A brief history of the National Library of Finland
The National Library of Finland, founded as the Library of the University of Finland at Turku in 1640, was destroyed in 1827 in the great fire of the town of Turku, the former capital of Finland. After the fire a previously planned move of the University to Helsinki was put into effect. Helsinki had become Finland's capital in 1812 as a result of Sweden's ceding of Finland to Russia. The Library, now renamed the Library of the Imperial Alexander University, started almost from scratch in Helsinki. However, it grew astonishingly fast, mostly because of donations of books from European and Finnish learned institutions and private individuals, but the real growth of the library's holding of books useful to the research work was based on generous gifts from St Petersburg.
In 2006 the name of the Library was changed from the University of Helsinki Library to the National Library of Finland.
