ABSTRACT
When the sensation of moving images was first introduced in Finland, the country was still a Grand Duchy under the Imperial Tsar of Russia (from 1809), and as it was experiencing efforts from the central power to obliterate ideas of autonomy, strong nationalist aspirations filled the minds of the Finnish people. National Romanticism was powerfully expressed through the fine arts and within the quite new and burgeoning Finnish literature. In spite of the fact that the Bible had been translated into Finnish by 1550 and thus established the basis for the written language, the first novel written in Finnish was not published until 1870. Until then the language of the educated public had been Swedish, a state of affairs that was to continue for at least two more decades. This had a particular meaning for the development of the film medium in Finland: Swedish as the mutual language made the mode of exchange easy between the Scandinavian countries and it was, for instance, practical to employ competent Swedish photographers to educate Finns interested in the profession. It also demonstrated that the current was not only running in one direction: many Finnish craftsmen moved to Sweden, among them Mauritz Stiller who was one of the directors responsible for the global prominence of Swedish film.
