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The Eurasian Politician - Issue 2 (October 2000)
by Antero Leitzinger
Researcher at the Directorate of Immigration, Helsinki
antero.leitzinger@uvi.fi
When Finland became independent on 6th of December 1917, the constitution, dating back to Swedish rule over a century earlier, required all Finnish citizens to be of Evangelical Lutheran faith. Exceptions had been made regarding other Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Russian Orthodox religions (after all, the Grand Duke himself, as Emperor of Russia, was Orthodox). Non-Christians, however, were excluded from the citizenship. They included Jews and Muslims. Jews in Finland were Yiddish-speaking immigrants from Russia, who were later integrated into the Swedish-speaking minority. Muslims in Finland were mainly Turkic-speaking Mishar Tatars from the Middle Volga region, who were later integrated into the Finnish-speaking majority, but who have retained their own mother tongue. There are still about 1000 Jews and almost equally many Tatars in Finland. How were they naturalised?
A distinct Finnish citizenship had developed by 1832, when the Grand Duke (Emperor) declared, that all applications would be subjected to his approval. Since then, the citizenship was applied and all applications are preserved in the National Archive. Although Finns enjoyed full rights everywhere in the Russian Empire, Russian subjects did not automatically enjoy full rights in Finland. The Finnish citizenship was a restricted privilege. Because of the tendencies of Russification, no law of citizenship was passed until in 1920 when Finland was already independent. Instead, many different decrees and political considerations regulated the acquisition of Finnish citizenship.
In 1914, out of three million inhabitants in Finland, an estimated 40 000 were foreigners - mostly Russian subjects. Their number decreased since then, and only in the 1990s did both the number and the proportion of foreigners in Finland pass the pre-independence level. The most alien minorities were the Jews and Muslims, whose integration within a generation was an interesting achievement. The Jews have been studied among others by Taimi Torvinen in "Kadimah - Suomen juutalaisten historia" (Keuruu 1989) ["Kadimah - the history of Finland’s Jews"], and the Muslims by Antero Leitzinger in "Mishäärit - Suomen vanha islamilainen yhteisö" (Helsinki 1996) ["The Mishars - Finland’s old Islamic community"].
Jews in Russia suffered heavily from the pogroms starting in April 1881. Although international attention forced the government to deny its direct responsibility, laws officially restricted the freedom of residence, occupation, and education of the Jews even more. In 1891, Jews were systematically ousted from Moscow. (Torvinen, p. 43-44) Pogroms were repeated in 1897, 1899, 1903, and 1904-1905. Finland, however, was more liberal-minded, sought Western support, and emphasised the rule of law in order to strengthen its autonomy as a Grand Duchy. After a long legal process, Jews were declared equal by law on 12th of January, 1918.
Both Jews and Muslim started to apply Finnish citizenship in 1918. The Muslims, however, could be accepted only after general freedom of religion was declared in the constitution by 1919. The naturalisation proceeded slowly, although three quarters of the Jews were born in Finland by 1920. (Torvinen, p. 107-108)
Finnish authorities were initially relatively positive regarding the social and political activities of Russian emigrant groups, specially of the "frontier nations", among whom the Tatars were considered potentially influential. Finnish politicians and academicians met with Tatar leaders, like Sadri Maksudi, president of Idel-Ural, an autonomous republic in the Middle Volga region in 1917-1918. Even when it became obvious, that the Idel-Ural autonomy was crushed and Soviet power established all over Russia, Tatar nationalism was considered friendly and it was encouraged by Finns. This made a lasting impression on several Tatar activists, who later promoted Finland in various international forums. Musa Jarullah Bigi, a Crimean Tatar cleric, spoke warmly about Finns in a pan-Islamic world congress in Jerusalem in 1932. (Helsingin Sanomat 28.2.1932)
The Finnish security police (Etsivä keskuspoliisi, EK; later Valtiollinen poliisi, Valpo) screened through all citizenship applications and rejected many on accounts of political suspicions, if the applicants were suspected of communist sympathies. In September 1920, however, the Border Land commandant Heinrichs complained to the foreign minister, that most Russian emigrants were "rich Jews", and that "appealing to humanity is nothing but a despicable Jewish business trick". (Kristiina Erhola: "Suomen pakolaispolitiikka 1917-1922" [Finnish Refugee Policy], Licentiate work in the Helsinki University Political Sciences Department, 1994, p. 233) In July 1921, the Interior Ministry was reported to have started restricting immigration by turning down asylum applications. Professor Yrjö Jahnsson intervened in behalf of Tatars and other "frontier nations" and attributed the change of climate to the "agitation" of the EK. (File 5 of the private collection of Yrjö and Hilma Jahnsson in the National Archive)
From 1921 to 1939, the EK was becoming increasingly defensive and cautious. This may have been caused by swifts in the personal - many of the older detectives had been people who knew Russian, had lived in St. Petersburg or in the frontier area, and used to cross the border easily, but they were replaced by men who (like the later president Urho Kekkonen) had no personal experience of Russia and little interest in contacts with Russians or representatives of various minorities. A cosmopolitan tendency prevailed in army intelligence, which employed many Tatars during the Continuation War, but the EK considered Tatars and other alien groups a potential source of trouble. Even anti-Semitism became evident.
In May 1926, an EK detective claimed in his report, that Jewish citizenship applications should be rejected because experience had shown, that they would not turn into good citizens, and that ethnic Russians living in the border area should be rejected because there were living already too few reliable people. The head-division of the EK put it only slightly less clear by instructing the sub-divisions to filtrate well especially Russian and Jewish applicants of citizenship. Next year the same detective regretted in his report, that the new government did not care to discriminate against Jews, and was not hostile to emigrants. Even president Lauri Kristian Relander was criticised in the EK reports for frustrating the anti-Semitic security police officers. (Documents in a file titled "Suomen kansalaiseksi ottaminen" [Accepting to Finnish Citizenship] in the archive of the Directorate of Immigration)
The last Muslim refugees from Russia crossed the border secretly in 1929-1936, some of them escaping from the Solovetsk camp ("Gulag") by foot. Among them was also a remarkable Armenian, Anushavan Zatikyan, who provided the Finnish military intelligence with information and organised a common Armenian-Muslim resistance against Soviet rule in the Caucasus. (EK-Valpo head-division interrogation protocol 82/1930 in the National Archive, referred to in my article in the Ararat Quarterly 37/1996) His case is not only most interesting for Armenian resistance history, but also because it implied deep-lying tactic differences between the EK and the military intelligence of Finland.
The Winter War was a decisive test for the loyalty of various political and ethnic minorities. Both "Red" (pro-Soviet) and "White" (including pro-German) Finns, who had been fighting each other in 1918, were united in a national resistance. Also ethnic Russians and other ethnic minorities, some of whom were not yet Finnish citizens, proved to be loyal to their new homeland. Although the authorities did take some communists, ethnic Russians, and other suspect individuals into custody, in extremely few cases any kind of pro-Soviet inclination was really recognisable.
Among the most dramatic potential loyalty conflicts were the encounters between Finnish Jewish officers and Nazi Germans, who were allied with Finland from 1941 to 1944. When a German Colonel Pilgrim had been rescued by a Finnish captain, then still Lieutenant Salomon Klass, the German offered his rescuer his thanks and the Iron Cross, which Klass however declined to accept. When the German heard that his rescuer was a Jew, he nevertheless shook the latter’s hand and said: "I personally have nothing against you as a Jew. Heil Hitler!" (Hannu Rautkallio: "Suomen juutalaisten aseveljeys", Jyväskylä 1989, p. 157-158) ["Finnish Jews as Germany’s Waffenbrüder"].
Soviet Union produced in 1944 a list of suspected war criminals. The list included also a Jewish Captain Eugen Apter, who remained innocently imprisoned until 1947. (Rautkallio, p. 142)
In the wars, 23 Jews and 10 Muslims fell for the freedom of Finland. Many of the Jews and Muslims fought as volunteers, having not yet received the Finnish citizenship.
Those aliens, who had not acquired Finnish citizenship by 1939 - mostly defined as "subjects of former Russia" - were nevertheless granted protection as refugees or simply foreigners with residence permit. Beside the immigrants, Finland hosted also tens of thousands of ethnic Finns evacuated from the German-occupied Ingermanland [Ingria], or living in occupied East Karelia. There were also large numbers of Soviet prisoners of war, and some additional war-time refugees.
Both Jewish and Muslim prisoners of war in Finland were provided with religious literature by the Jewish and Muslim congregations. Tatar prisoners of war were employed by fellow Tatars, and could thus live outside prison camps in relative comfort. Some of them refused to be returned to the Soviet Union after armistice in 1944.
Finland had received Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria in the 1930s. The chief of Valpo, Arno Anthoni, however, deported in November 1942 a group of foreigners, some of whom had committed petty crimes in Finland, including eight Jews, to Germany. Seven of the Jews perished in Auschwitz. This action was deeply resented by the media and by many Finnish politicians, and the situation of Jewish foreigners in Finland was secured thereafter - some of the refugees were naturalised, others removed to Sweden. At the same time, Finland succeeded in protecting half a dozen Jewish citizens living in Germany and German-occupied countries. (The Finnish refugee policy in the 1930s and early 1940s has been studied by Taimi Torvinen in her book "Pakolaiset Suomessa Hitlerin valtakaudella" ["Refugees in Finland during Hitler’s Reign"], Keuruu 1984.)
The Germans planned that the Finnish Jews would be sent to Maidanek concentration camp. (Torvinen, p. 139 & 141) It was irony of history, that a Maidanek survivor was married to Finland after the war, and his son Ben Zyskowicz became a member of parliament in 1979, and one of the most respected Finnish politicians. His wife happened to be a Tatar. Thus, the Zyskowicz family symbolises not only the success of Jewish integration in the Finnish society, but also the good relations between Jewish and Muslim communities in Finland. Another famous Finnish Jew is the retired diplomat Max Jakobson, whose attempt to become general secretary of the United Nations failed only because of the Soviet preference for Kurt Waldheim, a former SS officer.
An Austrian Jewish organisation tried to get financial restitution from Finland in 1968-1971. This, however, was considered unfair by the Jewish World Congress. (Torvinen, p. 163)
Finland had also received Estonian refugees in 1943-1944. Among them there were Tatars, one of whom served among other Estonian volunteers in the Finnish army until August 1944, when he was given leave to escape to Sweden. Before the Soviet occupation, Estonia had its own Tatar community, related to those in Finland, of 200-300 persons. After the war, they became the nucleus of the first Muslim community in Sweden.
Antero Leitzinger