Bank of Finland 1918


This seasonal exhibition at the Bank of Finland Museum tells of the Bank's activities during the Civil War. It also recounts how the war affected Finland's monetary economy and payment mechanisms.

The Finnish Civil War was fought from January to May 1918 between the forces of the Senate (i.e. the Finnish Government of the day) and of the socialist People's Delegation, which rebelled against it.

The Senate's troops were known as the Whites, while the People's Delegation's force was the Red Guard (or Reds). The Imperial German Army joined in the conflict in April 1918 on the side of the Whites, while the Reds included a number of Russian soldiers.

The conflict was extremely bloody. In the aftermath, too, a lot of Red soldiers were executed or otherwise died in the prison camps set up towards the end of the war.

The Bank of Finland operated for three months under the Red People's Delegation. For this reason, the Senate was forced during the conflict to develop a variety of emergency solutions to compensate for the loss of the central bank.

The exhibition ran from 31 January to 30 September 2018. Exhibition website.