Simo Häyhä was never killed. But some soviet did shoot his jaw so in the end he couldn't come back to war. However after many surgeries, he still lived a full life

22:27 _"...the Soviet Union declared war on Finland in November 1939."_ - No they didn't! They invaded without a declaration.

Finns are amazingly resilient people. Peaceful, innovative, quiet yet friendly (until it's about metal and drinks), and have their independent course of foreign policy. Much love to you guys from an Indian!

Finns not adopting a "viking" lifestyle isn't exactly true. Both the Finnish tribes and Estonians to their south were seafaring and conducted trading along with pillaging in the surrounding areas in the eastern Baltic. Baltic Finnic people had their own vocabulary for boats, and similarly to the Norse, Finnic people also associated ships with serpents. One good example is "uisko", which was likely a small longship that could transport people and goods along with it being able to go into rivers. It was also capable to be dragged out of the water and over isthmuses and between different waterways. Estimates for how many men could be onboard was as high as 40, but that was likely exclusive for the largest ones. "Uisko" as a word has been used in folklore in which it has more often than not meant "snake" or "serpent". The word was also loaned into the Eric Chronicle written in the early 14th century as "wisko" as it was described as the ship used by Karelians along with it being introduced into early Russian as well. The Tavastians used rivers like the Porvoo River to get from the interior into the Baltic along with few medieval sources describing "Tavastians ports" on the coasts. Finns and Baltic Finnic people as a whole were no strangers to the Baltic and knew how to traverse it.

That was superb. I've seen a lot of potted histories of Finland on KZfaq, but this was the best by far. Many thanks!

As a native Karelian im happy that our language still exists and that the most finnic groups managed to survive. I cant get enough of our history and im always hungry for more videos about our brothers. As one of 40.000 native Karelians i just can say that russia dont care about our finnic friends. I was born in russia (кемь) but my family moved to Finland and i also just can speak Karelian and Finnish besides English. Russia has alot of territory that should be Finland because the russians dont make anything to save our people. Greetings from Joensuu (Finland)

Just a reminder. Kalevala is no big mythological record. It is a collection of short rhymes passed down trough oral tradition, that form a somewhat consistent narrative. Since the stories from Kalevala are spread out geographically and diluted in the course of history, Elias Lönnrot could not have possibly gather all the stories consistently. The estimates say that, comparing a perfect collection of all Kalevala rhymes to Lönnrot's Kalevala, is like comparing the entire Harry Potter series, to a page long replica of Harry Potter.

Great video. Theres a lot of comments about historical inaccurasies, but i think the overall image is very good. When you are squeezing hundreds of years in to 20 minutes, small mishaps are bound to happen. A lot of times the correct answer is uncertain. This is a good summary of the Finnish history, perhaps the best. I rarely subscribe to any channels, but you have earned it. Kiitos!

"We are no longer Swedes, we don't want to become Russians, lets be Finns." -Adolf Ivar Arwidsson

I gotta say, as a Finn, I teared up a few times watching this video. Also I learned a few new things about the country I've lived my entire life. Thank you!

Hands down the best video on youtube covering the history of Finland. Everything important was carefully covered and the drawings were excellent. I can see this channel becoming one of the top history channels on youtube.

As a Finn: An amazing summary. Quite balanced, humorous, main points covered, visually impressive with all the clips and editing, not getting stuck on details or a single thing -- I never say this, but thanks for making and sharing this video. It was a pleasure~

Really nice to see our history from an outside perspective, albeit there being some holes/empty hatches that are quite significant to telling the story. Understandably it is difficult to make everything fit into a 30min walktrough. Thank you either way for telling our history to the rest of the world, maybe for those really intereated this is a pathway into digging deeper.

Finnish person here, not an expert in being Finnish just being one so take it with grain of salt. "Hakkaa päälle" mentioned as the troops is very Finnish phrase, where it is absolutely abstract but also not at all for a finnish speaker. Literal translation would be "Hit them over (on them)" where more meaning filled "localization" could be more "Hit and overwhelm!" - Our war language is subtly not related to what we do to other side, other side is not even part of the yell. The only needed part in finnish war vocabulary is "What we do" - With little bit of generalization rules where you can say stuff like "hitting over" and it makes way more sense in Finnish than English. Sorry for tangent, for me, and maybe many friends "Hakkaa päälle" is just one of those things we say, or at least, in inspirational war movies, we say - there is a scene in original "Unknown Soldier" where one says it, to charge and fall, but also inspires others to follow that chant and charge. (said scene, in the new remake version; kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gtVimc6op5ecZXU.html) - So, the saying is still well known to this day, though, amount of finns in gangs partaking in gang wars where people would say stuff like this for realsies is not very high, at least hopefully not. Too long for sure, but also thanks. Even for Finnish people, videos like these are always a good resource to refresh and have concise chronological order which to "tack on" things you remember learning from school. Much like for other countries, sometimes outsider looks filter the knowledge a bit better, may filter out biases very nationalistic finns may have, and so on. Also, small note about (Finnish) Ä, and name like "Häyhä" - It is linked to A bit instead of "British proper a" which is the A we have always only most proper and most posh A whenever A is written, Ä is a seperation of "A" in words like "at" "angle" or "Static", and you bring that "tinge of difference" further from A and you have somewhat Finnish Ä. - Sadly, for being such a badass that he became one of most known finns outside finland, and people can write his name for sure, saying it is bit different. Because in Häyhä's name's case you cannot say "just say it like a japanese person would say it" because his name is almost all the things finnish language has versus Japanese. When otherwise we have words like "Sakka, Sakko, Sokko, Kukka, Kakka, Akka" where you can just write them down サッカ　サッコ　ソッコ　クッカ　カッカ　アッカ and they'd sound identical between the two speakers... Well, Häyhä is the name that has nothing you can do. Best you can say is "Ä is kinda like A, but more the one in ät rather than proper bri'ish bath" - and the Y is like Y in "yeet" rather than the more U people tinge it as. HAVE I MADE IT CLEAR THAT FINNISH IS WEIRD? Because damn, part of being finn that learns about outside world is learning how weird we are. In nice way. The way how Häkkinen speaks in F1 interviews. Having badass rock covers of Russian national anthems and stuff. In finnish.

wonderful video! Nothing but praise from a finn!

_"[The Finns] were not allowed to receive financial aid from the Marshall Plan [and] they were not allowed to join NATO"_ - Incorrect! The Paris peace treaty neither mentions Marshall plan nor NATO because neither existed yet. Marshall plan aid and NATO membership was simply not accepted because the years following the war right up until the signing of the treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance in 1948 were known as "the years of danger" during which the Soviet Union remained extremely suspicious of Finland and actively - but fortunately unsuccesfully - interfered in Finland's affairs in order to turn it into a Communist satellite.

Awesome video. A strange fun fact its that here in Brazil there is a Finnish touristic city called Penedo.

How the hell where you able to create something this well researched and informative? Must have taken forever. Many thx from Sweden.

I am by no means an expert but I'd just like to make a few corrections from my own past research. In the start, Ukko is not the "high god", or even a god really. The Finnish concept of the divine was more simillar to sprits than gods, but this is from the Kalevala which is a Christian version of the story and is accurate to the book. The second, Vikings actually refused to travel with Finns, interestingly out of fear as they believed they could control the weather and although they could take advantage of this they thought the Finns might use this to take a lager share of loot. However Finns and Estonians still did raid frequently on their own although it wasn't until way into the Viking age and so anyone being raided would probably just think they where funny sounding Norse or Danes In the conversion section it's mentioned that they'd "convert and de-convert". while kind of true it's not how it exactly worked, the Finns didn't see a baptism as converting but as only a way to please the Christians. The Vikings also did this and it's even recorded that the legendary Viking Rollo complained that his baptism in France wasn't as good as his baptism in England. I am really enjoying this video and I' love to keep watching but its Joulu and time for sauna.

Love to Y'all Finns from your neighbour in the west, you're a really cool country and you have a lot to be proud of! Really cool video!

This was the best countryballs-style video of Finland I have yet to see! Instantly subbed!

I'm living in this gorgeous country and I want to learn so much of it's history. Thank you so much for this educational video!

Gonna have to rail really hard against that "Finnish chieftains replaced by Swedish nobles" line. A large portion of the nobility were Finns, often chieftains who just converted to Christianity. Horn, Carpelan, Tavast, Tawast, Särkilahti, Blåfeld, Creutz, Stålarm, Kurki etc families were of ethnic Finnish origins, and most of their members spoke Finnish until the internationalization of the nobility took a toll on Finnish language starting from the mid-1600s. Many of Sweden's most important and influential statesmen, members of the privy council for example, were Finns. Finns held great power in the kingdom. It wasn't some exclusive ethnic Swedish project, but a mutual cooperative project between Swedes and Finns. The single BIGGEST lie in this video is that of the club war. It was not some uprising by Finns against Swedes, but an uprising by both Finnish and Swedish speaking peasants against the Finnish nobility. The regent of Sweden actually supported the peasants, while the Finnish military dictator Klaus Fleming embargoed Sweden and supported the king of Poland-Lithuania. Calling it a Finnish revolt against Sweden couldn't be further away from the truth.

havent seen this kind of quality when it comes to history of my country for a really long time, great job my good sir!

Wow, incredibly underrated, both in channel and in video. Hope your channel blows up someday! It will almost certainly happen eventually if you keep making quality content.

As a Finn I'm very pleased with this! Thank You, Kiitos! 😊♥️

Thank you very much for taking the time to make this video! Awesome work!!!!!!!

Great video! You made the right choice to feature Finland as one of the first nations in the series, considering how proud Finns are ;)

There were few things I would have wanted you mention for example Finland had relative of Wilhelm II as king of Finland for that 1 month of independence. And about the Crimean war, there we're some fighting in Finnish coast where Finns won fight against British, and captured a war boat from them. And you can go see that war boat too here.

Another great video. I have no idea how this quality content doesn't get thousands of views.

Interesting note about the Finnish civilwar. My hometown Liminka chose not to take sides in this conflict, with the reds and whites signing a treaty which would keep the peace even though the nearby city Oulu still saw fighting.

5 minutes in and I can already tell that this is one of the best videos about Finland in youtube! Subbing for sure!

A very informative video! I LOVE ❤️ history myself and so enjoyed this video very much. Bless you for being such a person with ardor and insatiable desire for history 🥰

13:50 I think Kustaa Raninen (Gustaf Ranin) was one of the wealthier Finnish speakers. Usually people finnicized their previously Swedish or English family names. He did the opposite.

At least Finland is one of those countries that stands up for itself and does not back down. Also the paper that Finland had during the depression really helped their economy.

Best history vid of Finland I've seen. Finally someone who just doesn't say "yeah Finns were some forest people before almighty swedes came to rescue them".

You're so underrated! Keep up the good work my man, your videos are very entertaining

So many good drawings, very good summary. This channel needs more views

As a Finn and a patriot at that. Thank you. Well made and recearched documentary a few small error discrepencies here and there but overall good.

I think it is amazing how, even though they were forced to sue for peace, the Fins absolutely humiliated the USSR in the Winter War. The K/D ratio is one of the most lopsided in history. Absolutely went full metal on them.

Good visuals, voice recording, music and the research you did on this

This is a very well done and amusing summary of Finland, the Finns and their place in the world. I did my last year of high school as an exchange student for the first 3 months in a Finnish speaking school in central Helsinki (Ressun Lukio), and then the rest of the year in a Swedish speaking village, Karis (Karjaa in Finnish) in the costal forest area half way between Helsinki and Turku... Your presentation of the Finland is oikein hyvä!

The language issue during the Swedish era was not quite as clear cut as presented. It was a peculiar mix with high nobility speaking German (or French later on), merchants speaking German, educated folk speaking Latin and ordinary folk either Finnish or Swedish. That being said the lack of written (or indeed even unified form) of Finnish increased the importance of Swedish language. Regardless the common folk had the right to make their appeals to the Swedish crown in Finnish as well. Also Finland was part of the actual Swedish state (i.e. not just a territory) with people having the same rights regardless of language. Also Sweden waged many wars in the west as well against the Danes (and Norwegians) so it wasn't quite as easy going 'in the west' as it might seem. Club war on the other hand was mainly a part of the internal strife which was waged across Sweden so it wasn't just a 'Finnish thing'. The separation plans also were mainly handled by the Swedish nobility of Finland, it wasn't like fully nation wide grassroot level stuff. And it actually had been pondered previously, the commander of the forces who crushed the peasants in Club War also had ideas of creating his own Finnish state. So it is a lot more complicated issue than just Finns vs. Swedes.

Great job, I'm over all impressed with the video. There are some small inaccuracies but no where near as bad as in most youtube videos. Especially the history since 19th century seems accurate, hell even the Finns aren't sure about the prehistory of the country

Days like this make me thankful for the KZfaq algorithm.

Very nice and throughout research. Awesome quality and illustrations! - history buff from Finland

This has to be one of the best videos about Finland on KZfaq.

What a great summary of Finlands history! Thank you so much for making this video! Even I learned much because I wasn't this interested on history at school, and school was over 20 years ago :D

This video warms up my cold Russian soul. By the way nice country balls references.

Im finnish and even I learned so much stuff I didn't know about my country in this video. Very well done.

Kiitos/thank you! This was a marvellous video!

Well, perkele, that was excellent! Loads of love from Finland!

This was a very engaging and interesting video! I didn't know a lot of Finland's history before

This is sooo well made, keep it up man

Nice, Always good to see new History Channels popping up, especially ones with such comfortable narrator voices and story telling. I can't wait to binge your videos to catch up and look forward to new ones Edit: Also the volume was too low, I didn't realize until I switched to a video from Lemmino. I had turned up the volume so much during this video, that Lemmino's "Just let me know" opening tag woke up my dog.

I must congratulate this channel, most of the videos regarding our history here in KZfaq are very bad but I couldn't spot historical inaccuracies in this one. Good job. Kiitos.

So much research have done and animations are superb

One thing to note of the finnish civil war it was and still is one of me most bloody civil wars in history of the world when compared to countries population

I just discovered your channel, amazing job, great narration and the pace is just perfectly balanced, as everything should be ! Keep on mate N

This is so well made. Thank you!

What a great video! good information and great editing. Hyvää työtä!

dude your my new fav youtuber for history new sub btw

Your channel is SPOT ON!! Don't loose it in the future

One of the best foreign history videos of Finland i've seen on YT. For most part the video was well made, but after 1939, there was lack of information and false info about Winter war and Continuation war.

deserves more views. Great Job!

Great and accurate history video! Good research done mate :)

Awesome video dude! It gave this Finn goosebumbs. Thank you!

Some parts lack historically significant events that lend more context to Finland’s actions, but very good and informative for a sub 30 minute video.

The addition of Sibelius' music is great

Wow this deserves so much more views

Thank You for the Video ! I'm now going to watch your videos and subscribe. Happy Holidays from an old Finnish lady!

That was a massive undertaking; to cover so much history in one video.

Going back to the tug of war (literally) between the would-be Swedish empire and the Rus, there's an old saying that "the Swedes would fight to the very last Finn."

Nice video! One slight mistake used in video, during the civil war white side used yellow lion on red background in their flag. It was temporary state flag. Blue crossed flag with white background came after the war. Also the reasons of Continuation war are still to be depaded. After the Winter war Soviet threath was not gone (for example taking down Finnish civilian plane Kaleva), Soviets were not done with the Finnish question (Molotovs discussions with Hitler in 1940).

Really magnficent research. As being from both swedish and finnish +1 origin I enjoied your historic overwiev. Marvellous you got some fine art as well!

I love your videos so much keep up the good work you totally deserve more subs❤❤

I find Finnish language very interesting and beautiful, greetings 🇮🇷

Pakko myöntää et hyvin oli tehty tämäkin video.

Amazingly well done. Thank you.

Eeeeyy! This was super chool! I personally would love bit more animation But as the point is history this was awesome!! Well done

We have an amazing and intresting history, and also we are really wealthy and happy people:). I hope that you could fully see our country! Terveisiä Suomesta!

From one small KZfaqr to another, this is superb. I started watching and had to doublecheck to make sure you were under 1000 subscribers. I can only imagine how long was spent making this video. If you are interested, some aspects of Finland as an early nation-state during the 1920s were briefly brushed over, like the Heimosodat (Tribal wars over Karelian territory in the early 1920s) and the Flying Finns helped solidify the Finnish national identity and may be of interest to you. I have a Flying Finns video in my files that is sitting unfinished and you may have inspired me to pump it out. P.S. Knowing the Finnish inferiority complex of being obsessed with what foreigners think of them and English language media about Finland in general, this video will become quite popular

A very nice summary of the Finnish history, well done! And I got to say, the pronunciation of many of the Finnish words was very good, for a nonnative speaker.

I wish I found this video sooner I really enjoyed it. Keep up the good work.

Quite a few minor or actually some bigger mistakes on the history front. Would have also liked that the music would be from Sibelius instead of Tchaikovsky.. - cause that is like when presenting American history.. you would have 'God save the Queen' playing in the background. Otherwise a good effort for starting an account of history on every country on this planet. Good luck with the project!

Keep at it, unless there's a conspiracy by YT against you, your channel will reach at least 100k subs. Your content is on the same level as Kraut's, although your channel seems to be more about history and facts, whereas his videos are more about history, (his) interpretations about history and theory.

the quality of the video compensates for the mispronunciations of Finnish words so I'll let it slide😉 seriously, amazing video

Dang this covered alot! Great video!

Great video Its very informative 👍🔥

Thank you for understading finnish people :) 2:08

Nicely done. Fine acript, narration, and editing.

Went into this looking for some context on post-WWII Finland, particularly the Kekkonen era, that was mostly glossed over. A good video regardless, but perhaps make a video on that history in the future.

One fun fact, Swedish Kings often trusted the Finns more than the Swedes... And the dominant language in Stockholm was for a time German and Finnish (becouse many Finns moved to Stockholm and German was the language of nobility and trade).

This guy deserves way more subscribers and views for this high quality content. Only issue I see is that you don't talk very loud, maybe raise your voice.

In 1939 when the soviets asked to move the karelian border 50km west, Sweden actually promised to join Finland in case of war. Most of the influencial people here supported the border change, but we trusted the Swedes to join and declined the soviet offer. But never joined thus forcing Finland to cede more of Karelia

Really great and informative video. Keep up the good work and I hope you make a video like this on Poland

And good voiceover as well 👍🏻

Mahtavaa. Thank you for telling others about our history. Ill give you a follow for this. I bet heres other thankful finns too so yeah. If you make a vid about finland. You will get many finns to your fan base lol. Kiitos

A joy to watch. Lives right next to them, still learned a lot from this video.

Wow I can't believe I found this in my recommended interesting video👍👍