INTRODUCTION

After the Swedish-Russian War of 1808-9 all of Finland became a Grand Duchy under the Tzar of Russia and in 1812 its postal service was arranged along Russian lines and foreign mail was routed via St. Petersburg. Finland retained its autonomous constitution but under Russian influence.

During World War I Finland supported Russia until the Bolshevik Revolution threatened in 1917, On 20 July 1917 Finland declared its independence from Russia and this was confirmed by parliament on 6 December .

Russian influence on censorship in Finland is manifested by the predominance of the Russian language in most censor handstamps and labels for the period. Censorship began in August 1914 and was performed on domestic mail until March 1917 and on foreign mail until January 1918. With very few exceptions foreign mail was all censored in Helsinki or Tornio. Mail were censored in the arriving district - in the later period double censorship is often seen.

LOCATIONS

Censorship was carried out in the following cities (names in Swedish / Finnish):

Helsingfors / Helsinki
Torneo / Tornio
Kuopio
Nikolaistad / Nikolainkaupunki (Waasa)
Bjørneborg / Pori
Tammerfors / Tampere
Åbo / Turku
Raumo / Rauma
Uleåborg / Oulu
Viborg / Viipuri

On the following two pages you will see examples of several covers with the handstamps that were used.
Censor markings from more offices are shown in part II.

LABELS

A separate page shows some examples of different censor labels used in the different colours: White, Gray/ White, Blue, Green, Yellow and Brown. Labels were used at all 10 censor offices without the censor office name. Later the two large towns of Helsinki and Tornio as well as Kuopio used labels that included the town name.