Talk:List of heads of state of Finland

Factual errors

I find quite a bit to be questionable in this article...

-It's maybe a bit dubious to call Finland Finland when speaking about it's medieval history, as the term "Finland" is thought to be as young as a few hundred years.

- This part is especially bad written.

"An interpretation has been made that the part "Vend" in the later established titulary of Kings of Sweden (three crowns in the Coat of Arms, three kingdoms: Kings of Svears, Götars och Vends; Sveriges, Götes och Vendes Konung) means Finland, the form being akin to Findland, Vindland. As such, the Österland (=medievally inhabited parts of Finland) was the third kingdom and part of the realm.

The kingdom was superseded by the Republic of Finland with the republican constitution of 17 July 1919."

- I understand the second paragraph refers to the quite short-lived "kingdom of Finland" that superseded Finland being a grand duchy of Russia. If written this way at-least I at first missunderstood it as superseding the swedish rule. I think it's some kind of error that has evolved due to different people editing having missunderstood each-other.

- Also the theory about the swedish coat of arms is by many considered to be a legend, which has gotten more popularly thought to be true due to it being featured in popular books by Jan Guillou in Sweden. I think the more widely accepted theory by experts about the three crowns has to do with the three wise men in christian religious history. And is said to originate somewhere in today's Germany.

Gillis 14:08, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Okay removed the three crowns legend and made it more clear that kingdom refers to the kingdom of Finland noted earlyer. Adding swedish names for all the regents since finland is still today bi-lingual might be a good idea.Gillis 15:03, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

That quite ridiculous interpretation of Vend - Fin is actually presented in some book, I think one of those of Matti Klinge (Muinaisuutemmemervallat??). Therefore it should be said here too. In my opinion (which is no authority) that however is ridiculous, because it was Gustav I who took the name of the third people (vandalorum was added to sweorum gothorum) to the titulary, and I guess he did not mean Finns. Rather, he just wanted to snub at the Danish monarch who (1) had three in the list, and (2) had Gothorum which however was perceived a clearly swedish territory. Finlandais 22:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes i've heard the interpretation too, and also counter interpretations stating that there were many other people who could be these "mysterious vends". But however this is, it most likely is not the source of the Swedish coat of arms either(in case it even would be true). Gillis 22:56, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Names

I'd remove the names after the English one per List of Swedish monarchs and List of Russian rulers and let people find out the names in other languages via interwiki or articles on the individual rulers. Other info & prominent nicknames I'd keep as is. Certainly it would be informative to keep the names in both Finnish, Swedish & Russian, but then the list would be very cluttered. Scoo 06:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I am also against cluttering this article. In my opinion, a Finnish variant of name could be allowed if it does not clutter too much, but if it does or if its presence means that some russian-nationalist-sympathzers want to put russian variant too, or some Swedish-nationalist-sympathizers want to put Swedish variant too, then even the finnish variant is better to taken away. But, as long as the List of Swedish rulers includes also the swedish name variants, this list should include the Finnish name variant. Anyway, the biography article of the ruler individually, is the right place to explain all variants of her/his name(s). Finlandais 08:32, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Kings of Kvenland

Added link to Kings of Kvenland that contains related material. --Drieakko 12:08, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Swedish kings before 1249

There is no historical data whatsoever that any of the Swedish kings before 1249 would have ruled in Finland. --Drieakko 20:45, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Well that depends on your exact definition of ruling, very few kings in those time really had much to say about things. But generally it is considered that Finland was in some way in contact with sweden from the first crusades (which of course also some sources dispute etc.) but i think it is worth mentioning in the article the Swedish rulers starting from Pyhä Eerik, although it is worth noting about the very small amount of power he held over Finland. The Finnish article on this subject has also taken this approach. Gillis 23:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

One itnerpretation of Swedish rule could be the foundation of the Archdiocese of Turku Gillis 00:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Bishop of Finland appears in the surviving pre-1249 Second Swedish Crusade sources independent from Sweden. In 1209, it was still the Archbishop of Lund that were governing the church matters in Finland. Still in the 1230s Pope was offering Finland to the German knights in Estonia. German sources first mention Finland under Sweden in 1249. Russian sources first mention that Finns would have been under Swedish rule in 1256. "Swedish-style" Bishop of Turku is first mentioned in 1259; before that the bishop was known as the Bishop of Finland. The first surely Swedish Bishop of Finland was Bero, appointed in 1248/9. Bishop or Diocese of Finland is not mentioned in the surviving lists of bishops and dioceses of Sweden from 1189, 1192, 1241 and 1248. There are also no archaeological finds from Finland that would date Swedish fortifications older than 1250s. If there was a military expedition to Finland in 1150s (sporadic military campaigns were very common in the 12th century among the peoples of the Baltic Sea), it did not have any results. All in all, as there is no evidence whatsoever about Kings of Sweden ruling in Finland before 1249, it is not meaningful to list them doing that. --Drieakko 05:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Good text, allt this might be worth mentioning in the article though. Gillis 08:14, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

It should perhaps go to the article about History of Finland, since this article is titled to be just a list of monarchs. --Drieakko 08:52, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

It's some years ago I read "Suomen Historia" (ISBN: 9513509036), if I recall it right it mentions a book written by German monks around 1360 where they list Kingdoms and Kings of Europe and they do include a King of Tavastia, which could imply that the Swedish rule wasn't absolute and the bow tax may indicate that from the beginning it can just been an military alliance against a common enemy and 1362 formed to an union when Tavastian nobles took part of selecting the new Swedish king. One thing that has to be considered, Swedish sources are less trustworthy than the Russian ones, as the Swedish ones has many times been changed afterwards, for example the supposed Birger Jarls crusade to Finland never took place, as he was locked in power struggles in Sweden. I should say that I don't mean that we should rewrite the wikipage, but keep our minds open. --Trizt (talk) 08:52, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved to List of monarchs of Finland. Favonian (talk) 10:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

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List of Finnish monarchs → List of monarchs of Finland – The title, "List of Finnish monarchs" gives a false connotation that these monarchs are in fact all Finnish, as in being from Finland or of Finnish ethnicity. Monarchs of Finland would be a better choice because it doesn't allow such confusion. ClaretAsh 07:39, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support as explained. SergeWoodzing (talk) 10:43, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support as explained. benzband (talk) 13:15, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support -- A much better title, since almost all were Swedes or Russians. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:48, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Monarchs?

I'm troubled by a list which gives the status of "monarch" to quite a few dukes, duchesses and regents. Shouldn't this list be called Rulers of Finland in that case? Even then, some of those dukes did not rule fully in their own right while the actual rulers were the kings on the Throne of Sweden. ??? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 20:08, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Heads of state?

Why move this article to its current name w/o adding the rest of the heads of state? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 10:49, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Title

Since the list includes rulers of Finland while it was part of Sweden and then Russia, could there be a better title for this list? IMO "list of monarchs and heads of state" seems a little long. At first, I thought that "monarchs" was redundant since this is also the head of state, but then this is also includes the period before independence. Though, perhaps it might be confusing at first glance. I have not found any other lists with such a title. Perhaps "list of rulers" is sufficient? I am not sure. Mellk (talk) 18:13, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

List of rulers of Finland sounds fine. I am wondering whether this article should be truncated quite drastically to reduce maintenance, since most of the information in it is better presented in other articles. For Swedish monarchs and regents, we have List of Swedish monarchs and we only need to link there and discuss who the first king to rule over Finland possibly was, and who was the last. The dukes should be discussed separately from the kings (currently the list about the Swedish period is a mess), and for that we have Duke of Finland, which is in a fine shape. For Russian Emperors we have Emperor of Russia#List of emperors. The section "Interim period (1917–1919)" contains some unique information, so that's fine, but the list of presidents duplicates List of presidents of Finland#List of presidents. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 18:55, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Duke of Finland#List of dukes and duchesses of Finland also includes grand dukes and we also have Grand Duke of Finland. Grand Duke of Finland#List of grand dukes is also just the list of Russian emperors. So it seems some work could be done. I think for this article, we can include hatnotes for the main articles and cut it down a bit. Mellk (talk) 19:01, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 18 October 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: move to List of heads of state of Finland. (closed by non-admin page mover) Reading Beans, Duke of Rivia 11:07, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

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List of monarchs and heads of state of Finland → List of rulers of Finland – See above discussion. Per WP:Criteria, the proposed title is more natural and consistent with similar lists. As far as I am aware, this is the only such list with the title "list of monarchs and heads of state of...". Mellk (talk) 12:40, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nom and WP:CONCISE; current page title is inexplicably turgid and inconsistent with similar lists. Carguychris (talk) 14:16, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

• Follow-up comment - I agree with the emergent consensus that List of heads of state of Finland is preferable because Finland is now a democracy. Carguychris (talk) 14:33, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. The term "ruler" doesn't apply to democratically elected officials (the president of Finland in this case). ~~ Jessintime (talk) 14:56, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose - in agreement with Jessintime. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 13:00, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
• Comment. If the list of presidents is to be kept (which is currently transcluded from list of presidents of Finland), and "ruler" is considered inappropriate, then I would also propose list of leaders of Finland. Any other suggestions are also welcome. This list is not unique in that it includes both monarchs and elected leaders. Mellk (talk) 17:22, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

  I would also support moving this to list of heads of state of Finland seeing that other editors consider this to also be appropriate. Mellk (talk) 19:28, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Move to List of heads of state of Finland - Above comments are correct about the "ruler" distinction, but heads of state applies to all and is used in plenty of similar cases (eg.France, Mexico, etc). estar8806 (talk) ★ 01:35, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Move to List of heads of state of Finland per above.98.228.137.44 (talk) 14:24, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

• Move to List of heads of state of Finland. An analogous list is List of heads of state of Iceland. I note that at least Lists of rulers of Egypt and List of rulers of Kosovo include presidents, and should perhaps be discussed. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 09:44, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

  I initially considered "heads of state", but would it be correct to refer to those monarchs as the heads of state of Finland during the period it was not independent? Mellk (talk) 14:11, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

• Move to List of heads of state of Finland. The term head of state encompasses everything from autocratic monarchical rulers to democratically accountable leaders. Inclusion of either monarchs or rulers in article title is superfluous.Ricjac (talk) 17:41, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.