Main description:

This book will provide a thematic overview of one of European history's most devastating famines, the Great Finnish Famine of the 1860s. In 1868, the nadir of several years of worsening economic conditions, 137,000 people (approximately 8% of the Finnish population) perished as the result of hunger and disease. The attitudes and policies enacted by Finland's devolved administration tended to follow European norms, and therefore were often similar to the "colonial" practices seen in other famines at the time. What is distinctive about this catastrophe in a mid-nineteenth-century context, is that despite Finland being a part of the Russian Empire, it was largely responsible for its own governance, and indeed was developing its economic, political and cultural autonomy at the time of the famine. Finland's Great Famine 1856-68 examines key themes such as the use of emergency foods, domestic and overseas charity, vagrancy and crime, emergency relief works, and emigration.

Contents:

Front Matter

Dedication

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Translations and Spellings

Place Names

Table 0.1 - Selected Finnish / Swedish Placenames

Chapter 1 - Finland's Great Famine: Introduction

Chapter 2 - Famine in a Home Rule Land

Chapter 3 - Emergency Nutrition: Promoting Self-sufficiency

Chapter 4 - Domestic Charity: Nation-building in a Time of Crisis

Chapter 5 - External Philanthropy 1856-68

Chapter 6 - Vagrancy and Perceptions of Crime

Chapter 7 - Relief Works Schemes

Chapter 8 - Seeking Refuge Outside of Finland

Chapter 9 - Conclusion

Bibliography