Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1939, Page 364
354
LE NORD
discharged from his duties as well as being fined by the Court of
Appeals at Turku.
As a result of these unfortunate incidents, Snellman began to
long for a trip abroad, in order to escape for a time from the nar-
row and confining circumstances of his own country and to be-
come acquainted with freer political and social conditions else-
where. Furthermore, Snellman was encouraged in this by a
genuine wish to continue his studies in peace. He left in the au-
tumn of 1839, directing his steps first to Stockholm and thence for
a short while to Germany, Switzerland and other countries. Snell-
man soon returned to Sweden and went directly to Stockholm.
This time he remained abroad for more that 2 years.
The long journey which Snellman started under such peculiar
circumstances almost as an exile, gave him manifold inspirations
and impulses. These had a marked influence on his spiritual out-
look on the world and his mental development, but, above all, on
the formation of his political and social principles.
In the first place Snellman found liberal-minded friends in
Stockholm. He became closely connected with a group of young
writers who presented their liberal ideas in a paper called the
“Freja”. Among these writers were August Blanche, Olof Tryxel,
L. Almqvist, Emile Flygare-Carlén etc. According to Rein, Snell-
man became the outstanding contributor to “Freja”.
Even from the point of view of his literary and scientific
work Snellman’s sojourn abroad was extremely profitable. In
addition to many other publications he published in Stockholm
(1842) his weightiest and most important piece of work which
contained profound and independent political and philosophical
ideas. This research work, bearing the title, Statsláran, originally
published in Swedish is strangely fresh even to-day.
Of his stay in Sweden Snellman wrote a noteworthy letter in
which he described the unsatisfactory conditions prevailing there,
and which, remarkable though it may seem, contained, far-seeing
ideas indicating his future mission in life. This letter was written
in July, 1840, and was addressed to his childhood friend, the uni-
versity lecturer Fr. Cygnaeus. In this letter Snellman makes note
of the fact that the educated part of the Finnish people (the Swe-
dish) was not in the least interested in the intellectual and eco-
nomic development of the uneducated (Finnish) class and that
under such conditions the common people have become indif-
ferent to everything. Snellman goes on to say: