Social Stratification in Nineteenth-Century Finland

Various class schemes have been developed for researching social mobility and stratification. The following classification of former students of the Vyborg Nation according to their occupations, and those of their family, is a modification of the scheme used by Heikki Waris (1940, 209–230) and his followers in their studies, which involved placing nineteenth-century occupations in order of rank.

In principle, Waris’ scheme differs slightly from standard class schemes used in sociology, which are better suited to studying modern societies. In other words, standard class schemes stress people’s positions in the labour market rather than their formal status in society. The variance in these classifications also reflects the difference between Anglo-American and Continental European ideals, with the former placing more emphasis on the market, while the latter focuses more on the state and bureaucracy (Konttinen 1991; Scott 2006). There is thus no clear-cut way of classifying occupations, as such coding is always more or less subjective, and it obviously simplifies what happened in reality. Creating appropriate categories is therefore especially challenging when studying a historical period of social and economic upheaval; new occupations emerge, and the status of traditional occupations becomes less clear during such periods.

Compared to the very detailed scheme used by Waris, the main idea in the present chapter has been to reduce the number of categories used to better pinpoint only the key structural changes. In terms of formal status, the nineteenth-century Finnish class system can be roughly divided into three major groups: the elite, the ‘gentry seam’, and manual workers (Alapuro 1997, 162–183; Knuuttila 1994).12 These groups are introduced below. The concept of the ‘gentry seam’(Wirilander 1974, 90–101) refers to the recognised but porous dividing line between the gentry and commoners, as it was fairly ambiguous who was a member of the gentry and who was not.

Among the elite were the higher-grade administrators (see Table 8.1 below)—consisting of senators, higher-grade officials, bishops, professors, large land or property owners, and MPs—and lower-grade administrators, such as sheriffs in the countryside and land surveyors in offices. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, this group expanded to become a broader middle class. The development of the modern middle class was also linked to the birth of professions (Konttinen 1991). Modern society and its accompanying bureaucracy needed various professional experts such as engineers, foresters, and agronomists; the professionalisation of their increasingly sought-after skills improved their status, along with those of medical experts (doctors and chemists). Meanwhile, the expansion of the school system led to the need for more university-educated teachers. Finland did not have its own army after its annexation by Russia in 1809, but some Finns later served as military officers in the Russian army. Another group with a strong identity, and which ideologically supported the estate system of classes, was the Lutheran clergy. By contrast, there was a more disparate group at the end of the nineteenth century consisting of many academically educated people in the free professions that did not fit readily into the estate system, such as artists, journalists, and private attorneys.

Table 8.1 Percentage of Vyborg Nation students (1833–1899, n = 918) of particular social origins (based on father’s occupation) pursuing particular careers

Those on the seam between the elite and manual workers, such as people in commerce, consisted of a wide range of owners and officials in sales and services.

Of the manual workers, artisans and skilled workers were a heterogeneous group that straddled the seam, as experienced master craftsmen in towns could sometimes be counted as gentry in terms of their wealth and lifestyles. A similar large variation in wealth and status was apparent among the largest seam group—the landowning farmers. At the bottom of the social strata were manual, unskilled, agrarian, and industrial workers. The demographic realities of the nineteenth century are also reflected in the number of students whose careers ended due to sickness or death before their studies were ever completed. These nineteenth-century ‘drop-outs’ have been put in the ‘Others’ category in the tables.

In reality, social stratification did not follow such discrete categories as the schemes created for research purposes might suggest—it was more of a continuum. The gentry seam was not straightforward; it varied across the categories of office-holder, artisan, trader, and farmer. In these groups, the top layer at least had obtained the prerequisites for being members of the gentry. This meant being literate and having relative economic independence, either through a permanent salary or as a small-scale entrepreneur.

During the nineteenth century, the upper strata of landowning farmers adopted a gentrified way of life, and many of those representing the peasants in the Diet of Estates gatherings after the 1860s were counted as the gentry. Landowning farmers also played an important role in the development of nationalism in twentieth-century Finnish politics. In the urban context, the most important seam group consisted of traders and artisans. A successful trader, respected master builder, or goldsmith often belonged to the gentry, but a poor shoemaker did not (Wirilander 1974, 101–104).

The cross-tabulation (Table 8.1) of the occupations of former Vyborg Nation students and those of their fathers supports the idea of a gentry seam. It also reflects other features of social mobility typical of the society of estates. First, the inheritance of occupations was strong in the clergy, civil service, military, and commerce. At the same time, there were certain ‘forbidden’ career paths, such as moving into a military career from below the gentry seam.

A humble background was generally an obstacle to furthering a career in administration; only one nineteenth-century Vyborg Nation student of farming origins, Antti Sairanen, managed to obtain a post as a district judge (Ylioppilasmatrikkeli 1640–1852, Sairanen). However, it should be noted that many Vyborg Nation students came from Finnish families living in St Petersburg, the nearby capital of Russia. For the sons of capital-based artisans and merchants, a career as a civil servant could be an option because they were fluent in Russian and had economic assets in the city (Ylioppilasmatrikkeli 1640–1852).13

Some career paths could be restricted even for the offspring of the leading merchant households. For instance, a wealthy Vyborg-based tradesman Wilhelm Hackman wrote to Professor Zacharias Topelius in 1850 to enquire about the future prospects of his son. The letter implies that from the father’s point of view, studies in law or medicine alone were not enough to guarantee a person’s success—high birth or exceptional skills were needed, too (Tigerstedt 1952, 37–40).14

Second, upward social mobility was usually only possible at one step per generation.

However, there were exceptions to these generally predestined rules of social mobility. The metamorphosis of the young book-loving shepherd Matti Akkanen into the university professor Matthias Akiander has been described in a somewhat romantic manner in the literature. This talented boy learned to read with the help of a local land surveyor who lived nearby, and he had already learned Russian as a schoolboy in Vyborg. Akiander studied theology as was usual, but he soon became involved in the nationalistic Fennoman movement and began his university career as a professor of the Russian language. Despite his success in the academic world, Akiander was ordained in later life in an attempt to respect his mother’s wishes (Ylioppilasmatrikkeli 1640–1852; Akiander; Luther 2001).