Introduction

In the autumn of 1821, a nineteen-year-old farmer’s son by the name of David Miettinen enrolled at the Royal Academy of Turku. This young student of theology soon received some advice from his father, who was worried that David would spoil a rare educational opportunity: ‘Do not.

That Mikko Tuovinen, a humble cottager’s son from Eastern Finland, managed to enter the university was perhaps even more unlikely. One explanation for Tuovinen’s unusual path may be the fact that his father had got a job at a sawmill near the town of Savonlinna, where the youngster could attend a preparatory school. Tuovinen also studied theology at university. Although not ordained, he became a well-respected schoolmaster. His upward social mobility was sealed by a marriage to a postmaster’s daughter—and by a new name, Mikael Toven (Ylioppilasmatrikkeli 1640–1852).3 The cases of Meten and Toven are textbook examples of a process for which there is a specific Finnish term: lukea herraksi, to become a gentleman through reading (rather than through breeding). Between 1810 and 1867, ten percent of students who enrolled at university in Finland were brought up in peasant homes, and most of them ended up in the lower echelons of the clergy (Stromberg 1989, 319).

This chapter discusses students’ academic careers and their potential social mobility from the perspective of their family background in nineteenth-century Finland. The point of departure is the fact that university education provided young people with an opportunity for social mobility, as academic degrees played a key part in determining one’s class position.

Young men of humble origins had been able to enter the Royal Academy of Turku (later the University of Helsinki) since its establishment in the 1640s. However, earlier research has shown that immediately after the annexation of Finland to Russia in 1809, the university’s role in social mobility actually diminished (Waris 1940, 226–227; Stromberg 1989, 317–322). According to the conservative political elite of the time, such mobility was not to be encouraged, as it was likely to increase the chances of social upheaval. Consequently, the lower classes were to be kept out of key positions in the administration (Waris 1940, 232–234; Stromberg 1989, 320). After 1850, it became increasingly impossible to preserve the status quo because of the rapid socio-economic changes taking place. However, upward social mobility still remained relatively low-key despite the increasing pace of modernisation and the rise of the nationalistic Fennoman movement, which promoted the use of Finnish as the language of education. It was not until the end of the nineteenth century that things really began to change, as the idea of universal education finally took off (Heikkinen and Kaukiainen 2011).

Although the nineteenth-century system of estates was not completely rigid, it was nevertheless guided by unwritten rules that set certain limits on a person’s future career. The tale of the farmer’s son who manages to educate himself despite almost insurmountable obstacles is a recurring narrative in late nineteenth-century Finland. On the one hand, the upward social mobility of these ‘peasant students’—their route from grammar school to the university—was often glorified and described as a path full of sacrifices, poverty, cold, and hunger.

At the same time, the more negative narrative of the status-seeking ‘half-gentleman’ appeared in public discussions about education. According to Wirilander (1974, 374–380) there was a fear that the growth of educational opportunities for the lower echelons of society would lead to idleness and that ‘half-gentlemen’ would be capable of neither manual work nor the intellectual tasks typical of a ‘real’ member of the gentry.5 Both narratives can be regarded as a reflection of the fact that the traditional roles of the estates in society were dissolving. Finnish society was in a state of flux in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The growth of nationalism—combined with a decline in the power of the church, increased urbanisation, and a growing number of free associations—created a much more diverse middle class. At the same time, as Kuortti (2013) states, the ever-growing number of landless people led to an increasing burden on society from below. These issues made social mobility a pressing matter.6

The aim of this chapter is to outline the key factors that enabled social mobility in nineteenth-century Finland. How exactly did upward social mobility through a university education become a reality? How was a new, improved social status secured? How did one’s family background affect one’s later career, and what impact did the socially progressive transition to the nineteenth century have on all of the above? My analysis is based on a sample of students retrieved from the student matriculation records of the University of Helsinki (1833–1899).7 As at many Western European universities, the students at the University of Helsinki were divided into ‘nations’ according to their provincial origin.

It should be noted that students of the Vyborg Nation made up only six to eight percent of the total student population, even though this eastern province and its capital actually formed fifteen percent of the total Finnish population. The region also had some characteristics that made it different from the rest of the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. It was not only noted for being influenced by nearby St Petersburg—and for having been under Russian rule for longer than the rest of Finland (from the eighteenth century onwards)—but also for having a local elite heavily influenced by the German language and culture. The relatively low number of Vyborg students attending university was most likely due to its relative distance from Helsinki and the fact that, before the 1880s, there was only one school that prepared students for university in the whole province (Teperi 1959, 1987; Matikainen 2014).8

There is a huge body of literature available on social mobility. One of the favoured methodologies has been to conduct highly specialised studies based on large samples, taking into account entire countries, so that international comparisons can then be made. Such studies aim to analyse major transitions at the macro-level. As such, this kind of research does not focus so much on the kind of value transfer that actually took place on the individual micro-level (Payne 2006; Erola 2010). Nevertheless, micro-level analysis of personal decisions and family strategies is possible through an inter-generational family history, which has been a popular approach in recent studies.9 A third line of enquiry is to study particular professions and to link educational training and social mobility to power analyses (Wirilander 1974; Konttinen 1991; Corfield 1995).10

Focusing on a limited sample of students and only the main events in their life offers a possible compromise that combines aspects of both quantitative and qualitative methods.