10th September 2012
Mirkka Lappalainen exlpores in her book Jumalan vihan ruoska. Suuri nälänhätä Suomessa 1695–1697 (Siltala) (The Whip of the God’s Wrath. Finland and the Great Famine in 1695-1697) the appalling history of the global cooling at the turn of the 17th century in the Swedish realm and in her eastern provinces in Finland in particular. During the Great Famine, one third of the Finnish population died of famine, making the late 17th century Finland one of the most ghastly corners to live in Europe. Lappalainen seeks to answer why the famine of 1695-1697, in fact, claimed so many victims in Finland, and points out that the tragedy was a result of many coinciding problems stemming from geographically large and agriculture-dependent state with absolute monarchy and heavy governing machinery.
Jumalan vihan ruoska also draws out a grass root perspective to what it was like to live the ordinary every-day life during the Great Famine as well as shows the desperate yet abysmal crimes that some people were ready to commit to put an end to the never-ending hunger.
More information about the book from the publishers website (In Finnnish)