Is Finland in Scandinavia or not?

In Minnesota, the state with the most Americans of Scandinavian ancestry, this question is the stuff of great controversy.

Kate Parry, Star Tribune Reader's Representative

It took many years in Minnesota for this lost Hoosier to gain even a rudimentary understanding of the subtleties of Scandinavian culture here -- where a meeting room full of silent people can mean a ferocious argument is underway.

I'm 28 years into my indoctrination in lutefisk, lefse and a ritual for accepting a cup of coffee that makes Japanese social rules seem wildly careless. Still, I was unprepared for the reaction provoked by this question: Is Finland part of Scandinavia?

I assumed it was, along with Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. But it's not so simple.

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I now know controversy roils just below the repressed surface in this state with the most people who claim Scandinavian ancestry. It takes little provocation to unleash the full force of polite Scandinavian debate on this issue.

The latest provocateur was reporter David Peterson (who describes himself as 75 percent Swedish). On Dec. 31, he wrote about a study by University of Connecticut anthropologists that showed while most Europeans admire Scandinavians, the Scandinavians have less complimentary views of each other. The study included Swedes, Norwegians and -- brace yourselves -- Finns.

That's when Sara Raines, a retired mental health professional from Spring Lake Township and a Finn, called to educate me: "Finnish people are not Scandinavians," she said. "Finns are closely related to Estonians." Others left similar messages. At day's end, as my daily report on what readers had to say showed up in e-mails across the newsroom, a parade of Scandinavian staff members approached my desk to tell me firmly that Finns aren't Scandinavians -- or that they absolutely are. Uff-da.

To mediate this dispute, I descended into an endless wormhole of research seeking an answer. While Scandinavians may have lost some visibility in recent years as Asian, African and Hispanic immigrants have enriched Minnesota's culture, let me assure you that there is a deep well of scholarship on Scandinavia in Minnesota's colleges. And there are myriad associations where Scandinavians gather to drink coffee and apparently debate Finland, yea or nay.

From my research, I can say one thing with absolute certainty: Experts do not agree.

According to the improbably named Margaret O'Leary, chair of the Norwegian Department at St. Olaf College (she's an O'Leary by marriage, but Norwegian on her mother's side), "Technically speaking, Finland is not part of Scandinavia, which usually includes only Sweden, Norway and Denmark."

If you group Finland and Iceland with those Scandinavian countries, she said, they are called "Norden or Nordic countries."

Yet Monika Zagar, associate professor of German, Scandinavian and Dutch at the University of Minnesota, flatly said, "There is no doubt in my mind that Finland is a Scandinavian country," based on government, culture and religion influenced by Swedish rule. Language, she said, is different, with the university labeling its B.A. degree "Scandinavian languages and Finnish."

Agreeing with Zagar was Thomas DuBois, professor of Finnish and chair of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Wisconsin. "It makes sense to say Finland is Scandinavian in culture," he said, but not linguistically.

Cindy Wentland, staff person at the Minneapolis-based Swedish Council of America, said that "people who aren't splitting hairs would include Finland." But, she added, "Finland is always the sore spot."

At Augsburg College, Betsey Norgard works in communications and also is president of the Twin Cities Chapter of the Finlandia Foundation. She explained that the Finnish language is unrelated to Swedish and she prefers "Norden" to "Scandinavia." But, she added with a chuckle, "I would never come to fisticuffs with a Norwegian over this."

I thought the controversy would die down, but quiet tenacity is in plentiful supply in Minnesota. A week later, reader Dennis Griebenow, who lives in Minneapolis but spent 12 years in Norway, e-mailed me wondering if the definition of Scandinavia had changed. I translated this as a polite way to suggest we were wrong.

I went online to the encyclopedia website Wikipedia, where a search for Scandinavia brings up a warning that "the neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed." Anyone can dip into Wikipedia and edit it, and it seems various factions edit Finland in and out of the section. A related chatroom debate runs for 13 pages.

I decided to try one more thing. I called the Finnish Embassy in Washington, D.C., where press aide Mari Poyhtari started by saying Finland is part of Scandinavia, but then someone in the background disagreed and she corrected herself. The most accurate term is Fenno-Scandinavia or the Nordic countries, Poyhtari said. But, she admitted, "We always say we're part of Scandinavia."

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