Axel Olof Freudenthal was a Swedish-speaking

Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...

 Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 philologist

Philology

Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

 and politician.

He was born in Siuntio

Siuntio

Siuntio is a municipality of Finland.It is located in the province of Southern Finland and is part of the Uusimaa region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water...

, and studied at the University of Helsinki

University of Helsinki

The University of Helsinki is a university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but was founded in the city of Turku in 1640 as The Royal Academy of Turku, at that time part of the Swedish Empire. It is the oldest and largest university in Finland with the widest range of disciplines available...

 where the nationalistic movement struggle between the Fennoman

Fennoman

The Fennomans were the most important political movement in the 19th century Grand Principality of Finland. They succeeded the fennophile interests of the 18th and early 19th century.-History:...

s and the Svecoman

Svecoman

The Svecoman movement was a Swedish nationalist movement that arose in the Grand Duchy of Finland at the end of the 19th century chiefly as a reaction to the demands for increased use of Finnish vigorously presented by the Fennoman movement...

s was raging. He iniated the Swedish nationality movement in Finland and fought for the cultural integrity of Finland's Swedish-speaking population against the nationalist desires for complete finnization of Finland.

Freudenthal was appointed a docent in 1866 in Old Norse language and wrote his doctoral thesis on the dialect of Närpes

Närpes

Närpes is a town and municipality of Finland.The municipality is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Ostrobothnia region. The town has a population of and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is ....

 in 1878. He was a Professor of Swedish language and literature between 1878-1904. He died in Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

.
His life's work was documented by Arvid Mörne

Arvid Mörne

Arvid Mörne was a Finnish author and poet.He obtained a Masters degree in literature and history at the University of Helsinki in 1897, and a Ph.D. in 1910. He worked as a superintendent at the Nyland's folk high school Finns between 1899–1909, and as a teacher at the same school between 1909-11...

 in the book Axel Olof Freudenthal och den finlandssvenska nationalitetstanken (1927).

The Swedish People's Party issues a decoration named after him, the Axel Olof Freudenthal Medal. Many Silver and Bronze medals have been given to individuals since 1937, but only one Gold medal has been issued - to Elisabeth Rehn

Elisabeth Rehn

Märta Elisabeth Rehn is a former MP of the Swedish People's Party and the first female Minister of Defence in Finland. In the 1994 presidential elections she was narrowly defeated by Martti Ahtisaari.Elisabeth Rehn spent her childhood in Mäntsälä, where her father worked as a community medical...

 in 1994.http://www.sfp.fi/start/nyhetsarkiv/artikel-31-38.html

Amid the scientific racism of the 19th century Europe, Freudenthal went on to claim racial supremacy of Swede over Finn in a way that parallel theories of Aryan suppremacy.