Johan Vilhelm Snellman

Johan Vilhelm Snellman (; 12 May 1806 – 4 July 1881) was an influential Fennoman philosopher and Finnish statesman, ennobled in 1866. He was one of the most important 'awakeners' or promoters of Finnish nationalism, alongside Elias Lönnrot and J. L. Runeberg. Life and career Snellman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, the son of Kristian Henrik Snellman, a ship's captain. After the Russian conquest of Finland in 1808–09, and the promising establishment of the semi-autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, his family moved there in 1813, to the Ostrobothnian coastal town of Kokkola. His mother Maria Magdalena Snellman died there only a year later. Snellman was educated at the Royal Academy of Turku from 1822, where he studied theology as well as history, Greek, Latin and world literature, as well as a little bit of physics and other natural sciences. While studying at the academy, Snellman also received permanent national romantic influences, but he differed from the romantics in that he was interested in the future and the spiritual activity of nations instead of history. He settled in Helsinki in 1828 when the university was moved there. In 1835, after academic work amongst followers of Hegel, Snellman was appointed lecturer at the University of Helsinki, where he belonged to the famous circle of Cygnaeus, Lönnrot, and Runeberg comprising the brightest of their generation. Snellman's lectures quickly became popular with the students, but in November 1838 his lectureship was temporarily recalled after a judicial proceeding that ultimately aimed to establish firm governmental control of new and oppositional thought among the academics.