years of rule. Tsar Alexander, shrewdly, let the Finns keep their Lutheran church, their laws, and their language as an autonomous Grand Duchy. A nation the Swedes had governed was allowed, quietly, to begin imagining itself. Finland's century under Russian rule cultivated a distinct national identity that would declare independence in 1917.