Preliminary Programme

In the 18th century, the lands of southern Poland were plagued by two great famines: one in 1714/15 and the other, even more horrendous, in 1737. There were also some minor subsistence crises at that time when prices of the staple grain – rye – rose significantly (1745/46, 1758, 1772/73). The nature of all these crises has still not been clearly investigated, though most probably weather shocks were the primary cause in each case.

The first task of the proposed paper will be full identification of the weather shocks and their influence on harvest failures and subsistence crises in 18th-century southern Poland, something, which has never yet been thoroughly researched.

The main goal, however, will be to take a closer look at the demographic, social, and economic ramifications of the subsistence crises and famines for the feudal estates of large landowners. The most important questions here include the following: which categories of the peasant community were affected the hardest, and whether crises triggered a reshuffle among the peasants in connection with repossession of abandoned farms.

The study will be based on primary material – exceptionally well-preserved and diversified – relating to the royal estate of Niepo?omice near Krakow, the proceeds of which were applied exclusively to the sustenance of the monarch’s court. Management of this estate was exercised via long-term leases. At the time when these lease contracts were signed, detailed inventories of property and serfs' duties were made, identifying all peasant farms by the given name and surname, and type of tenant: kmie? (full peasant) zagrodnik (smallhold-er), cha?upnik (cottager), or komornik (lodger). Moreover, parish registers are available for two parishes located within the Niepo?omice estate, which will yield information such as which members of which peasant households were affected by the famines. The study will be a convenient starting point for making comparisons with other categories of substantial land ownership (noble, ecclesiastical) and for a broader discussion on the consequences of massive harvest failures in manorial society and among peasants living under serfdom. (Show less)

In terms of weather, springs and summers of the years 1866 and 1867 were exceptional in Finland. Serious nationwide crop failures of the country were predominantly attributed to weather anomalies. Nevertheless, Finns had experienced almost similar growing seasons before but managed several times to avoid a similar record-breaking famine. Why did the years 1866 and 1867 differ from usual periods of crop failures? That question is the point of departure for this paper.

It has often claimed that traditional Finnish agriculture suffered from low productivity. As a whole, the Grand Duchy could hardly produce enough foodstuffs for its rapidly rising population. Meagre surpluses did not provide a chance to accumulate sufficient reserves for one major harvest failure or two successive failures. Finnish agriculture was also prone to suffer from weather anomalies, and there was no reliable solution to circumvent temporary food shortages and occasional famines. Consequently it has been claimed that because of accurate population statistics and successive wave-like variations in them, Thomas R. Malthus (1768 – 1834), the founder of population studies and one of the greatest economists of the first third of the nineteenth century, used Finnish population statistics to illustrate and prove his theory after travelling in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia in 1799.

The Finnish famine of the late 1860s was one of the last peacetime famines in Europe. The harvest failures of 1866 and 1867 were exceptionally severe, but the extraordinarily high excess death rate of about 7% was still disproportional to the decrease in the food supply. The existing research literature fails to explain the connection between natural disasters during the growing seasons and the above-mentioned huge increase of mortality in the following winter and spring. The paper argues that there is a missing explanatory link between these two phenomena and attempts to find and define it.

The paper applies methodological synthesis for evaluating the functionality of Finnish agrarian society. The fundamental concept of the analysis is the economic and environ-mental margin by Kirsten Hastrup, which helps to integrate environmental and societal fac-tors into a holistic interpretation. Consecutive famines and waves of mass deaths on the one hand, as well as signs of the sporadically rising welfare, on the other hand, are indicators of society's failures and successes in feeding its population. (Show less)

Finnish history is usually seen from a national perspective or as a border-country between the Swedish realm and Russia. However, the developments 1918-19 show that among others Germany, the Scandinavian states, The United States and England were interested in the survival of the newborn Finnish nation. It is the thesis of this paper that this, especially from the United States among others, helped to welcome Finland among the western states opposed to Germany and thus effectively opened up for grain deliveries to Finland.

During the 19th century, Finland experienced some famines due to crop failures, the most serious taking place 1867-68. The country became almost dependent on grain deliveries from Russia, later from Germany. The March Revolution 1917 in Russia however nearly stopped all grain import to Finland. On the eve of the First World War, in 1911-13 the grain import was about 340 million kilos. Finland was in the summer of 1917 threatened by famine also as a consequence of bad weather, speculation and political unrest. Political action was taken for food rationing. Even the wealthy classes were affected by the shortage if they were not landowners. This market failure was new in Finnish history. Rationing affected not only the food supply of the urban middle class, but the number of consumers who did not have any contact with farming had grown, thus the dependence of food trade and because of the dairy cattle trend in agriculture, import of grain was highly necessary.

There was a shortage of food and grain in Finland during the years 1918-1919. It is, however, not well known, that the opposing and fighting red and white groups during the civil war from January to May 1918 both tried to secure grain and foodstuffs from abroad to Finland. The reports and telegrams from Helsinki and Stockholm/Copenhagen from diplomats, especially the English and US-American representatives, form essential sources on the crises. They bring light to the until now almost unknown foreign perspectives dealing with the famine; both the Reds and the Whites, as well as the National City Bank of Finland and other institutions and individuals, were actively engaged abroad in endeavours to help their mother country. (Show less)