Literature created in Finland is of relatively late origin. Only from the nineteenth century onward can we speak of a thriving Finnish literature, and for the first half of that century this meant literature written in Swedish: Finnish-language literature was not produced to any considerable extent or quality before the 1860s. Down to the end of the nineteenth century Finnish was the mother tongue of the majority of the population, while Swedish was the language of administration, schools and public life. From 1890 to the present, the percentage of Swedish speakers—omitting the bilingual—has fallen from about 14 percent to some 5 percent of the population. (What is new today, compared to the situation in 1880, is that the country now includes a considerable population speaking something other than either Finnish or Swedish as their mother tongue. Paradoxically, one of the largest linguistic minorities today is that of Russian speakers; during the years 1812–1917, when Finland was part of Russia, very few inhabitants spoke Russian as their mother tongue. Over the past few decades, however, Russian immigration to Finland has been considerable. One reason, though not the only one, is that the Ingrians, descendants of Finns who centuries ago settled along the coast south of St. Petersburg, have since the 1980s been granted the right of “return” immigration and to claim civil rights in Finland.) Literature in Swedish has nevertheless continued to thrive in Finland along with that written in Finnish. Finland therefore also has two traditions of literary historiography: one in Finnish and another in Swedish.