Various distinguished Finland-Swedes

Aino Ackté (1876-1944), a singer (soprano), made her debut at the Paris Great Opera,where she worked in six years before moving to the New York Metropolitan. She performed as a guest star on several European stages and founded the Finnish National Opera (together with E. Fazer).

August Arppe (1854-1925), an actor and theatre manager, studied in Germany, superintended his and Emma Engdahl's opera company and toured with it in Sweden, Norway and St. Petersburg. Later he became manager of the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki

Ida Basilier (1846-1948), a singer, studied in Paris and St. Petersburg. She was engaged by the Helsinki and Stockholm Operas. Besides some 700 recitals in Scandinavia she performed also in Russia, Germany, France and Great Britain.

Betty Boije (1822-54), a singer (contralto), studied in Stockholm and became engaged by the Stockholm Opera. After further studies in Paris she performed in Great Britain and the United States.

Fredrika Bremer (1801-65), a writer, moved to Sweden as a child, her home education being concluded with a year in Paris. In 1849-51 she visited America and England and wrote highly esteemed travel books beside her many novels, many of which were translated into English, German, Spanish, Russian and Dutch.

Elias Brenner (1647-1717), a miniature and enamel painter, also studied Swedish antiquities and numismatics and is noted for his great numismatic work, Thesaurus nummorum sueo-gothicorum. Brenner was raised to the Nobility.

Vice-Admiral Carl Olof Cronstedt (1756-1820, a maternal Finland-Swede), although a military man, is definitely not noted for his military qualities. On the contrary, he is notorious as the traitor who, probably out of sheer incompetence and recklessness, surrendered the strong fortress of Sveaborg to the inferior Russian siege force in 1808. He thereby conduced immensely to Russia's victory and the dismemberment of Sweden that followed.

Bernhard Crusell (1775-1838), a musician and composer, became a bandsman at age 13 and a clarinettist at the Royal Opera House in Stockholm at age 18. Alongside of this he composed vocal and instrumental music, including three concerti for clarinet and string. He also became Bandmaster and translated operas into Swedish.

Uno Cygnaeus (1810-88), an educationist, got his ordination in 1837 and served as a clergyman in Alaska for five years. In 1846-58 he was head teacher in St. Ptersburg, then studied education abroad. Back home he drafted his "Recommendation re the Elementary Educational System" (1861) and organised the elementary school system in Finland as a member of the National Board of Education.

The nobleman Albert Edelfeldt (1854-1905), a painter, studied in Antwerp and Paris, was awarded gold medals at The Salon in 1880 and 1882 and the Grand prix d'honneur at the World Fair in 1889; became honorary member of the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg.

Ida Ekman (1875-1942), a singer, studied in Vienna and Paris and became engaged by the Nuremberg Opera. She was renowned as a singer of romances for her brilliant rendering of the songs of Sibelius.

Emma Engdahl-Jägerskiöld (1852-1930), a singer (soprano), studied in Paris and Milan and performed as opera singer in Scandinavia, the Baltic provinces, Russia, Germany and Italy. She founded an opera company together with August Arppe.

Paul Fager (1876-1955), a nutritionist and writer, studied medicine in England and very early became aware of the importance of fibre in the diet. He settled in Sweden where he propagated for a lacto-vegetarian diet containing plenty of roughage--already in the nineteenthirties. He also founded a Scandinavian union of health sports and became known internationally under his assumed name Are Waerland as the leader of the "Waerland movement".

Alma Fohström (1856-1936), a singer (soprano), was engaged by the Finnish Opera and the Krolloper in Berlin, and toured South America in 1883-84 and North America in 1884-85. Thereafter she was engaged by the Metropolitan and the Moscow Empirial Opera. In 1908-18 she held a professorial chair at the Academy of Music in St. Petersburg.

Georg Gé (né Grönfeldt, 1893-1962), a ballet conductor, got his education in St. Petersburg and became engaged by the Stockholm Opera, the Stora Teatern in Gothenburg and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. He also produced ballets of his own, such as Concerto, The Eternal Flame and Le bal.

Greta von Haartman (1889-1948), a singer (mezzo-soprano), was engaged by the Finnish Opera, gave recitals also in Paris and Madrid.

Emil Henriksson (1886-1956), an instrument-maker, invented in 1907 the so-called ABLOY-lock, which proved to be among the most unpickable locks that exist. The lock is still produced and is now exported to about 20 countries.

Fredrik Idestam (1838-1916), a mining engineer and industrialist, founded several pulp mills. One of his pulp companies was called Nokia Ab, a firm that has grown and diversified considerably since (now Nokia Oy/Ab).

Karl Gustaf Idman (1885-1961), a diplomat and jurist, served as envoy to Budapest, Prague, Warsaw, Bucharest, Moscow and Tokyo, was Foreign Minister in 1925, was a deputy at the peace negotiations at Tartu in 1920 and at the League of Nations conference about the status of Åland in 1921. He participated in the Paris peace conference in 1946 as an expert on International Law.

Ernst Mielck (1877-99), a composer, began studying music at age 13 in Berlin and became a member of Max Bruch’s master class at age 18. Before his early death he produced a symphony and his best-known work, the "Dramatic Overture", besides many other high-class compositions.

Ulrika Möllersvärd (1791-1878), accompanied her father, a nobleman and county governor, to the Diet at Porvoo in March, 1809. There she entertained (in French) Czar Alexander I on the ball given after the Czar's solemn confirmation of Finland's constitution in presence of the delegates. A love affair between young Ulrika and the Czar ensued and she was later appointed Lady-in-waiting at the Imperial Court in St. Petersburg. Alexander's tender feelings for the young lady may have promoted the sympathy for the people of Finland that he evinced on many occasions.

Johan Ludvig Runeberg (1804-77), a teacher and poet, regarded as Finland's national poet. He taught Latin at the Helsinki University while working simultaneously as editor of the daily Helsingfors morgonblad, where he criticized the contemporary Swedish poetry. In 1837 he became senior master in Latin in Porvoo, where he continued his unparalleled literary production. This includes lyric poems, epopees in hexameter, comedies and tragedies as well as the national anthem of Finland, "Vårt land" ('Our Country'). It was, however, his collection of poems depicting episodes and figures from the 1808-09 Russo-Swedish War, Fänrik Ståls sägne, ('The Tales of Ensign Steel'), that established his reputation as National Poet.

Selim Palmgren (1878-1951), a composer and pianist, studied in Germany and Italy and worked a master of composition in Rochester, USA 1921-26, then in Helsinki and from 1939 as professor at the Sibelius Musical Academy in Helsinki. He composed five piano concertos, a number of orchestral works, choral works and the opera Daniel Hjort, all noted for their high quality. He also gave several concertos at home and abroad and is regarded as one of the greatest in the musical history of Finland.

Robert Runeberg (1846-1919), an engineer, studied at Newcastle for the shipwright's profession. He was one of the first theorists on icebreaker construction, and he designed Finland's first steamer for regular winter traffic. From 1879 he superintended an engineering firm in St. Petersburg with a large-scale industrial production.

Eliel Saarinen (1873-1950), an architect, designed a number of public buildings in Finland, including the well-known railway station of Helsinki. His master plan for Greater Helsinki (1917) represents pioneer methods in the field of city planning. In 1923 he moved to the United States, where his production was extensive. He published the books The City (1944) and Search for Form (1948). Saarinen has been reckoned as one of the pioneers of modern architecture.

Helene Schjerfbeck (1862-1946), Finland's greatest woman painter beyond all comparison, worked in France, England and Sweden for long periods of time. She had little attention paid to her during her lifetime, yet she was awarded a gold medal at the World Fair in 1889. In recent years there have been many exhibitions of her art in the Scandinavian countries.

Johan ("Jean") Sibelius (1865-1957), the world-famous composer, studied the law to begin with, but he soon moved to the new Institute of Music in Helsinki and later to Berlin and Vienna. Already in 1899 he was highly esteemed at home and was granted a Government life benefit. Before long he was known in wide circles abroad, too. In 1905 his Symphony No. 2 was conducted in Berlin, in 1907 his No. 3 in Great Britain. In the period 1905-12 he gave concerts in Liverpool, St. Petersburg, Moscow, London, Oslo, Gothenburg, Riga, Birmingham and Copenhagen, and in 1914 he was invited to perform in Norfolk, Connecticut. Thanks to the fact that he had attended a Finnish school, Sibelius was familiar with Finnish literature (e.g. Kalevala) and sat to music both Swedish and Finnish poems and plays.

Edith Södergran (1892-1923), a poet, went to a German school in St. Petersburg and wrote her first poems in German. Between 1916 and 1922 she published five collections of poems in Swedish. Her poems have been translated, wholly or partly, into twelve languages including Greek and Chinese.

Julius Sundblom (1865-1945), a journalist and politician, one of the founders of the newspaper Åland. He took part in the resistance against the Russification policy under Bobrikov, who exiled him to Sweden in 1903-04. After the Russian Revolution he worked for the reunification of Åland with Sweden and headed an Åland delegation to the Peace Congress in Paris in 1919. A Finnish court sentenced him to prison for preparing high treason, but he was soon pardoned.

Alma Söderhjelm (1870-1949), a historian, became the first woman teacher at Helsinki University. She investigated the relationship between Axel von Fersen and Marie-Antoinette and published a rather sensational study of their romance in French in 1930. This and other published results of her research made her name known in the scholarly world.

Jenny Spennert (1879-1950), a singer (soprano), studied in London, Berlin and Paris. She performed in important parts at the operas of Monte Carlo, Paris, Berlin and Stockholm.

Josef Julius Wecksell (1838-1907), a writer, got his first paly performed before finishing school at Turku. Before going down with schizophrenia about 1862 he published lyric poetry and a highly advanced tragedy, Daniel Hjort, considered being the most important drama in the Swedish literature before Strindberg.

Konrad ("Konni") Zilliacus (1855-1924), a writer and politician, studied law, became a farmer and later a newspaper correspondent. As such he visited the United States, Japan and France. After returning to Finland, he stood up for the constitution and, among other things, in 1899 initiated an address to the Czar subscribed by 1,050 cultural personages in 12 countries. About 1905 he managed to unify all the revolutionary parties in Russia, which is regarded as a remarkable achievement. His book on the revolutionary movement in Russia (1902) was translated into many languages. His son Konni (1894-1967) was one of the leading foreign policy experts of the Labour Party in Great Britain.