In 1716 the Russian tsar Peter the Great — the Russian monarch often mentioned as the enlightened and westernized “exemplary” tsar, i.e. Russia at its best — ordered that all the children and youth were to be captured and adults to be killed in Ostrobothnia, the west coast of Finland. The land was to be destroyed to make a 100-kilometre (60-mile) buffer zone of wasteland.
A buffer zone where nothing grows and nothing could hide, not even ideas — that is a deeply Russian concept.
Vladimir Putin happens to be a fan of Peter the Great. This was Peter’s Russia in the 1700s, Stalin’s Soviet-Russia in 1939, Putin’s Russia in 2007, Putin’s Russia in 2008, Putin’s Russia 2014, Putin’s Russia in 2022 and still Putin’s Russia in 2023.
“Apparently, it is also our lot to return [what is Russia’s] and strengthen [the country]. And if we proceed from the fact that these basic values form the basis of our existence, we will certainly succeed in solving the tasks that we face.”
The President of Russia, last June 2022 at the exhibition marking the 350th anniversary of the birth of the first Russian emperor, Peter the Great
The “basic values” that form the basis of their existence
The Russian commander Mikhail Golitsyn was appointed as the military Governor of Russian-occupied Finland, and Russian soldiers and the “Cossacks” in particular started laying waste to Finland in scorched earth manner, carrying out the Tsar’s orders — and instilling deep Russo-phobia doubling as Cossack-phobia in the Finns, which still lingers 300 years later. Culturally and geographically, Finns and the Cossacks would not seem to have much to do with each other, yet you’ll find the Cossack occupies a surprisingly special place in Finnish mentality despite the geographic distance. For example, the number of “Cossack stones” spread across Finland, big, notably boulders whereon “a Cossack” has given orders of destruction or perhaps killed a local woman; or from behind which a Cossack himself has been shot and killed by a local hero.
“There is a Russian proverb which says: ’kazak berjot što ploha ležit’ or ’A Cossack will take whatever is not fixed to the ground’. It is worth taking heed of this household wisdom, which is doubtless based on experience.”
President Sauli Niinistö at the opening of the National Defence Course, 10th November 2014
The Winter War 1939-40 was harsh; the period of Great Wrath 1713-21 is still the cruelest time in Finnish history — pure brutality for brutality’s sake without rules or laws. Today, we would call it genocide. It was systematic, intentional and total.
This is Ukraine’s Winter War + Great Wrath.
Church record of Marjatta Puusti 1646-1770
It was not enough that the Russian soldiers impaled and killed Marjatta Puusti’s husband. They whipped Marjatta and kidnapped her son to slavery, then came back the next winter to give emaciated Marjatta a few more whippings again, to force her to stand in the freezing snow naked, burn her with a sauna broom set to fire and finally to blind her with hot tallow. The now blind single mother had a hard time trying to scrape anything to eat in the wintry Ostrobothnian wasteland and had to bury her children, but incredibly enough, she survived and lived another 55 years.
Including another brutal Russian occupation known as the Lesser Wrath 1742-43, which saw the destruction of 70-80% of eastern part of Finland. Finnish history also knows such other notable wraths as the Long Wrath and the Old Wrath, wherein the word “wrath” stands for the “basic values” of Russian aggression that forms the basis of Russian existence.
Bodies found near recaptured Ukraine region show signs of torture,
official says
Homes, farms, field and towns were invaded, looted and torched. Bodies everywhere. Rape, terror, torture, mass slaughter. Slavery. Children forced to watch horrors. The Finnish concept of piilopirtti, a hideout cabin, was born. People who could tried to flee into the vast woods and hide in dugouts, sometimes for years. Even today, the self-isolating piilopirtti-mentality is embedded in the Finnish culture, to have a lakeside summer hideout in the woods where to flee for peace & quiet & freedom every weekend and paid holiday. In the land of the million cabins, cities become ghost cities during the summer weekends, much to the amazement of the foreign tourists.
The Destruction Of Religious Sites By Russian Forces In Ukraine
Churches were targeted and the clergy. Because, where do people seek refugee and consolation, mercy and hope, if not from their familiar home church? To be cruel for real, destroy what is holy and sacred for them, destroy not just the body but the spirit and the collective mind and memory.
From the Finnish movie Isoviha (the Great Wrath), 1939
When Finns were slaves
And no, we are not talking about Vikings and Caliphates, but the systematic Russian campaign to capture Finns to be shipped to Russia for slavery.
Russia captures people, who then disappear.
Back then as today. In 1716 and still in 2023. This is something unique to Russia, part of those “basic values” of Russia Putin promotes.
Millions of Ukrainians have been forcibly taken to Russia. Thousands of Ukrainian children have been forcibly taken to Russia as “children of the state,” to be re-educated to become patriotic Russians.
Just like back then. Just like now.
Brutality and disregard for civilian suffering certainly was not a Russian novelty back in the day; instead, the systematic kidnapping of civilians for slavery was not a way of the European armies, had not been and has not been for centuries, yet was a huge part of the Russian occupation doctrine. Peter the Great’s great modern European city, the glorious Saint Petersburg was being built, on a swamp, next door, and needed endless labour. In addition to the vast Russian serfdom. Four-fifths of Russian peasants were serfs, 23 million Russians were privately owned and almost another 20 million were owned by the state.
To understand Russia, I think we absolutely have to understand this collective mentality of the unfree. You are not an individual. The Russian oligarchic kleptocrats do not just own the yachts and villas, factories and resources. The believe they own you too. The brutality stems from the notion of owning people who are nothing but just another resource to be used by you as you will.
Finns were captured to provide that labour. Less than 20,000 made it to Sweden and safety; 20-30,000 were taken to Russia as serfs and slaves. Some were used in Russia, some sold on international slave markets. One of the most famous and beloved Finnish children’s fairy-tale (yes), Zacharias Topelius’s Koivu ja tähti (The Birch and the Star), is a tale of a sister and a brother who try to find back home from Russia to Finland during the Great Wrath, based on Topelius’s own great- (yes)great grandpa’s captivity in Russia.
About two hundred years ago Finland had suffered greatly. There had been war; cities were burned, the harvest destroyed and thousands of people had died; some had perished by the sword, others from hunger, many from dreadful diseases. There was nothing left but tears and want, ashes and ruins.
Z. Topelius, The Birch and the Star, 1893
In total, some 60,000 Finns were killed, fled or kidnapped, taking a heavy toll on the then-population of just 400,000. Tens of thousands of more were brutalized, tortured, raped, blinded, burnt, disabled, starved. Particularly, the lost children, the systematic kidnapping of children and youth to Russia was felt for generations.