Postal History from Finland 1889 - 1918

Short Historial Background

In the war of 1808-1809, Russian troops conquered Finland. The country had formerly belonged to Sweden and was annexed to the Russian Empire at the Peace Treaty of Hamina on September 17th, 1809, and Finland became an autonomous Grand Duche of the Russian Empire, The Russian Tzar Alexander I (1801 -1825) promised that Finland could uphold the existing religion, the basic laws and privileges of the social order.

Finland was allowed to manage its affairs and employment of its own civil servants - a parliament began to assemble from the year 1863 - the same year where Finnish language got official status and became equal with the Swedish language - In 1865 Finland got its own currency - pen and mark - which it quickly turned out to be stronger than the Rouble. From the 1860'ties trading - import and export grow rapidly. Population grew from 1 mill in 1809 to over 3 mill by the end of W.W.I.

When Alexander III ascended the throne in 1881, a process of making Finland a more integrated part of the empire started - many attacks were made in the Russian public on the special rights of the Finnish people and efforts were undertaken to abolish these special rights granted to them, and by many small steps this lead to the Russification of the Finnish Post - which is very essential to my period of collecting.