Keine Konstitution, keine Grundgesetze haben wir derzeit …“ – Verfassungsdenken und Verfassungsbestrebungen im Finnland der frühen Autonomiezeit

After Finland had become a part of the Russian Empire 1809, the political elites strove to achieve a guarantee of Finland’s “fundamental laws”, which Alexander I had promised to preserve only in unspecific terms. They aimed at a constitutional charter explicitly con-firming state law, as it was valid according to their interpretations. When Alexander I apparently thought about convening a Finnish diet in 1819, these efforts culminated in three memoranda on Finland’s constitution. In these memoranda all the tendencies determining the contemporary Finnish debate on the country’s constitution were reflected. Following the outward example of European representative constitutional charters, their contents were yet rooted to a major extent in the Swedish prerevolutionary state law tradition. However, finnish hopes regarding the country’s constitution did not fulfil.