Prime Minister's Office (Finland)
The Senate of Finland was founded on 18 August 1809 in the Grand Duchy of Finland when Emperor Alexander I of Russia signed a standing order on its establishment at Peterhof Palace. The Senate was initially called the Governing Council until it was renamed as the Senate in 1816. The Senate of Finland was divided into the Economic and Judicial Divisions; the Economic Division was further divided into departments, such as the Office Administrative Department (; ). On 1 October 1892, the Office Administrative Department was disbanded and the modern equivalent position of Prime Minister in the Senate, the Vice-Chairman of the Economic Division, was granted a support office in its place. The new unit was called the Office of the Economic Division (; ). Following Finnish independence in 1917, the unit was renamed as the Prime Minister's Office on 27 November 1918 with the operations and staff remaining intact.
Monarchy of Finland
In December 1917, Finland declared her independence from Russia, in response to the October Revolution in Russia. The internal unrest in the country soon descended into an open civil war between the Reds (i.e. revolutionary forces consisting of various socialist factions and the working class) and the Whites (i.e. pro-government forces, political conservatives and much of the middle and upper classes). In the end the White side emerged victorious. During the war, the Whites had been supported by Imperial Germany, and in an effort to cement the alliance with Germany, the Finnish parliament, now purged of socialist members, elected Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse as the King of Finland. Before Frederick Charles could move to Finland, however, the collapse of the Central Powers made the idea of German-born Finnish king untenable and he declined the throne. After new elections, the parliament, now again composed of representatives from all political parties, adopted a republican constitution of 1919 which was in effect, with numerous modifications, until 1999 and the basic structure of which is continued in the current Constitution.