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TheFennoman movement orFennomania was aFinnish nationalist movement in the 19th-centuryGrand Duchy of Finland, built on the work of thefennophile interests of the 18th and early-19th centuries.
After theCrimean War, Fennomans founded theFinnish Party and intensifiedthe language strife, yearning to raise theFinnish language andFinnic culture from peasant status to the position of a national language and a national culture. The opposition, theSvecomans, tried to defend the status ofSwedish and the ties to theGermanic world.
Although the notion ofFennomans was not as common after the generation ofJuho Kusti Paasikivi (born 1870), their ideas have dominated the Finns' understanding of their nation.[further explanation needed]
The mother tongue of many of the first generation of Fennomans, likeJohan Vilhelm Snellman, was Swedish. Some of the originallySwedish-speaking Fennomans learned Finnish, and made a point of using it inside and outside the home.[citation needed]
Several Fennomans were from Finnish or bilingual homes. Some originally had Swedish surnames, common in Finland at that time.
Most of the Fennomans alsoFinnicized their family names, particularly from the end of the 19th century.
In the last years of the 19th century, and in the first years of the 20th, the Fennoman movement split into two political parties: theOld Finnish Party and theYoung Finnish Party.
The Fennomanmotto attributed toAdolf Ivar Arwidsson was actually coined byJohan Vilhelm Snellman:"Svenskar äro vi icke, ryssar vilja vi icke bli, låt oss alltså vara finnar."