The Finnish famine of the 1860s has often been regarded as an outlier. Occurring comparatively late, at the fringes of Europe and without apparent external or internal stress, it was easy to sideline. Andrew G. Newby has now provided the first major overview of this catastrophic event. His book convincingly explores the key issues from causation to coping and commemoration, challenging the older, nationalist interpretations of the disaster. Lastly, it connects the Finnish disaster to European events and situates it competently within its wider context.
Newby’s work is directed at an international audience interested in the histories of Finland, famine, and humanitarianism. It is plainly the fruit of a long-term engagement. Drawing on a broad archival record, both Finnish and European, it also includes a range of literary, visual, popular and material culture sources. A travelling exhibition curated by the author on the 150th anniversary from 2017 to 2020 seems to have been benefited the narrative and provided the book’s structure.1 At the same time, the volume was not designed to be comprehensive. Newby consciously relegates large parts of the economic, climatic, and literary interventions to his discussion of the research literature. Instead, he focusses on seven areas he convincingly identifies as “universal” famine topics: 1) governance, 2) famine foods, 3) domestic charity, 4) international aid, 5) crime, mobility and deviance, 6) relief work, and 7) emigration.
Today, the perception of the Finnish famine as an oddity results from several factors: It occurred under “home rule” rather than colonial misgovernment by the Russian Empire. It did neither generate a national culture of remembrance, nor did it spark a sustained debate on culpability as other, “late” famines in Ireland or Ukraine did. Instead, the event was largely remembered as a freak accident of nature, a consequence of what was commonly referred to as the Great Frost.2
A key concern for Newby is challenging the nationalist, “Fennomane” interpretation that facilitated this “amnesia”. (p. 7) He contends that the timid response of the Finnish government, their reluctance to encourage international help or escalate interventionist policies, should be read as a consequence of their “Finnishness project”. The region had transition from Swedish to Russian control in 1809 as an autonomous, self-governed state within the Tsarist Empire. The nationalistic “Fennomanes”, led at the time by Johan Vilhelm Snellman (1806–1881), were keen not to jeopardize their long-term interests in securing autonomy by an acceptance of external help. They cast the famine as a natural phenomenon, providing a short-term “test” for the presumed stoicism, resilience, and rootedness of Finnish people. Newby provides broad support for this interpretation, ranging from the government’s reluctance to seek foreign help, to commit to fiscal intervention, or to provide relief schemes that might have encouraged migration. This view also governed the public approach to education and work-houses, or the perceptions of famine victims as morally degenerated, wandering and lazy. A key chapter explores how these ideas manifested in famine foods, ranging from the top-down propagation of (questionable) lichen bread as effective relief for frugal Finns, to the bottom-up use of bark-bread to acquire external help.
Newby contrasts the traditional narrative by highlighting the famine as a process rather than an event. He starts his story with the societal turbulences that created fragility after the separation from Sweden in 1809, long before the frosts started. His evaluation of the tepid governmental response to safeguard long-term national interests is convincing, but not one-sided: He stresses the limitations of what even a committed government could have done. Newby also highlights how the ambivalence of Finnish nationhood eventually did help the country to acquire support from various allies throughout Europe.
Other areas are studied less extensively. The chapters on petty crime and migration focus largely on the perceptions of the elites. Future archival studies might unpack the agency of the famine victims in more detail. Similarly, a greater focus on the climatic environment might highlight European connections not just on the humanitarian, but also on the ecological level. Russia, Sweden, and large parts of the world also suffered from the climatic anomalies of the time, but pursued different responses.3 Newby also refrains from engaging with the theory of famines more broadly, which could have helped to sharpen his messages on disaster governance, agency, and participation. Lastly, the figures reproduced in the book should have been modernised and made more readable.
“Finland’s Great Famine” provides a solid and accessible introduction to the topic and is likely to become the seminal text for this event. It delivers a successful challenge to both environmentally determinist and narrow nationalist interpretations. Instead, it reconnects the famine to its European political, humanitarian, and commemorative contexts. The book’s main hypothesis – a famine being perceived as the just price for national freedom – invites discussion far beyond the event in question.
Notes:
1 The exhibition “NÄLKÄ! The Great Finnish Famine” was shown at different museums and locations in Ireland as well as Oulu and Tampere in Finland.
2 Cf. Timo Myllyntaus, Summer Frost. A Natural Hazard with Fatal Consequences in Pre-industrial Finland, in: Christof Mauch / Christian Pfister (eds.), Natural Disasters and Cultural Responses. Case Studies toward a Global Environmental History, New York 2009, pp. 77–102; see also the review by Verena Winiwarter, in: Connections. A Journal for Historians and Area Specialists, 26.03.2010, https://www.connections.clio-online.net/publicationreview/id/reb-12643 (19.12.2023).
3 Cf. Guido Alfani / Cormac Ó Gráda (eds.), Famine in European History, Cambridge 2017.