2 Euros Independence

Issued to mark the centenary of Finnish independence, declared on December 6, 1917 — a date chosen partly because the Bolshevik government in Petrograd, having just seized power weeks earlier, was considered more likely than the Tsarist or Provisional governments to recognize Finnish sovereignty. Lenin's Council of People's Commissars granted that recognition on January 4, 1918, barely a month before Finland descended into civil war.