I'm aware of that but we are still independent and always have been. and Being heavily outnumbered and still defeating Denmark and Poland and winning some battles against the russians.. I would hardly call that getting our asses whooped. And we probably would have won too if Karl XII wouldnt have been assassinated in norway.
Didn't want to interfere, but with all due respect to all the finns in here...
I'll just quote Wiki :
"Finland was a part of Sweden from the 12th to 19th century, and from 1809 to 1917 was an autonomous Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire."
"On 29 March 1809, having been taken over by the armies of Alexander I of Russia in the Finnish War, Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy in the Russian Empire until the end of 1917. In 1811 Alexander I incorporated Russian Vyborg province into the Grand Duchy of Finland. During the Russian era, the Finnish language began to gain recognition. From the 1860s onwards, a strong Finnish nationalist movement known as the Fennoman movement grew. Milestones included the publication of what would become Finland's national epicthe Kalevalain 1835, and the Finnish language's achieving equal legal status with Swedish in 1892."
Also worth mentioning that the finnish military leader (and the future president of Finland) who was largely responsible for the finnish success in the Winter War- Mannerheim , was an ex russian white army officer of german origins. Wiki actually also states that he was born into a noble swedish family, didn't know that , heh.