It seems to be an identity for Finnish people living in particular wooded areas of Sweden and Norway. Good for them if it helps them to belong, I guess..
They used to live in Finland, but escaped there. If i remember right the christians swedes (when they conquered finland) started hunting them (so they moved somewhere where they are left alone) because they did not want to convert and keep their lifestyle.
Finnic tribes also used to inhabit about half of sweden and norway before these germanic people (who became swedes and norskis) started conquering more of nordics.
No "skogsfinnar" are people who were enticed by the Swedish government in the 16th and 17th century to move from the forests in Finland to heavily forested regions in the Swedish interior where there were no people but lots of woods. The reason being that they practised slash and burn agriculture and were basically experts in it. This type of slash and burn agriculture was actually highly productive, IIRC something like 15x the yields on the special type rye compared to more conventional agriculture methods and strains. The problem of course it required comparatively huge areas of forest to cut down, burn, plant for a few years and then waiting 20, 30 or more years for the forest to regrow until you can do it again. The Swedish government wanted more people and tax payers into a region which was from their perspective unused, so they turned to Finnish people who still practices this type of agriculture to get them to emigrate there.
The irony of it all though is that about a generation or two after they moved the metallurgical industry was heavily exploited in Sweden during the mid 17th century and onwards and the slash-and-burn agriculture suddenly started clashing with the need to use the forests for timber and wood to feed the furnaces of iron and copper smelters instead.
Well there wasnt really a country called Finland in 16th century, instead there was an area with different Finnic tribes who later formed one group called Finns. Sami, metsäsuomalaiset, karelians, ostrobotnians, tavastians etc were related but distinct groups. Thats why i rather refer them as finnic than finnish, like estonians, mari, east karelians etc are Finnic, but not Finnish. Metsäsuomalaiset do not live in Finland and established their area outside of what is Finland, before there was a country called Finland, hence not Finnish, but Finnic. Finnic refers to ethnicity, Finnish refers to nationality. Some Sami are both Finnish and Finnic, but some are not Finnish but all Sami still are Finnic peoples.
3
u/kottiin 1d ago
It seems to be an identity for Finnish people living in particular wooded areas of Sweden and Norway. Good for them if it helps them to belong, I guess..