From the Introduction: The purpose of the conference which produced the contents of this volume was to commemorate the bicentenary of the birth in Iitti in 1794 of the Finnish historian and Finno-Ugrist Anders Johan Sjogren. The organisers chose to honour Sjogren not by dwelling on his life and work -- though such was his influence in his day that we were frequently reminded of his scholarly legacy during the course of the conference -- but by a critical examination of the historical phenomenon of which he was both a founder and a practitioner in Northern Europe: the role of history in shaping national identities and in nation-building.