I morse fick jag att öppna ett två dagar långt seminarium om Bomarsunds framtid och det behövde ingen fråga två gånger. Jag är stormförtjust i berättelsen kring Bomarsund och hur det som byggdes för krig idag blivit en symbol för fred.
EFFORTS (European Federation of Fortified Sites) samlar arkitekter, arkeologer, historiker och andra sakkunniga för att vandra genom landskapet, kolla in ruinerna, dela erfarenheter och fundera över hur Bomarsund kan bevaras, utveccklas och berättas för kommande generationer. Vi får alltså bästa tänkbara hjälp i vår åländska storytelling och Bomarsund är en av våra starkaste berättelser.
Fästningsruinerna i Bomarsund är mycket mer än gamla stenar. Här byggde det ryska imperiet en fästning för att visa styrka med hjälp av militära muskler. Anläggningen var också en avstamp mot vägen till världsherravälde. Målet var västvärlden.
I skuggan av Krimkriget förvandlade segrarmakterna Storbritannien och Frankrike fästningen till en ruin. Ur resterna och freden i Paris växte demilitariseringen, senare neutraliseringen och så småningom hela berättelsen om Åland som fredens öar.
Få platser berättar Ålands historia lika fysiskt. Bomarsund går att se, röra vid och vandra genom. Man kan föreställa sig stadslivet i Skarpans, umbäranden med alla stenar, rädslan för Ryssland osv. På många sätt definierar platsen också det moderna Åland, det var under Bomarsundstiden som ålänningarna började ta sig för här i världen.
Ett särskilt och varmt tack vill jag rikta till arkitekten Daniel Andersson vid Fastighetsverket. Det är han som med kunskap och ett imponerande nätverk fått ihop detta möte. Jodå, det är också Daniel som ritat Bomarsunds besökscentrum och tack vare hans arbete samlas nu kvalificerad erfarenhet från olika delar av Europa kring frågor som kan vara avgörande för Bomarsunds framtid: Vad ska bevaras? Vad kan utvecklas? Hur gör vi platsen tillgänglig utan att putsa bort det som gör den äkta?
Allt behöver inte byggas upp på nytt. Frånvaron är en del av berättelsen. En saknad mur säger lika mycket som en bevarad.
Mötet handlar också om något större och framtidsomfamnande. När Åland samlar europeisk sakkunskap för att diskutera hur vi tar ansvar för vår historia och formar vår framtid, då visar vi självstyrelsen i praktisk handling. Åland är inte bara en plats där andra möts eller ett objekt för andras beslut. Vi är ett subjekt med egen röst, eget ansvar och förmågan att ta initiativ.
En fästning som byggdes för att hålla människor ute samlar nu människor från olika länder för att tillsammans tänka framåt. Historien har en fantastisk känsla för ironi.
I mitt välkomsttal till dessa europeiska kämpar föll orden ungefär så här:
Distinguished guests, dear friends, a very warm welcome to Åland, the islands of peace, and, of course, to Bomarsund. It is a privilege to see you all here, and I would like to start by thanking the Property Board of Åland, together with the members of EFFORTS and the Finnish Forum for Fortifications, for choosing to spend these days here so that we may benefit from your insights.
Looking around this room, I see architects, archaeologists, historians, conservators – experts who spend your professional lives thinking about monuments, buildings, ruins and cultural heritage. I don't. I am a politician so I will resist the temptation to spend the next ten minutes explaining to you how to manage historic monuments. That would be courageous, even by political standards, but perhaps not wise.
Instead, I would like to talk about something I know a little more about: Åland, our history, and the extraordinary journey that brought this place from one of the Russian Empire's great military projects to what we today proudly call the Islands of Peace. Bomarsund is not just an interesting collection of old stones. Once upon a time, this was the future. People came here with grand ambitions. They drew plans, moved stone, built roads, houses and fortifications. The main fortress alone covered more than 18.000 square metres and was intended to house some 2.500 soldiers. Around it grew Skarpans, Åland's first real urban community, ie a town.
Imagine the confidence behind such a project. This was architecture with a very clear message: we are here, we are strong, and we intend to stay in order to expand the tsardom to the west. Then history intervened. In 1854, during the Crimean War, British and French forces attacked Bomarsund. The fortress fell and was destroyed. And normally, you might think, that would be the end of the story. But on Åland it became the beginning of another one.
Two years later, in the settlement following the Crimean War, Åland was demilitarised, in Paris. When the League of Nations, the predecessor to the United Nations, dealt with the Åland question in 1921, it confirmed the demilitarisation and complemented it with neutralisation. At the same time, Åland received its autonomy within Finland. Or as we say: Finland hade the good fortune to win Åland. Or, among good friends, Finland became a part of Åland.
So when we stand here today and look back, there is a fascinating chain of events connecting the landscape around us with the society we live in today.
A fortress was built because of military strategy. The fortress was destroyed by war. Its destruction contributed to demilitarisation.
Demilitarisation became part of an international settlement. And alongside that settlement grew the autonomy that still shapes everyday life on Åland more than a hundred years later.
That is quite a journey for a pile of stones. And perhaps that is also why I find your mission so fascinating. You don't really function only with buildings or the remains of them. You work with everything that people have placed inside them. Ambition. Fear. Power. Beauty. Faith. Technology. Money. Politics. Dreams. Culture.
And sometimes enormous amounts of human stubbornness. An architect may draw a room, but that room eventually becomes somebody's childhood or workplace, the place where an important decision was made. Long after the architect and the builders have left the scene, the building continues collecting human life.
The same is true of monuments and landscapes. We build them for one purpose and history gives them another. Bomarsund may be one of the finest examples I know. This fortress was built to keep enemies out. Today we invite people in. It was built for soldiers. Today it attracts schoolchildren, researchers, tourists, historians, architects and people like yourselves. It was designed as an expression of military power. Today we use it to tell the story of peace. There is something wonderfully human about that. We spend years and fortunes constructing something for one purpose and then history calmly comes along and says: No. This is what it means now.
That brings us to the challenging part of your profession. What do we do with places like this? How much do we preserve, explain, develop? How do we make them accessible without polishing away the very thing that makes them authentic, their souls? And perhaps most difficult of all: when should we simply leave them alone?
Because not everything needs rebuilding. Sometimes absence is part of the architecture. A missing wall can tell a story like a scar can. A ruin can sometimes tell us more about ourselves than a perfectly restored building ever could.
That, I think, is particularly true here. Bomarsund tells us something about the Europe that built fortresses, fought wars and moved borders. But it also tells us about another Europe, one that slowly learned there are other ways to solve conflicts, by the Rule of Law.
The Åland question was a genuine international conflict. Sweden had its interests. Finland had its interests. The people of Åland had theirs. There was no obvious solution.
But people talked. Governments negotiated. The League of Nations became involved. Compromises were made an’d guarantees were created. More than a century later, we are still living with the result, on the islands of peace.
We have our own parliament and government. We have legislative powers of our own. Swedish is our official language. Åland is demilitarised and neutralised. None of this means that every problem disappeared. Believe me. I am Speaker of the Parliament; I have evidence. Self-government is never finished. It has to develop as society develops, and there are occasionally, shall we say, different levels of enthusiasm about how quickly that should happen, between ourselves and the state authorities in Helsinki.
The fundamental idea has endured. People who disagreed profoundly managed to create institutions and agreements that allowed them to live with those disagreements. I think that is worth remembering today. Especially today.
Åland is not a perfect solution, but proof that there’s always a way forward. That distinction matters. Peace is not created because everybody suddenly starts thinking alike. Democracy doesn't work because disagreement disappears. International cooperation certainly doesn't work because nations stop having their own interests.
It works when we build structures strong enough to carry our disagreements. And strangely enough, that brings us back to architecture.
Societies are not so different from buildings. They need foundations. They need maintenance. They occasionally need renovation. And if you neglect them for long enough, sooner or later something important starts leaking.
You people probably have a professional term for that. In politics we call it Monday morning… But there is another reason why I am particularly happy that this meeting takes place here. Europe has an extraordinary military heritage. Fortresses, walls, bunkers, castles and battlefields are scattered across our continent. They represent an almost unbelievable amount of human intelligence, engineering, labour and resources devoted to defending ourselves from one another. So, yeah, intelligence may not be the right word…
We cannot change that history. Nor should we try to hide it. But we can decide what we do with it. Places once built for confrontation can become places for learning. Military architecture can become cultural heritage. A fortress can become a meeting place and people from different countries can gather among its ruins, as you are doing now, not to plan how to defend borders from one another but to discuss how we together can protect something we share.
I like that thought. Your task is ultimately not to save the past for the past's sake. The past will manage perfectly well without us. Your responsibility is towards the future. You decide what the next generation will be able to see, touch, walk through and understand. You help us remember not only what our predecessors achieved, but also what they got terribly wrong, and hopefully we’ll learn from it.
That is probably one of the greatest services architecture, archaeology and cultural heritage can offer society. They make history physical. You can stand inside it. You can put your hand on it. You can see the marks left by people who lived before you and suddenly history is no longer a chapter in a book. It becomes real. That is what Bomarsund does to you.
So during these days I hope you will share your expertise generously, challenge one another and exchange both good experiences and bad ones.
Enjoy Bomarsund. Look around and think about the extraordinary journey this place has made. A fortress built for war became a ruin. The ruin became part of the story of demilitarisation. Demilitarisation became part of the identity of these islands, the Islands of Peace, for the benefit of the whole of the Baltic Sea.
Today, people from across Europe come here to help us think about how we carry that story forward. History sometimes has a wonderful sense of irony. On behalf of the Parliament of Åland, welcome to Åland, welcome to Bomarsund and I wish you two inspiring days together. Thank you.
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