‘Black spots on the map of Europe’: Ireland and Finland as oppressed nationalities,c.1860–1910

In late 1909, the liberal Russian newspaper Birzhevye Vedomosti expressed the fear that Finland could become ‘Russia’s Ireland’. The implication was that by restricting the autonomy that Finland had enjoyed within the Russian Empire for much of the preceding century, Russian nationalists risked creating a chaotic, discontented eastern province, dangerously close to the imperial capital. The ‘Russia’s Ireland’ motif became so prominent in the...