Edwin Linkomies

Edwin Johannes Hildegard Linkomies (December 22, 1894–September 9, 1963, until 1928 Edwin Flinck) was Prime Minister of Finland March 1943 to August 1944,^[1] and one of the seven politicians sentenced to 5½ years in prison as allegedly responsible for the Continuation War, on the demand of the Soviet Union. Linkomies was a prominent fennoman academic, pro-rector (administrative head) of the University of Helsinki 1932–43, rector 1956–62, and the government's Chancellor of the University from 1962 until his death.

Edwin Linkomies was born as Edwin Flinck in East-Finnish Viipuri, son of a Finland-Swedish officer who died soon after his birth, but grew up in West-Finnish Rauma, north of Turku, in a purely Finnish-speaking region of Finland. He did a quick and splendid career in academia, graduated as 19 years old, wrote his dissertation as 22 years old at Finland's university (in Helsinki), where he seven years later was appointed professor and head of the department of Latin literature. Meanwhile he had continued his research in Germany, in Leipzig and Halle, and would keep close contact with German universities for all of his life; although as a teacher and scientific leader he was known for his "Anglo-Saxon style" — clear and simplistic in his presentations emphasizing the grand lines rather than intriguing details and exceptions — but also as demanding, authoritarian, keen of the dignity of his office, and maybe too self-confident.

Linkomies was in many respect the last of his kind. Most of all, he was the last in a long line of prominent Finnish academics who were recruited from academia to important political tasks. But he was also the last to give lectures in formal academic dress, and the last to expect students and university employees to bow deeply for their rector.

Linkomies ideologic development may for later generations seem remarkable, but among his contemporaries it was not unheard of to have been ardently nationalist, anti-Scandinavian, monarchy minded, anti-Socialist and anti-democrat, only to shred these opinions one after another. His memoirs describes his astonishment over how the Socialist half of Finland's population turned out to be equally patriotic defenders as the non-Socialists after the Soviet Union's attack in November 1939. According to his own account, he was also one of the first Finns to realize the troubling nature of the Nazis — at least among his fellow Conservatives.

During the interbellum, much of Linkomies' rhetoric and political energy was directed against the Finland-Swedes, and the remnants of their privileges and dominance in the society; but also against Sweden and Scandinavia, that he perceived as both too Socialist and too eager to dominate Finland. However, in the 1950s, after the disappointment over Sweden's limited support during the wars, he contributed energetically to inter-Nordic contacts and cultural exchange, and may be credited for the at least partial healing of the rupture between Conservatives in Finland and Scandinavia, that had its background in fennomania and the Åland Crisis.

An assessment of Linkomies’ roll as politician is complicated by the fact that he at, at least, two critical moments in Finland’s history deliberately spoke and acted against his own conviction, if one is allowed to believe his account in his memoirs.

• In the early 1930s, he argues that his ambition was to steer Finland’s Conservative party, Kokoomus, in democratic direction after its entanglement with the semi-fascist Lapua Movement. But in order to achieve this, he appeared conform to the lesser evils of anti-parliamentarism, militant anti-Socialism and authoritarianism.
• During the Continuation War, after the Wehrmacht’s defeat at Stalingrad, he was appointed prime minister with peace on the top of his agenda, but neither in deeds nor in words would the government led by him and president Ryti reveal this aim, fearing the majority of the Finns to be unprepared, and the German co-belligerent still too strong. Furthermore, he did not dare to establish contacts with the growing domestic opposition against the war, and only very cautiously and hesitantly with countries that probably would have been inclined to support the peace process, notably the United States, Sweden and Britain, if they had had confidence in Finland’s wish for peace.

References