Chapter 7 The Making of Modern Scholarship of Commercial Law in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Finland: Models and Adaptations
In: The Development of Commercial Law in Sweden and Finland (Early Modern Period–Nineteenth Century)Search for other papers by Heikki Pihlajamäki in
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Abstract
The article views the emergence of Finnish commercial law in an international context. The article first explains how different European models of understanding and systematizing norms applied to merchant relations in the early modern period. The contribution then turns to the nineteenth- and twentieth-century development of commercial law as an academic discipline, focusing in particular on nineteenth-century Finland and, for comparison, certain other European countries. It is established that commercial regulations developed in Sweden already in the Middle Ages, and some seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Swedish authors showed interest in commercial matters. However, it would be an exaggeration to speak of Swedish commercial law as an academic specialization in any sense of the word in the early modern period. The development of specifically Finnish commercial law discipline is observed through the works of Professor Lauri Cederberg. In the early twentieth century, Cederberg turned his attention to Germany since it was at the forefront of global legal scholarship at that time. He did not, however, adopt the German teachings passively. Instead, he read widely, picking and choosing as he did so, and then applied his readings to Finnish circumstances.