In 1857, the president of the Ostrobothnian student ‘nation’ Carl Gustaf Estlander gave an emotional speech in support of the Fennicisation of university students and other intelligentsia. In the decades to come, however, he was to change his mind.

Like many of his fellow students, he had absorbed Finnish nationalistic influences, especially from the notions of Johan Vilhelm Snellman. Also Estlander’s second cousin, Georg Zacharias Forsman (later Yrjö Sakari Yrjö-Koskinen), had a major impact on the Fennoman ideology of the young Ostrobothnian student.

As the language debate got more and more heated, Estlander’s stance on the issue changed. Many of the more radical Fennomans wanted to completely exclude the Swedish language from Finnish culture. Estlander felt that this would be harmful for the Finnish people and endanger the very historical and cultural fabric of Finnish society.

Estlander did not join the ranks of the radical Svecomans either. He opposed the supremacist theories of Axel Olof Freudenthal as strongly as Fennoman fanaticism. Moreover, as the inspector of Nyländska afdelningen, in the heart of Svecomania, he spoke for moderation. In 1887 he also explained his opinions in an article entitled ‘Min ställning i språkfrågan’ (‘My position in the language question’) in the Finsk Tidskrift magazine.

According to Estlander, bilingualism was absolutely in the interest of Finland. Finns, no matter what language they spoke, had a common history and common cultural traditions, which Estlander saw as considerably more important than questions of language or race. He emphasised that the status of Swedish-language and bilingual cultural institutions should be guaranteed just like that of their Finnish equivalents. Perhaps the biggest practical example of this idea was founding the Svenska Litteratursällskapet i Finland (the Swedish Literature Society in Finland), in which Estlander played a crucial part.

Carl Gustaf Estlander’s take on language policy took off in the Fennoman student nation. He ended up objecting to the radicalism present in both sides of the language controversy, however. Eventually, the young Fennoman evolved into perhaps the most important advocate of bilingualism of his time.

Sources:

• Johan Wrede, ‘Estlander, Carl Gustaf’, Finnish National Biography online. Accessed April 24, 2015. In Finnish. Available via NELLI.
• Carl Gustaf Estlander, Wikipedia. Accessed April 24, 2015.  In Swedish.
• Karl (Carl) Gustaf Estlander, Nordisk familjebok online publication on Project Runeberg. Accessed April 24, 2015. In Swedish.