AH challenge: Earliest possible indepedant Finland

What it says in the title, how can Finland become indepedant as soon as possible, or at any point could a Finn has established a kingdom before a takeover by the Swedes/Rus? Bonus points for the biggest Finland possible.
 
50,000 BC. The Kingdom bounded by the Sea and the Forest and that Hill over There.
Hot damn, how did I not think of that!

Okay, maybe I should be a little more specific, earliest and still surviving Finnish kingdom/nation.
 
If the Second Swedish Crusade doesn't happen, perhaps by the Finns establishing a Christian kingdom.
 

Old Airman

Banned
I would say 1809 is too early, as Finns of the day were a little more than "natives" ruled by Swedish barons with thin sprinkling of Swedish-speaking intelligentsia here and there. So, 1856, Krimean war continuing with Russia losing it badly (it is far from assured outcome, but let's suppose it did happen, nothing is impossible in a universe where OTL Russo-Ja[anese war happened) and losing Finland as part of peace treaty. Next possibility would be 1905 (basically OTL 1917 collapse happening earlier).
 
1809?!? 1856?!? 1905?!? It could be as far back as the 1200s as long as the Swedish don't crusade on the Finns.
 
Maybe a Finnish tribal chief converts to Christianity around 1200 and asks for the help of the Teutonic Knights to unify his land under Christianity around the time the Knights were heading for Prussia OTL. This will probably lead to some kind of German state on the coast of Finland, but that can be dealt with, given time. This could lead to all sorts of interesting butterflies in the Baltic...
 

Old Airman

Banned
1809?!? 1856?!? 1905?!? It could be as far back as the 1200s as long as the Swedish don't crusade on the Finns.
We're going into realm of tribal legends at this point and I was trying to work within written history. Yes, Finns lived in their forest since times immemorial, and yes, they could "pull Lithuania", so to speak, at random point of time up to Swedish crusade.
 
Any insights from people more knowledgeable than I about the supposed 1742 endeavour? It sounds enormously anacrhonistic and the only source is Wikipedia, which I'm hardly going to trust, in this case even admitting that's it's written from a single (Finnish) source. Assuming the WP account of events bares any resemblence to reality, I imagine "Finland" was being used in a strictly geographic sense.
 
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