The coat of arms of Finland is a state symbol that is depicted on the flag, postage stamps, coins and banknotes, and official seals. It is also mandatory instead of the license plate on the president's car.
The symbolism of the coat of arms and its meaning
The coat of arms of Finland is a red shield depicting a crowned golden lion. Instead of a right paw, he has an armored hand holding a silver sword with a golden hilt. With its hind legs, the lion tramples on a Saracen silver saber with a golden hilt. The shield also features 9 silver rosettes corresponding to 9 historical parts of Finland.
The lion is an ancient Scandinavian symbol of power and authority, the hand is a symbol of chivalry, and the saber is of Christian European culture as opposed to Muslim culture.
It is believed that the author of the coat of arms of Finland is the Dutch artist William Boyen, who worked in Sweden under Gustav I and Eric XIV.
History of the coat of arms
By the middle of the 16th century, Finland did not have its own coat of arms and was part of Sweden. For the first time, the coat of arms was granted in 1557 by the Swedish king Gustav Vasa to his son Johan, when he became Duke of Finland. It was compiled from the coats of arms of the two main provinces - Southern and Northern Finland. There is a version that the lion on the coat of arms of Finland is taken from the royal coat of arms of Sweden, and his gesture is from the coat of arms of southern Finland, which depicts a black bear holding a sword.
Later, the coat of arms was slightly modified and began to designate other provinces. It is this coat of arms that adorns the bas-relief on the tomb of the Swedish king Gustav Vasa in the Cathedral of the city of Uppsala. It is a crowned shield with a scarlet field, in which there is a golden crowned lion, whose right paw in armor carries a sword. With its hind limbs, the lion stands on a saber. The field contains 9 silver rosettes. It is believed that the lion was borrowed from the royal Swedish coat of arms, in its gesture - from the coat of arms of the Karelian principality (or northern Finland), which had a right hand with a raised sword.
Having ascended the throne, the Swedish king Johan III Vasa combined his title “King of Swedes, Goths and Wends and others” with the title “Grand Duke of Finland and Karelia,” in connection with which he added a closed crown to the royal coat of arms. In 1581, King Johan III of Sweden approved the coat of arms of the Finnish principality, which was an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Sweden.
In its present form, the coat of arms of Finland has been officially approved since 1978.
In the 17th century, the crown disappeared from the lion's head, then the armor, and the tail became bifurcated. Later, the lion began to trample the saber with its hind right paw, in the front left it touched the hilt of the sword. When Finland became part of the Russian Empire, Tsar Alexander I kept the coat of arms of the Grand Duchy of Finland almost unchanged, in 1802 he approved it with minor amendments - adding the Russian crown, which the Finns themselves did not want to recognize. Whenever possible, they replaced it with a closed grand-ducal crown.
The full version of the coat of arms was an image of the Russian two-headed eagle with the Finnish coat of arms on its chest. The coat of arms took its modern form in 1889. In 1917, Finland declared independence and again retained its coat of arms. In 1920, the crown ceased to be crowned with the shield.
