The Bank of Finland Museum opens 2018 with a new exhibition ('The Bank of Finland in 1918') on the Bank's activities during the Finnish Civil War. The exhibition provides an all-round view of how the Civil War of 100 years ago affected Finland's monetary economy, banknotes and other means of payment. The exhibition opens on 31 January 2018 and will run until 30 September 2018.
During the Civil War, the Bank of Finland operated for almost three months under the socialist People's Delegation and funded the Red administration's activities. During this time, the Senate adopted a number of emergency solutions related to payments to compensate for the loss of the Bank of Finland's normal activities.
The Bank of Finland's activities during the Civil War are treated in more detail in volume I of the two-volume history 'Bank of Finland 200 Years' p. 417 – 445. Both volumes of this work can now be read online.
More information on the impact of the Civil War on Finland's banknotes can also be found [in Finnish] in Antti Heinonen's 'Sodan ja rauhan rahat', at https://helda.helsinki.fi/bof/handle/123456789/14968.
The Bank of Finland has separately digitalised and published online several thousand pages of archive material on the period the Bank was operating under the control of the People's Delegation. This material was gathered into the Bank's archives in the aftermath of the Civil War, apparently in the early 1920s. [This material is also in Finnish only.]https://helda.helsinki.fi/bof/handle/123456789/14981.
The Bank of Finland Museum is located in the Kruunuhaka district of Helsinki at Snellmaninkatu 2. Entrance is free of charge.
For further information please turn to Museum Curator Jaakko Koskentola, tel. +358 9 183 2607.
Source: National Board of Antiquities