Veikko Kallio : Finland : cultural perspectives

In addition to its indigenous national features, Finnish culture has long been characterised by a strong linkage to developments affecting Europe as a whole. Finland has absorbed influences from both the East and the West. Close contacts between the country's largely Swedish-speaking intelligentsia and upper class and western European cultural currents existed from the Middle Ages onwards. Parallel to these western ties, Byzantine culture, particularly in the shape of the Orthodox Church, made its influence felt in the eastern parts of Finland. Thanks to its linguistic isolation, the bulk of the Finnish-speaking peasant population, living far from the country's few major centres of population, preserved much of its own distinctive, individual identity until relatively recently.

Veikko Kallio's 'Finland — Cultural Perspectives' provides a useful introduction to the background underlying the roots of Finnish cultural and historical development from the Middle Ages to the modern day.