60 61 Reviews September, 1808. a Month That Sealed
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
60reviews 61 Continued. September, 1808. A month that sealed Finland’s fate Döbeln at Jutas. the year 2009. While this is being writ- Nils Erik Forsgård INLanD’S FUTURE Was settled in September quence was population decreases and the author and I are in complete agree- An illustration by Albert ten, Latvia is in political and economic September 1808. 1808. Before the year was over, the eastern the impoverishment of settled areas. ment. Even though the Finnish War was Edelfelt. From The Tales of turmoil. In the last quarter of 2008, part of the Swedish kingdom would be oc- Forsgård’s accounts provide support for a “drama on the periphery of a world Ensign Stål. the country’s economy shrank by 10.5 Helsinki, Söderströms Fcupied and controlled by Russian troops. the idea that the war hardly ended with war” (see BW I:1), as Max Engman puts percent. The government resigned in 2008. 233 pages. The decisive military outcome had already arrived a ceasefire, or when the peace treaty it, it is all the same a part of the history late February 2009. The president has with the Battles at Ruona and Salmi on the 1st and 2nd of was signed on September 17, 1809. For of Europe. The Finnish War must be called for more efficient governing of September. With the Battle of Oravais on September the individual man or woman, the war understood in the context of the larger the country, and many blame the large 14, the last Swedish attempt to reverse their fortunes continued as long as illness claimed vic- developments in Europe. The suffering Swedish banks for the economic crisis, in the war, Sweden’s defeat was confirmed. Hope- tims and life in the material sense had of individuals can perhaps be depicted as these, over the last years, have pro- lessly unsuccessful landings in the Turku area during not returned to normal. In many cases, without such parallels, but the suffering vided a major proportion of the loans. the second half of the month simply underlined the it took several years before normalcy re- nonetheless acquires greater relevance The de-regulation of the capital markets inevitable. Despite the often crisp, clear air of the Nor- turned. The beginning and end of a war with the insight that experiences in the and the privatization of the banking rland autumn, the month of September 1808 carries can thus in some respects be relative Finnish War were shared by many other system that took place as part of the MARTIN HÅRDSTEDT with it a heavy sense of fate. It was in the increasingly phenomena. Europeans. Forsgård points out that adaptation to the EU’s inner market are Associate professor of chilly nights that the Swedish-Finnish army dragged Perhaps it might have been possible the Finnish War can perhaps be said to not features that guarantee the kind of history at Umeå Universi- itself out of Finland. Those who remained were Finn- to reflect even further on the women have begun in 1804 — or at least 1805. ”free” state that was dreamt of when ty. Has recently published ish civilians, who were left to the Russian authorities, who baked the bread and the farmers Gustav IV Adolf had decided to take a the Soviet Union collapsed. Latvia is, a book on 19th-century with their demands for a pledge of allegiance to a new who did the transporting. Here, the stand against Napoleon in 1804, and, in many respects, dependent on other, history of Åland and a ruler. In addition, there was a Russian army with an problem lies in the nature of the source in 1805, broke the neutrality that had larger political and economic systems, depiction of the Napoleo- inexhaustible need for food and shelter. material. The diseases have left traces, existed previously in an unmistakable and is subject to the vagaries of time. nic Wars from a Nordic but bread-baking and troop and ma- way when Sweden joined the Third perspective. Recipient of IT IS THIS IMPORTanT MonTH in the collective Swedish- teriel transport have surely not done so. Coalition. That this, from a realpolitik Do WE noW DETECT The signs of another the 2007 Swedish Clio Finnish past that is the starting point for historian of Nonetheless, it was likely bread-baking, standpoint, was disastrous, is known up-coming collapse, that of modern- Prize. ideas Nils Erik Forsgård’s book. The book gives a series transport, and the provision of accom- by all. The parallels to developments ism? Are these evaluating organizations of snapshots, or on-the-spot accounts, that capture modations that actually made the pros- on the Continent are conveyed in Fors- trying to be modern and rational at the the events from several perspectives. It is precisely in ecution of the war possible. gård’s book by, among other things, dawn of a postmodern era, in which the different perspectives that the pre-sentation has Forsgård devotes considerable space descriptions of the Congress of Erfurt we can no longer rely on an enduring its decisive strength. Classic historical events like the to the Battle of Oravais. It was the blood- in September–October 1808 — an event pool of competence dwelling beneath Finnish War often tend to be described on the basis of iest of all the battles. With a good eye for that took place as the Swedish army the shiny surface of the financial world? old, ingrained patterns of thought. Forsgård’s book ex- the overall course of events of the war, was slowly being forced out of Finland. This dissertation does not focus on, or emplifies the renaissance in research into the Finnish and with a sense of how it can be used Napoleon and Alexander I sat and dis- question, the aspects that evaluating War that took place in the 1990s. The purely military- for educational purposes, Forsgård sees cussed a continuation of the Treaty of organizations choose to investigate, or historical perspectives, which tended to focus on the the Battle of Oravais as illustrative of the Tilsit from the summer of 1807 — the on the values and economic and politi- actions of the most prominent historical actors, were entire war: the Russian attack on the agreement that made possible the Rus- cal theories that govern their actions. increasingly joined by studies on the civilian popula- north, the Swedish retreat, the Swedish sian attack on Sweden in February of But in the time to come — which some tion qua resource for the conduct of war, the con- counteroffensive, and the final Rus- 1808. As far as we know, nothing was already call the era of de-globalization, sequences of the war for Finns from different social sian victory and the Swedes’ desperate said explicitly about Finland during the or the era of protectionism — we might groups, and the reactions to the systematic Russian withdrawal. Döbeln’s Battle of Jutas is Tilsit discussions. Nevertheless, top- soon see some exciting dissertations pacification policy. The explanations for why the war of course also included in the historian level political matters proved decisive. about the development of the Baltic went the way it did multiplied, and were increasingly of ideas’ depiction of the war. This is No matter how one looks at the signifi- states, dissertations that, conforming to rooted in the preconditions of warfare — maintenance partly because Döbeln is a compelling cance of the period of 1808–09, it was the new spirit of the time, build on dif- and transport — rather than being grounded simply in figure, but also because of Runeberg’s the caprice of the politics of Europe ferent ideas of how to develop the good the decisions of highly placed commanders. poem “Döbeln vid Jutas” [Döbeln at that led to the break-up of the Swedish state. Matilda Dahl gives a hint of this, In Forsgård’s well-written and illuminating book, Jutas], which surely should be num- Realm. polarization arose between those who complied and in the book, the reader has the possibil- in her conclusion, when she reflects on the themes of the new research appear in many of the bered among the most famous of all the those who resisted. In September 1808, those who ity of comparing the often problematic whether modern society exists here and chapters, where we can meet people as they come to poems in the epic of Finnish national THE TOPIC of PeoPLE’S war, or gue- had fought realized that it was over. Everything came sources, in the form of diaries and now — or whether it exists at all. ¯ life from the source material: the plundered farmers, poetry, Fänrik Ståls sägner [The Tales of rilla war, is also addressed, where the to a head precisely during that month. Had the fight memoirs, with today’s research. This the refugees from Finland in Stockholm, the true Anna Ensign Stål]. Spanish rebellion against the French been in vain, were the sacrifices on the battlefield of gives the author’s work a certain solid- Bärlund and the made-up Amalia, Second Lieutenant invaders has its obvious place. Perhaps Oravais simply a wasted effort? To survey such issues ity. Forsgård has helped to shed light on guje sevón Ljunggren, Battalion Pastor Holm, and many more. One CHARACTERISTIC of FORSGÅRD’S it would be possible to see the uprising is perhaps not the primary task of the historian, but the chain of events and circumstances One theme that in many ways has the power to shake book still needs to be highlighted. The of the Finnish peasants as part of a the issues are extremely relevant.