Book Description

The volume has two main issues. One focuses on Mikael Agricola and his contribution to reformation in Finland and the Finnish language. The corresponding articles are Heidi Salmi, German Influence on the Finnish in Mikael Agricola, Jyrki Knuutila, The Impact of the Reformation on Finland from the Perspective of Finnish Students at Wittenberg University (1531–1633), and Andreas Pawlas, Mikael Agricola and the Finnish Identity. Is Mikael Agricola the root for the special link between Finland and Germany when it comes to culture and language? Kirsti Siitonen and Katri Annika Wessel contribute a report on the teaching and research of Finnish language and culture in German universities. The first university to offer modules in Finnish was the University of Greifswald, where teaching began in 1921. The second focus is on voting. The article by J. Antonio Seijas-Macias, Power Index of Finnish Parties: Evolution of the Parliament System, resumes methods and results presented in Manfred J. Holler’s A Priori Party Party Power and Government Formation: Esimerkkinä Suomi published in Volume 1 of FGY-PE. Holler’s analysis ended in 1978 when his article was first published. Seijas-Macias’ article is accompanied by two studies of recent elections in Finland and Germany: Lasse Nurmi and Hannu Nurmi, From Center-Right to Center-Left: The 2019 Parliamentary Election in Finland, and Christoph Dörffel, Andreas Freytag, and Miriam Kautz, The 2019 State Election in Thuringia and the Populist Threat. There are ob-vious differences but also simularities. – Back to the beginning of this volume. Jussi Pajunen and Mikko Karjalainen’s article analyzes a rather dark chapter of Finnish-German cooperation, the Finnish volunteer battalion of the Waffen SS in 1941-1943.