Herman Gummerus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Herman Gregorius Gummerus (1877-1948) was a leading Finnish historian and one of the founders of the Patriotic People's Movement (IKL).
Born in Saint Petersburg into a Swedish speaking family, Gummerus became an expert on the economy and society of Ancient Rome, and lectured at the University of Helsinki from 1911 to 1920 and again from 1926 to 1947.
An early advocate of Finnish independence, Gummerus was imprisoned for this in 1904 and went on to edit the journal Framtid and went on to form the anti-Russification Wetterhof Bureau (later Finnish Bureau) in Germany in 1915. After independence had been achieved Gummerus was appointed to posts in Stockholm and Kiev before becoming Ambassador to Rome in 1920 (a post he held until 1925). He became an admirer of the growing fascist movement whilst in Italy.
On his return to Finland, and with the leaders of the Lapua Movement mostly imprisoned, he joined with Erkki Räikkönen, a fellow Swedish-speaker, to form IKL as a slightly more moderate continuation. Driven by an inherent conservatism, Gummerus desired an electoral alliance with the National Coalition Party but soon found that the rank and file of IKL had no interest in this. IKL also adopted a strong position on the importance of the Finnish language, following the lead of the Academic Karelia Society and further isolating the Swedish-speaking Gummerus. He finally left the movement in 1934 and took no further role in politics until his death in Helsinki on July 18, 1948.
