“Finland's cause is our cause”: Finland in Swedish public opinion during the First World War

The article addresses active public discussions about political situation and perspectives of Finland which started in Sweden in the early First World War and largely provided the basis for Sweden’s modern foreign policy. The main purpose of the study was to identify the place and role of the “Finnish issue” in Swedish political discussions of that time. The examination of Swedish journalism and media, as well as some diplomatic documents of that time with the use of the comparative and typological historical methods led to the conclusion that the Swedish militarists linked the idea of military invasion into the Grand Duchy of Finland with Sweden’s entry into the First World War on German side. Such ideas provided the basis for the so-called “Pro-Germanism” (pro-German “activism”) among a part of Swedish officers, intellectuals and political establishment. However, the activists’ influence on Swedish public opinion was not strong enough to oblige Swedish monarchy to form a military alliance with Germany and to levy war against Russia within Finland. As a result, at the end of 1916 Knut Wallenberg, Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, completely abandoned this idea, and most of the Swedish publicists ceased military propaganda