13 - Finland: from Napoleonic legacy to Nordic co-operation

Summary

THE NAPOLEONIC LEGACY

Important elements of modern national feeling were created by the period of the Napoleonic wars: the growth of Romanticism in cultural terms coincided with the mass mobilization of armies, and of all population groups facing the problems of frontier, power, imperium and nation. Politico-national feelings were divided between feelings of victory and pride on the one hand, and apprehensions of disaster and danger on the other. These sentiments had a military and political matrix, but they were interpreted and enlarged into ideologies during the period itself and even more afterwards, in the rapid historical description and assessment of that change.

France was victorious even though defeated; the victories of Arcole, Austerlitz, Jena and Wagram became elements of her national identity, and from about 1840 and especially under the Second Empire a great revival of interest in interpreting the Napoleonic era began. England's victory was also commemorated, with Nelson and Wellington becoming national heroes. In contrast Austria and especially Prussia, even if saved, had to build up their identities on the fact that they had lost important battles and had been occupied by the enemy.

The Russian case is especially interesting. Napoleon's invasion of 1812 was extremely threatening, but the invader was finally forced to an almost complete defeat.