The Aurora Society (Aurora-seura, Sällskapet Aurora), founded in 1770 in Turku/Åbo, was the first organization to publish a newspaper in Finland and to promote the study of Finnish history and the Finnish language. Its early commitment to the cultivation of culture anticipates Romantic Nationalism, but was also part of the proliferation of secret orders and lodges in the 1760s and 1770s, intended to create a forum for Åbo intellectuals to position themselves vis-à-vis the other university cities in the Swedish realm, Uppsala and Lund, as well as the political centre, Stockholm. Upon its foundation Aurora was announced as a sister society to the Stockholm-based literary society Utile Dulci. Another sister society, Appolloni Sacra, was active in Uppsala. Aurora’s statutes were based on those of Utile Dulci, sharing the aim “to participate in deeds that honour the Swedish nation and Language”. Aurora added a provision for the study of Finnish language and history, and the cultivation of music. The statutory stipulation that the Aurora Society would publish its own newspaper stemmed directly from local needs and circumstances.

The society had many prominent members, gathering in its ranks almost everyone of standing at the local Academy. It had a hermetic/initiatory membership structure, which makes members’ degree of involvement difficult to assess. The prominent and internationally renowned Henrik Gabriel Porthan (1739–1804) was its leading personality; Aurora ceased to be active when Porthan travelled abroad in 1779.

Aurora’s Tidningar utgifne af et Sällskap i Åbo appeared from 1771 on. A large portion of the texts in the paper addressed economic affairs and chimed with the society’s promotion of literature, language, history, music, and economics. After Aurora became inactive in 1779, its newspaper continued to be published under different names, and its main focal points were gradually harnessed by new organizations. In 1790 a Musical Society (Musikaliska Sällskapet) was founded in Turku, arranging concerts and distributing sheet music. In 1797, the Finnish Economic Society (Finska Hushållningssällskapet, Suomen Talousseura) was established to produce and disseminate knowledge on agriculture, commerce, and manufacturing. This society modelled itself after other economic and patriotic societies in Europe. It later gained royal status and after 1809 was transformed into the Imperial Finnish Economic Society. The following year saw the establishment of a Reading Society (Läsesällskapet i Åbo), which kept a library and became important for the distribution of books and journals.

Aurora’s interest in Finnish history and language took longer to find a follow-up; finally, in 1831, the Finnish Literature Society (Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, Finska Litteratursällskapet) was established. It placed itself in Aurora’s succession by annually marking the day of Porthan’s death as a day of remembrance and by initiating a monument in Porthan’s honour in 1854 (it materialized in 1864). This developing Porthan cult also affected how the role of the Aurora Society was recalled in the 19th-century context. As projects to write history from a national Finnish perspective and the development of Finnish literature and language advanced, the Aurora Society became more and more cherished as a foundation for building the nation.

A peculiar element in shaping the past was the so-called Porthan Chest, which contained papers from Porthan’s time, and especially documents pertaining to the Aurora Society. After Porthan’s death his younger colleague Jacob Tengström had enclosed these documents in a chest and finally donated them to the Academy in 1817, with the stipulation that it should not be opened before the year 1900. Tengström, one of the leading personalities of the newly-created Grand Duchy of Finland, was clearly afraid that parts of Porthan’s legacy could have a disruptive effect. Toward the end of the century the mystery surrounding the chest provoked speculation about a possible patriotic message that could aid the nation’s cause in its tensions with the Russian authorities, retrospectively casting the broadly cultural pursuits of the 1770s as a Finnish national question. When, in January 1900, the chest was opened, the content failed to live up to these expectations; and public events were taking on a dynamic of their own anyway.