Helsinki law faculty in the autumn of 2017. For a legal historian it was a very inspiring talk: he looked back on his career mainly through the books he has written. Actually, it was more than a personal story – it was a history of private law in Finland, and in many other European countries, too. Wilhelmsson’s first book was Social civilrätt (‘Social civil law’), which for many is still his main work.1 In the Nordic countries the book was a pivotal contribution to discussions on the relationship between law and politics, focusing on the role of the welfare state and welfarism in law. Interestingly, he did not omit the traditional function of a legal scholar – legal systematization. He analysed the possibilities of furthering welfare policy and ideology through legal regulation, and in the process launched the idea of social force majeure. The principle was then widely adopted in Finnish civil law doctrine and legal practice.2 At time of writing, several wouldlike to begin with a personal story. My close colleague, Thomas Wilhelmsson, gave his last lecture as a professor of civil law at the I part vi • european legal integration 1 Thomas Wilhelmsson, Social civilrätt: Om behovsorienterade element i kontraktsrättens allmänna läror (Helsinki: Lakimiesliiton kustannus, 1987). 2 Johan Bärlund & Peter Moegelvang-Hansen, ‘Contracting with a Social Dimension’, in Pia Letto-Vanamo, Ditlev Tamm& Bent Ole GramMortensen (eds.), Nordic Law in European Context (Cham, Springer 2019). 276 The Europeanization of legal cultures 16. Pia Letto-Vanamo
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