Finnish Party

The Finnish Party (Finnish: Suomalainen Puolue) was a Fennoman conservative political party in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland and independent Finland. Born out of Finland's language strife in the 1860s, the party sought to improve the position of the Finnish language in Finnish society. Johan Vilhelm Snellman, Yrjö Sakari Yrjö-Koskinen, and Johan Richard Danielson-Kalmari were its ideological leaders. The party's chief organ was the Suometar newspaper, later Uusi Suometar, and its members were sometimes called Suometarians (suomettarelaiset).

During the 1880s, the party became divided over its policy towards Russification. A faction critical of Russia broke away to found the Young Finnish Party in 1894. The remaining party, increasingly known as the Old Finnish Party (vanhasuomalaiset), adopted the policy of appeasement toward Russian rule.

After the Finland's Independence in 1917, and the Civil War of 1918, the question of the new state's form of government became the decisive issue. The Young Finnish Party and the Old Finnish Party reorganized into two new parties: most of the Old Finns joined the conservative, monarchist National Coalition Party, while a minority aligned with the liberal, republican National Progressive Party.