No abstract

No abstract

Nordic Homicide in Deep Time draws a unique and detailed picture of developments in human interpersonal violence and presents new findings on rates, patterns, and long-term changes in lethal violence in the Nordics. Conducted by an interdisciplinary team of criminologists and historians, the book analyses homicide and lethal violence in northern Europe in two eras – the 17th century and early 21st century. Similar and continuous societal structures, cultural patterns, and legal cultures allow for long-term and comparative homicide research in the Nordic context. Reflecting human universals and stable motives, such as revenge, jealousy, honour, and material conflicts, homicide as a form of human behaviour enables long-duration comparison. By describing the rates and patterns of homicide during these two eras, the authors unveil continuity and change in human violence. Where and when did homicide typically take place? Who were the victims and the offenders, what where the circumstances of their conflicts? Was intimate partner homicide more prevalent in the early modern period than in present times? How long a time elapsed from violence to death? Were homicides often committed in the context of other crime? The book offers answers to these questions among others, comparing regions and eras. We gain a unique and empirically grounded view on how state consolidation and changing routines of everyday life transformed the patterns of criminal homicide in Nordic society. The path to pacification was anything but easy, punctuated by shorter crises of social turmoil, and high violence. The book is also a methodological experiment that seeks to assess the feasibility of long-duration standardized homicide analysis and to better understand the logic of homicide variation across space and over time. In developing a new approach for extending homicide research into the deep past, the authors have created the Historical Homicide Monitor. The new instrument combines wide explanatory scope, measurement standardization, and articulated theory expression. By retroactively expanding research data to the pre-statistical era, the method enables long-duration comparison of different periods and areas. Based on in-depth source critique, the approach captures patterns of criminal behaviour, beyond the control activity of the courts. The authors foresee the application of their approach in even remoter periods. Nordic Homicide in Deep Time helps the reader to understand modern homicide by revealing the historical continuities and changes in lethal violence. The book is written for professionals, university students and anyone interested in the history of human behaviour.

No abstract

This article analyses the Peace Treaty of Fredrikshamn (Hamina in Finnish) and its consequences in Sweden and Finland. The Russians set strict preconditions for the commencement of peace negotiations with the Swedes in the summer of 1809. These conditions were realized almost <em>in toto</em> in the final peace treaty, which consisted of just twenty-one articles. In addition to regulations directly related to the ending of hostilities, the main provisions of the agreement entailed huge territorial losses for Sweden, strictly defining the regions it was to cede to Russia, the most important of which was Finland. Sweden was also enjoined to give up its alliance with Britain and to join the Continental Blockade. Furthermore, the peace treaty laid down provisions for securing the position of both Finns and Swedes as subjects in the new situation, defined measures to ensure the continued functioning of the economy, and stipulated strict provi- sions for the protection of private property. The latter were very significant, especially with regard to the legitimacy of the administration, the pacification of society, and the safeguarding of the infrastructures in both Finland and Sweden. The post-war resumption of peace was not easy for either the Finns or the Swedes. However, the problems caused by the peace treaty were very different on the two sides of the Gulf of Bothnia. The problems in Finland were easier to solve because they were more concrete. The Grand Duchy of Finland, which was born out of the treaty, was permitted to maintain the existing Swedish legislative, social and local administrative framework, and a new central governmental machinery was created on top of it. In Sweden, the most important problems attending the return to peace (which could also be described as a &lsquo;crisis of peace&rsquo;) included the difficult question of the succession along with serious internal and economic issues. However, the most serious worry concerned the re-establishment and maintenance of the legitimacy of the government in the new situation.