ABSTRACT
The use of a female figure as a symbol of a nation or a state is a widespread practice around the Western world. Coming closer to Finland, Mother Sweden was occasionally portrayed in early twentieth-century Swedish humorous magazines as a stylish modern woman about town. At the turn of the twentieth century, Finnish national and political imagery was saturated with various female figures portraying the nation, the state, the law, or even a particular newspaper. Male caricaturists fantasised Finland as an object of heterosexual desire, a young unwed woman, and a bride-to-be. The role of Finland was tied to the image of Russia in the same way as it had been tied to that of Sweden a few decades earlier. The historian therefore has to look to caricatures and verbal texts in order to make sense of the Maid of Finland figure.
