What about tradition? Traditions and historical events is usually a good way to realise why certain things in culture are the way they are.
A long long time ago, in this very galaxy and unfortunately not so far away from where this is written, the Russians decided that it’s about time to invade Finland. The Finns, being not very happy about the idea, decided to keep their home and independence thank you very much, and thus, the Winter War begun.
There was a lot of shooting, skiing, planning, dying and all the usual war’ish things going on for the next four months. The result: Still independent Finland, a lot of people dead, and some areas lost to Russia. There was indeed much wailing and nagging of teeth back then.
That not being enough, during the following three years in WW II Finland fought alongside Germany – a fact usually downput by Finns- and was again mostly shooting and getting shot by the russians. The result being, still, and independent country and a lot of people dead. Here’s a reference site about the wars.
Well, so how is this so different from every other nations’ wounds and traumas from their own wars? The answer of course is that it’s not at all that different. But they seem very important to a nation, and the history is marked by swearing and cursing about the “things being the way they were before the war”. Because of the wars some Finns hold an everlasting grudge against Russians; this is particularly true considering older people.
Finland was also considered by many to be Russia’s puppet during the Cold War -period: Allegations have been made that Russia’s policies steered Finland a whole lot. This, as true as it was, ended on Russia’s collapse in 1990’s.
The Finns have a longlasting tradition of envy. It has a lot to do with the inferiority complex, so these should be explained a bit.
If someone’s neigbour buys a new car, it is sometimes a bit hard (for a Finn) to swallow the whole thing without buying a new car too. It helps little that usually the neigbour goes on and on about it: How life has changed after getting that new car. The formula here is that when someone gets something, those knowing about it will want one too. This, strangely, applies to all things, even immaterial ones.
Finns can easily and routinely envy just about anything, but the key issue here is that they envy things like nationality (“Oh, you’re british?”). This leads to an interesting deduction about the inferiority complex. Finns do sometimes manage to believe that everyone’s a bit better than they are, except when drunk.
The reason for both of these things is a bit unclear. Whether is has something to do with the fact that we’re a tiny nation (0,05 % of world’s population) on the edge of nowhere is just as good an explanation than the fact that during the winter there’s not much light and thus everybody gets depressed.
Efforts have been made to improve the situation. There are weird slogans contradicting the whole thing (“To be born Finnish is like winning the lottery”) and constant stressing over the importance of history (“Things were so much better back then, and they will be in the future, too”).
But that’s enough about that, it’s a boring subject.
The Sauna has been mentioned earlier on as a reference, but the key point remains unclear. Why, why do Finns have sauna? What’s it is for? Does it have a meaning?
“Originally, the sauna was a place to bathe, but as it was the only available clean place with abundant water, it has also been a place where the Finns have been brought into this world and healed.” (Quote from Mihael Cancar’s excellent Sauna-site)
So according to tradition, sauna was all that plus a way to combat the extreme coldness during the winter. As sauna was consided to be the cleanest place around, people used to deliver babies in there and so on.
Families used to be huge, and so was the amount of hot water needed to wash up the lot. Generally speaking, on many occasions sauna was the only way to wash oneself up. This changed a bit with a weird new invention called the shower.
There are several superstitions related to the sauna. During the 19th century it was believed among the common people that sauna was the means to cast away evil spirits. Sauna used to have all sorts of common beliefs attributed into it, the warmth being used to cure almost all sorts of diseases and so on.
The first saunas were actually just large holes in the ground with a fire in the bottom. How much fun is that?