ABSTRACT
Reflecting on the progress made by nationalist movements at the end of a long career spent advancing the cause of Finnishness, Johan Vilhelm Snellman observed sadly that:
many dangers threaten the nationality of small nations. Experience shows that free institutions do not lessen the injustice and violence of ruling nations. Look at the English in Ireland, the Germans in Posen, and in Slesvig. In Alsace-Lorraine, they have proceeded more gently, but the goal is still the same; assimilation, pitiless assimilation. 1
