More on the Crown of Finland

Following my post abbout the King of Finland and his crown I received the following pieces from my Orielensis friend in Finland, Konsta Helle - perhaps I should head this From Our Finnish Correspondent.

"After not checking your blog for a few days I was delighted to find out you had posted a piece on Finland; it's rather a shame there's very little information on the proposed Kingdom of Finland in English. Dr Vesa Vares, a Finnish political historian, wrote an eminently readable and scholarly treatise on the topic in 1998, entitled Kuninkaan Tekijät: Suomalainen Monarkia 1917-1919 (Makers of a King: The Finnish Monarchy 1917-1919.) Dr Vares has written quite a lot in English and in German, but as far as I know the monograph is currently only available in Finnish.

One of the interesting and quite unique aspects of Finnish history is that while it was eventually deemed expedient to have a president instead of a king, the wide-ranging political powers designed for the king remained practically identical in the republican constitution; and thus between 1918 and 2000 (when the constitution was altered) we had a president who could - and often, especially at the time of Urho Kekkonen, would - exercise extremely dominant though perfectly constitutional political role ranging from appointing 'his men' for bishops, judges, and ambassadors to dissolving parliaments, calling general elections, sacking ministers, and single-handedly conducting foreign policy. It's also notable that the very monarchical systems of noble titles and their inheritance continues together with the proliferation of various military and chivalric orders. "

In response to an e-mail from me he adds

" I should add that the old constitution I mentioned was not a single entity (like the new one is) but was composed of several pieces of legislation passed between 1918 and 1928 with various later amendments. The most important individual act was the 1919 Order of Government, or Hallitusmuoto in Finnish.

There is further information on various noble families and Finnish nobility here - click a link on the right for an English summary. There's also a website for different orders of chivalry here and here .

The three current orders are the Order of the Cross of Liberty, the Order of the White Rose of Finland, and the Order of the Finnish Lion. The President of the Republic is the Grand Master of all three orders and has the sole right and authority to award decorations.

Here's a collection of photos of the different types and classes of decorations of the Order of the Cross of Liberty, for the Order of the White Rose of Finland, and for the Order of the Lion of Finland.

The presidential website has some detailed information on the subject here.

Konsta adds "Hope this is of interest, and please let me know if you'd like to know more about the subject! "

Well, yes I would!

Image from the Almanach de Gotha

The Crown of Finland

Today is Independence Day in Finland - so it is an opportunity to send greetings to my regular reader and fellow Orielensis in Finland - and also to post about one of the might-have-beens of twentieth century dynastic history.

When on 6 December 1917 the Grand Principality of Finland (often referred to as a Grand Duchy although that was not the correct title) declared itself independent the future form of its government was unresolved. Following a civil war the cause of retaining a Finnish monarchy being in the ascendant the crown of the new Kingdom of Finland was offered to the Landgrave Frederick Charles of Hesse-Kassel in October 1918. He was the brother -in-law of Kaiser Wilhelm II, being married to Wilhelm's sister Princess Margaret of Prussia. The new King, about whose regnal name there remains some dispute - Charles I, Frederick Charles I or Vaino I (which appears altogether less probable than many sources might suggest) never managed to reach his kingdom before the German capitulation led him to renounce his claim in Decmber of the same year. His rather splendid array of titles - King of Finland and Karelia, Duke of Aland, Grand Prince of Lapland, Lord of Kaleva and the North (Suomen ja Karjalan kuningas, Ahvenanmaan herttua, Lapinmaan suuriruhtinas, Kalevan ja Pohjolan isäntä)- were not, alas, to become a reality.

The succession would today be with Landgrave Moritz of Hesse, and afer him his second son Prince Philipp of Hesse could be a theoretical claimant if the principle of the second son succeeding to te Finnish crown obtained - which is rather difficult to imagine as a regular system of inheritance. The links give more details and portraits. There is a similar account in the online Almanach de Gotha, with the appropriate heraldry.

Now one might very well regret that the Kingdom of Finland under another branch of the extended Scandinavian and German royal houses did not join them in providing a stable constitutional basis for government. What was surprising was to discover the existence of a crown for the King to wear, or at least symbolise his sovereignty and that of Finland. Moreover it was made in recent years.

The crown was designed in Finland in 1918 for the proposed King.The crown which exists today was made by goldsmith Teuvo Ypyä in the 1990s, based on the original drawings, and is kept in a museum in Kemi where it can be seen today. The crown, which is made of silver gilt, consists of a circlet and cap decorated with the arms in enamel of various provinces of the realm. Above the circlet are two arches. Topping the arches is not a cross and globe as in most European crowns, but a gold rampant lion in the form as found in the coat or arms of Finland.

The inner circumference of the crown is approximately 58 centimeters and it weight about 2 kilograms.