Петербургский исторический журнал № 4 (2016) УДК 94(480)«1800/1900» Risto Alapuro Finnish Elites and Russia in the Nineteenth Century The position of Finland in the Russian Empire aff ected relations between the Finnish elites — bureaucratic, economic and ideological — and their relations with popular groups within the Grand Duchy. <...> The central elite, the highest echelons of the bureaucracy, assumed a dual role. <...> This elite was the interface between the empire and the local population and it espoused both loyalty to the autocracy and consolidation of Finnish institutional distinctiveness — a position epitomized by the term «loyal patriotism». <...> The Finnish state and its central administration emerged as a result of an external decree, which gave the bureaucratic elite strong reasons for identifying with and further developing the new political unit. <...> In enhancing the country’s distinctiveness, the elite was well aware that it had to maintain loyalty to the autocracy and forestall all off ences against social peace in the borderland. <...> Unlike nationalism in many other ethnically distinct regions of multinational empires in the same epoch, the Finnish variant, Fennomania, was not only a movement for liberation and emancipation but also a version of statebased nationalism. <...> Saint-Petersburg Historical Journal N 4 (2016) Risto Alapuro Elites in a dependent polity The relationship between the economic elite and the politico-military elite is a key element of state formation in developing societies1 . <...> Thus can be read the refl ections of Nobel laureate Douglass C. North and colleagues on the connection between rent seeking and the use of violence2 roughly be equated with the economic elite and those engaged in the latter with the state elite (including the political, military, and administrative elite)3 , if those engaged in the former activity can . <...> In a state where unifi ed elites enjoy a close relationship to those exercising coercive power, they can eff ectively limit the access of newcomers from other social groups to economic and political opportunities. <...> Therefore, the refl ections of prominent institutional development scholars mentioned above may provide the starting point for the examination of Finland’s consolidation as a state during this period. <...> First, they imply that investigation of inter-elite relations and relations between elites and popular groups is also the key for understanding development in the Finnish case. <...> Third, these preconditions are viewed as processes: the elite analysis <...>