Keywords

Refugees are one of the groups most prone to securitization.1 Their situation is characterized by intense uncertainty, especially so if their flight is unplanned, and basic security questions—where to seek shelter, where to get food—suddenly become acute. In the eighteenth century, the difficulties of contacting friends or relatives during times of duress further worsened the refugees’ chances of activating their security network, both at home and in their recipient country. Many of those who fled left spouses, children, or parents behind, with little or no possibility of ever finding them again. The uncertainty of the refugees’ situation is mirrored by that of the recipient country. In deciding whether to receive or reject a refugee, the host needs to consider both possible risks and potential gains: is the refugee identified as a person in need or a threat? Can the host society accommodate the refugee, and if so how and at what cost? As no international agreements on the reception of refugees or even definitions of this group existed during the eighteenth century, the possibility of them being accepted into safe harbors was dependent upon the hospitality of their recipient countries.2

This chapter traces the Swedish reception of refugees fleeing Russian attacks in Finland and Sweden’s Baltic provinces during the Great Northern War (1700–1721). By investigating central and local authorities’ acts of hospitality and analyzing what responses their decisions provoked from local populations and refugees, it provides a deeper understanding of the contingent relationship between recipient communities and refugees during the early modern period. The chapter traces the reception of these refugees in terms of delegated and conditional hospitality, and the responses that this hospitality provoked among refugees. I argue that the delegation of hospitality localized decisions on rejection and reception and brought forth other conditions on hospitality beyond what had been formulated by King Charles XII (1682–1718, r. 1697–1718) and the Royal Council. These conditions forced the refugees to build networks, but also triggered verbal and violent conflicts between local authorities, local communities, and refugees.

As argued in the introduction to this volume, hospitality is not an entirely benevolent concept. Rather, all acts of hospitality are entwined with acts of restraint, deciding where, how, and when a guest is welcomed. These decisions, made in the initial encounter between host and guest, define the conditions of hospitality that, as Jacques Derrida astutely remarks, is a foundational quality of the concept.3 Welcoming a guest is always a risk, as the sovereignty that the host embodies is fractured when the guest enters. The guest might hamper the host’s ability to enforce conditions and may also present conditions to the host.4 Instead of focusing solely on the initial encounter between host and guest, Dan Bulley therefore suggests studying the continual interactions between them. By extending the temporality of hospitality, we can seek to understand how hospitality is managed and controlled, and thereby move beyond the sovereign decisions to the micropractices of everyday encounters.5

Surviving testimonies of early modern refugees are rare, which has resulted in a one-sided focus on host experiences within early modern refugee research.6 Yet, hospitality is an encounter, built in part on reciprocity. It is therefore crucial to extend the investigation to include guest experiences and responses. The conditions of hospitality are construed through the various security measures that central and local authorities implemented. I am searching for practices of upholding or readdressing hospitality issues in the longer run: the practical solutions to the risk situation that these actors—both host communities and guest refugees—found themselves in, as well as the resultant risks that these solutions produced. In doing so, I draw from research on securitization in assessing when and how the situation was securitized, i.e., identified as posing a (potential) risk, and investigating how this risk was managed.7

As security measures and hospitality conditions are imposed in an ongoing hospitality situation, the actions of host and guest become entangled with reactions. Their contingent relationship merits a study that extends beyond the initial encounter, to identify acts of hospitality that may also entail acts of hostility that generate mistrust between the parties. In this chapter, I therefore analyze host security measures and guest securities in an extended temporality, covering roughly ten years of conditions and responses. While ten years might seem a bit short term for premodern studies, most research on modern refugees covers only one or two years, due to the need for immediate analysis. The historical case study can thus provide us with what is sorely lacking in our present-day understanding of the refugee experience: a focus on the contingent reactions to conditional hospitality. Moreover, for the refugees and local communities in question in this chapter, ten years was far longer than they envisioned their hospitality dilemma to last—as we shall see, the refugees were only meant to stay in Sweden temporarily.

Hospitality Toward Refugees in the Early Modern Era

Due to continuous religious and colonial warfare, the early modern period witnessed an unprecedented number of refugees seeking protection; in Europe alone, several hundred thousand people were forced away from their homes. Religion has been placed at the center of this narrative to the point that the experiences of religious refugees have eclipsed those of all others. Arguments about the purgation of the Corpus Christi triggered the expulsions of Jews and Muslims, processes exacerbated by the confessionalizations of the Reformation era, then encompassing multiple religious groups: (non-)Anabaptists from Münster, Calvinists from England, Huguenots from France, Protestants and subsequently Catholics from the Netherlands, only to name a few of the most prominent examples.8

Religious refugees founded exile communities, seeking towns on or near borders and coasts where connections were good and networks with others of the same confession were preferably already established.9 They narrated their lived experiences in terms of “heroic exile,” likening it to the Biblical expulsion from Israel. According to several scholars, this narrative helped to bind the exiles closer together by identifying a common enemy—their banishers—and elevating themselves above those who stayed behind as stronger in faith, willing to sacrifice their families, homes, and safety.10 The exile set in motion what Geert Janssen calls “religiously informed long-distance solidarities,” with co-confessionalists donating money to support diasporas or other people who risked persecution or exile.11

The strong moral claims of religious exile helped mark the early modern refugee as someone entitled to help. Even though there was no legal obligation for any ruler to provide help or protection to refugees, both rulers and scholars regularly recognized the precarious situation of these migrants and offered some hospitality. Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), one of the most prominent legal scholars of the period, explicitly linked receiving refugees to the obligation of hosts to offer hospitality toward those in need.12 Still, this hospitality was reserved for certain confessions and excluded others, and final decisions over which groups deserved hospitality often depended on the potential economic prospects of receiving the refugees; merchants, for example, were more welcome than paupers.13 Although some cities were indisputably reluctant to offer protection to exiles and refugees, others actively attempted to attract these groups in the hopes of gaining economic profit from their arrival.14 The Swedish empire during this period was a Lutheran confessional state where the activities of other religious convictions were severely restricted. The country did nevertheless welcome a few religious refugees of other confessions, expecting them to contribute to trade and commerce.15

Still, aliens posed a potential threat to the ideas of confessional unity that were on the rise in most European states during these centuries. The ruler’s obligation to protect pertained primarily to his or her own subjects. It was part of the political contract, and as long as the subjects upheld their end of the deal—providing the ruler with taxes and staying faithful—the ruler should defend them.16 Accordingly, offering hospitality to one’s own subjects was arguably an unquestionable duty for every king. However, the composite kingdoms of this period made identifying one’s own subjects a somewhat complicated business.17 In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Swedish empire encompassed present-day Sweden18and Finland, as well as territories in Ingria, Estonia, Livonia, Pomerania and Bremen-Verden. Swedish and German were the main administrative languages, with French on the rise, but in parts of Finland only Finnish was understood, and several other languages and dialects were also in use throughout the entire realm. Moreover, some territories had special regulations. The Baltic provinces had negotiated the right to their own legal systems, but had no representation in the Swedish riksdag (parliament), and cities along the Baltic coast often had special privileges relating to trade and politics. Every territory thus had its own specific circumstances, differentiating them from each other and standing in the way of the national, unitary states imagined during the nineteenth century.19

Moreover, the early modern state’s endeavor to control immigration was nothing compared to its efforts to control movements within the country. Subjects on the move were generally considered unruly; control was easier if they stayed in place.20 The Swedish empire was no exception: during the sixteenth century, institutions were set in place to monitor the birth and death of every inhabitant, as well as noting movements, marriages, and income.21 In order to travel internally, passports were required for all from the early eighteenth century onward.22 As Hagar Kotef argues, states’ control of movement was never absolute, nor did they intend it to be. Instead, the states closely monitored some subjects, those whose movements they defined as threatening, whereas other subjects could move about more freely. To enforce these norms, states used security measures to varying degrees.23 Thus, while an official could deny passports to beggars, a nobleman traveling to his estates would have had no trouble in acquiring one.

To sum up, the early modern state had a somewhat ambivalent relationship to migrants. Religious refugees could be offered both hospitality and protection, provided they belonged to the preferred confession and depending on their status and economic usefulness to the recipient country, but they could just as easily be turned down on the grounds of posing a threat to order and confessional unity. Internal refugees were an even more precarious group, as they could be classified as both outsiders and insiders, depending on the situation at hand. The lack of research on internally displaced persons, who fled due to the many wars during the early modern period, further motivates the present study’s aims to investigate how this group was received locally and in practice.

The Official Story: Providing Security for All Subjects

Having repeatedly proven its military prowess during the seventeenth century, at the beginning of the Great Northern War, the Swedish empire was at the height of its power and one of the major players in Europe. While the first decade of the war seemed to confirm the empire’s leading position, the tide turned at the battle of Poltava in 1709, after which the Swedish armies started to suffer defeat after defeat. As Russian troops sacked and occupied Swedish territories, tens of thousands of Swedish subjects fled their homes. During the first decade, as the war raged in the Baltic provinces, most refugees fled by land, although some traveled across the Gulf of Finland to Vyborg, Helsinki, and Åbo (Turku). Others started to reach Sweden, prompting the Royal Council in 1709 to instruct the consistory of Åbo to deter refugees from leaving for Stockholm, as the city found it difficult to receive them all.24 Russian troops reached Vyborg in 1710 and, within a few years, Helsinki and Åbo as well, with more refugees moving toward Sweden as a result. From 1711 and onward, the Swedish royal power’s position on the refugee movements changed: King Charles XII urged all subjects to leave for Sweden.25 Over the next decade, between 20,000 and 30,000 refugees reached Sweden’s eastern coast.26

These refugees arrived in Sweden during wartime and, moreover, during a war that Sweden was losing. Their arrival also came hot on the heels of years of crop failures, dearth, and fires, and coincided with the arrival of large groups of Danish and Russian war prisoners.27 The conditions for receiving a sudden influx of people in need of help were not ideal. To manage the refugee situation, Charles XII formed a commission in 1712. In order to define the conditions of hospitality and the security measures taken against the internal refugees, I here analyze the documents of this commission, together with official ordinances and instructions issued by the Swedish royal power and enacted by local authorities.28 In the following section, I turn to the refugees’ voices and their descriptions of the delegated and conditional hospitality they met by analyzing refugee supplications through which refugees pleaded with the king, the Royal Council, or local authorities for help. As most of the refugees relocated to Stockholm, which was also the base for the commission, my investigation is heavily tilted to this town. I have nonetheless chosen to include all supplications regardless of where the supplicant resided in order to provide a fuller picture of the refugees’ situation and responses to hospitality conditions and security measures.29 Official policies covering the whole realm are also included.

The commission consisted of three representatives each from the noble, ecclesiastical, and burgher estates. A few of the representatives were refugees themselves, as the king and Council saw the need for members with personal experience of flight.30 These refugees thus gained the opportunity, but also the responsibility, to secure their own situation. According to the commission’s instruction, dated July 30, 1712, its main aim was to ensure a fair distribution of the refugee funds.31 The principle of fairness was built on ideas of compensation and hierarchy.32 Accordingly, those who had lost the most would also receive the most: nobles and wealthy burghers who had left large country estates at the hands of the enemy were to be compensated, not only for their economic loss, but also for their fidelity and loyalty to the state.33 During the early modern wars, conquerors frequently made offers to wealthier individuals to retain their lands in exchange for obedience and a commitment to undertake obligations toward the new regime. King Charles XII took these individuals’ decision to flee as proof of their loyalty to him. After this group had received its share, the instruction dictated that the commission should consider those who had left smaller estates.34

The rest of the instruction was devoted to defining those who were undeserving of help. State servants who still received a salary were entitled to receive help with rent, but not sustenance. Merchants or artisans, especially those who had managed to rescue some of their property, were excluded from aid and were to find work instead. According to its instruction, the commission was to generate a list of such refugees and hand it over to the city magistrates, who were responsible for following up on its provisions. Young and healthy refugees were also excluded, as they, according to the instruction, should be able to find work “with good people, for clothes and food.”35 Finally, those who were poor and fragile were not the responsibility of the commission, but should instead be delegated to the poorhouses.36

The reason for separating deserving from undeserving refugees seems to have been an awareness of the funds’ insufficiency to cover all refugees’ needs. Nevertheless, the commission was alert to the fact that the refugees themselves might not agree about the fairness of this strategy, and that undeserving refugees might try to gain funds illicitly. The commission thus identified the undeserving refugees as posing a potential threat to its ability to fulfill its mission. To secure this threat, it demanded letters of conduct from every applicant. These certificates and testimonies were to contain information on the refugee’s station, lost property, age, health, and family size. Furthermore, even the deserving refugees generated a measure of official mistrust: to ensure that no refugee received funds more than once per distribution, each recipient had to provide the commission with a verification, stating name, place, date, and the amount of money received. These verifications, together with a list of all recipients and the amount of support bestowed upon them, were sent to the Royal Chancellery for scrutiny.37 Hence, while central authorities formulated a policy of hospitality, the conditions it placed on this hospitality—based on ideas of fairness—caused the commission to securitize the refugees. As a security measure, it set up a temporary administrative system, which in turn was supported by the king and the Royal Council.

When it came to carrying out the security measures in practice, the commission soon realized that they created risks of their own. First of all, the matter of inspecting certifications and verifications could not be trusted to local communities, who might not be able to separate genuine ones from fake ones and who might also try to promote their own situation at the expense of other localities. The commission alone had to be responsible for the distribution of monies. Still, funds were gathered locally, provided by the people in voluntary collections during church services around the realm, rather than by the king—another case of delegated hospitality. Priests were therefore to send the funds to Stockholm, where the commission could count them and then redistribute them to deserving refugees.38 This system posed practical problems. The collections were often made in pieces of copper plate money which were not easily transportable, and transporting them took considerable time; the commission often failed to receive specific collections.39 Second, due to the increasing number of refugees, it soon became apparent that the funds were insufficient even for the refugees identified as deserving.40 In 1715, the situation was desperate. In a letter to the king, the commission stated that,

after the enemy’s incursion in Ostrobothnia [in northern Finland, 1714], the number of refugees is found to be considerably higher, and upon their adamant request, the commission has not been able to refuse them a share of the refugee funds in the same proportion as the others.41

Moreover, many refugee artisans had not been able to find work as the instruction expected them to, and it had proven hazardous for the commission to discriminate against the young and healthy,

in part because of their sheer number, as they, during the days of distribution, have shown up at the House of Nobility [Riddarhuset, where the distribution took place] in such great numbers, that the commission has not been able to execute the distributions without great trouble, as when the door has been opened, they have stormed in at once, and in part as to be able to avoid their attacks in the streets, and intrusions in the houses, it has been necessary to distribute something to each of them.42

As the quotation shows, the refugees did not agree on the distributary principles employed by the state. According to the commission, the populace shared this sentiment. “False stories” circulated among the city folk and peasantry that funds would only be distributed to the more distinguished refugees, and that those of their own station would be completely left out—not altogether untrue, as we have seen.43 Many refugees had therefore taken to beggary, and as people failed to see how their offered collections made any difference, they had simply stopped offering: “very little is given on the collection plates.”44

It seems that King Charles XII, at the end of 1715, asked a prominent priest, Jöran Nordberg (1677–1744), for advice on the refugee situation. Of humble origin, Nordberg had quickly risen in rank as he followed the king on his campaign in Saxony and Russia. After the Russians had captured him in the decisive battle of Poltava, Nordberg spent a few years in Russian captivity before being liberated in 1715, joining the king as he returned to Sweden. During 1716, he served as the king’s personal confessor.45 In a memorial of 1715, Nordberg summarized the situation in a way worthy of a lengthy quotation:

The widespread beggary, by the common multitude, by the doors and in the houses, has not declined the slightest.… Quite a few are healthy and ready, but, as has been told, overly lewd, so that some of what they gather they consume in drunkenness and the racket that commonly follows; some, under the pretext of seeking alms, enter the houses and steal what they come across; some, when one requests their work for pay, are either so overpriced that one is forced to let them be, or they refuse on the grounds that they do not want to, and even dare to answer that the devil himself may work.… With this free and self-indulgent living, their children and youths know nothing of a Christian chastisement, but are brought up in beggary and depravity and sloth.46

Nordberg had spent six months in Stockholm after his release from captivity and had experienced the situation firsthand. He claimed to have received several complaints stating that the situation in Stockholm was out of control. The memorial suggests that the hospitality with which the populace had initially received the refugees had turned into hostility as the number of refugees increased and the funds proved insufficient.

To remedy the situation, Nordberg suggested several solutions, many of them spatial. First, he proposed that the authorities should distribute the common refugees within the country, taking up deserted farms, so that each parish was responsible for helping two or three refugees. In just a few years, Nordberg argued, these refugees would start to earn money for the state rather than drain it. Second, to save the commission’s funds, he proposed that the commission should exclude widows of rank from their distribution and instead house them with burghers within the city—alternatively, the burghers of the city could give monthly alms to support them. Third, bishops were to be in charge of looking after all refugee priests. Fourth, if all went according to plan, the commission’s funds would suffice for the rest, wherefore Nordberg advised the king to prohibit beggary.47 Shortly after Nordberg had written his memorial, King Charles XII issued a decree following Nordberg’s propositions in detail.48 We do not know to what degree local authorities followed the directions, nor how they received them, although there are indications that Nordberg’s suggestions could be difficult to enforce. For example, Nordberg acknowledged that housing widows might be too costly for some burghers and suggested that several households could share in the responsibility.49

To summarize, as the number of refugees coming to Sweden during the 1710s grew, the authorities—the king, Council, and commission—increasingly identified the Finnish and Baltic refugees as security threats to the internal order in Stockholm and other areas. While formulating a policy of hospitality, the royal power delegated its practical implementation to its commission, local authorities, and communities. After separating deserving from undeserving refugees, the commission identified both groups as potential threats. The security measures employed to deal with the potential threats entailed further risks, especially after the refugees seem to have become desperate. Several solutions were suggested, mainly spatial. Despite, or because of, these solutions, there is evidence suggesting that people around the country, and particularly in Stockholm, were growing weary of the many refugees in need of help. One aspect of the authorities’ proposed security measures stands out: they were all short term. Voluntary gifts drained the country and waned in later years. The authorities offered no proposals to give the refugees permanent positions, be it in state service or as merchants in cities, nor did they provide the refugees with any permanent lodgings. This all indicates that a main condition imposed by central and local authorities for the provision of hospitality to refugees was that it was temporary: the refugees should return to their previous homes in Finland and the Baltic provinces after the war had ended. As we will see shortly, the refugees shared this desire.

The Local Stories: Strangers Struggling with Insecurity

Thus I plead with the utmost humbleness that wellborn Sir Chancellor and Deputy General will offer me, an age-old widow and an all too miserable refugee, his gentle hand, and with some money from said funds come to my aid, lest I will be forced to perish and here lose this poor life, which I have until now rescued from so much danger, and now must sustain with the bread of tears and the wheat of misery.50

Anna Ditlevsdotter, who wrote the supplication above, had lost everything. She fled from Vyborg in 1710, leaving behind her children and what little property she had. The journey to Stockholm took her two months, during which she suffered “an almost decisive deadly disease and great failure and hunger.”51 In Stockholm, she found herself “in my old age in this, to me, entirely unfamiliar [främmande] place, not only having no human and compassionate Christian to rest my head against, but also without knowing any way out.”52 Asking for alms from the commission is presented as her last resort.53

Anna’s situation was far from unique. During the final decade of the Great Northern War and the years that followed immediately after, refugees sent countless supplications explaining their desperate situation to the king, Council, or commission. Of these supplications, almost 300 are preserved in the archives to this day.54 Research on supplications has shown them to be highly formalized instruments of communication between subjects and ruler, explicitly presenting the recipient as a merciful ruler and the senders as desolate paupers with no legal claims for help. Implicitly, the supplications acted as the institutionalization of a system of alms and assistance for those in need.55 The refugees from Finland and the Baltic provinces used their supplications as a form of guarantee to present themselves as worthy and deserving of help, directly addressing the main risk that the Swedish authorities had identified: that the recipients of the alms would be undeserving.

However, judging from the information the supplicants provided, they did not necessarily have the same definition of “deserving” as the state. Of course, like the authorities, some refugees spoke of their loyalty to the crown and of having left money or property in their flight. Their main focus, however, fell on their present state: they presented themselves as desolate beings with no other option than seeking relief from the king and authorities. Many supplicants were widows and had small children under their care. Many were sick, weak, or disabled. Many had received help from “Christian people,” but as time passed, such help was getting harder to come by. Others had trouble receiving any help at all: “therefore it is most lamentable that I hear nothing else from people than angry and evil words, from which my heart may often break into pieces, and this over things which I cannot help, so help me God; that I am miserable, poor, and a refugee.”56

Several refugees referred to the fact that they found themselves alone, without friends or family, as “strangers,” or “in a strange place;” they claimed that they were outsiders.57 This position made their lack of money especially grievous. The early modern everyday economy rested on numerous small loans from friends and family to pay for quotidian necessities. Debts could be secured by movable property, but just as frequently by one’s good name—exactly the resources that the refugees arriving in Stockholm, without friends or families, so desperately lacked. Being outside these credit networks would have been severely detrimental to their ability to find sustenance.58

Without credit networks, the refugees depended on alms. Quite a few attested that the residents of Stockholm had initially been quite hospitable and generous toward them, housing them, and providing them with money and food.59 As the war continued, this generosity seems to have dwindled, much as Jöran Nordberg had noticed. As Elisabeth Jöransdotter explained in her supplication to the king, on behalf of “all refugees from Ingria and Carelia[,] … if we come to their [the residents’ of Stockholm] door, they show no mercy but refer us instead to the refugee fund.”60 Over time, even the local community thus delegated the responsibility for receiving the refugees to the commission.

To receive money from the commission, the refugees were presented with two major challenges: proving themselves eligible for support and collecting their allotted share. As noted above, the commission demanded certificates or testimonies of each applicant’s status. Such certificates had to be written by someone who knew the refugee and had some standing in society—preferably a priest or commanding officer. For better-situated refugees, this requirement seldom posed any difficulties; if the commissioners did not already know them, their connections to other noblemen or well-to-do merchants in the city ensured them of favorable testimonies. For other refugees, such certificates were harder to come by. Moreover, the strict guidelines as to who was entitled to receive support excluded many in need of help. It is likely that many poor or disabled refugees chose not to report to the commission at all, so as not to be forced into bad employment or the poorhouses.

For those who were recognized as eligible for support, the cost of traveling to Stockholm to collect it could well surpass their share. The commission distributed its funds twice yearly: on midsummer and Christmas. Several quittances attest that the exact date for distribution was not set in advance, but depended on when the commission had finished collecting and counting its funds. This procedure led to rumors spreading among the refugees about on which day the distribution would take place. Refugees would have to stay in Stockholm for several days in advance so as not to risk missing out. Finding a place to live and buying food in an already crowded city for days, or sometimes even weeks, severely strained the refugees’ already limited economies.61

To meet this challenge, some sent representatives instead. This networking can be understood as a reaction to the security measures taken by the commission to centralize the distribution of funds and limit it to twice a year. Refugees who were allotted larger sums often made use of representatives, some sending prominent men to collect their money, some using their secretaries.62 Other representatives seem to have taken on the task as a favor to friends or business colleagues.63 Most often, the representative was a family member. For example, inspector Elias Moderus collected in total 42 daler for his mother’s daughter (presumably from a previous or latter marriage), his sister and her daughter on September 12, 1716.64 In some cases, the representative combined assisting his own family with helping others. The day before, Elias had collected the allotted money for three other refugees as well as his brother, all living near the city of Nyköping, where Elias was located himself.65 As guessed from his relations, Elias was also a refugee, and that same year he received 18 daler to support his wife and child.66

By appointing and acting as representatives, the refugees built networks within and across their places of residence. A few representatives stand out for their efforts in collecting numerous small funds for many refugees. The single most notable of these was the secretary Salomon Nidelberg, who in 1716 alone procured no less than 1760 daler on behalf of 86 refugees. The shares were strikingly small: 54 of the refugees were bestowed with 20 daler or less. These refugees probably lacked the funds to travel to Stockholm themselves to receive their allotted share. There are also a few notes demonstrating that people who did not know Nidelberg from before hired and compensated him for his services.67 Considering the large amount of money that Nidelberg collected, and the fact that he had to reside in Stockholm for at least four months in 1716 to carry out his operation, it is likely that others paid him as well.68 Other representatives filled similar functions to Nidelberg, acting on behalf of several other refugees who sometimes paid them for doing so.69 Referrals, and the odd letter suggesting that not all representatives fulfilled their duties, indicate that the refugees exchanged experiences and helped each other navigate their difficult situation.70

As the number of refugees rose in 1715, and as the hospitality of the inhabitants of Sweden waned, some of the refugees asked for permission to return home to Finland instead. Several peasants of the Åbo archipelago relayed how they had fought against the Russians during the spring, who retaliated by burning down their villages and farmlands. With nothing left to sustain them, the peasants had sailed to Stockholm hoping to receive some salt. Now they wished to return, “so that the tyrannical enemy may not, due to us being here, burn our houses and homes, and abduct our wives and children [casting them] into humiliating serfdom.”71 Several other refugees also indicated that they had not planned for a long stay in Stockholm, but were hoping to return to their homesteads.72

These cases denote the refugees’ strenuous situation between a dwindling hospitality in Sweden and open hostility in Finland. They had intended that their flight from home would be only temporary, but external circumstances forced a longer absence. Charles XII denied their requests.73 He did not specify his reasons for refusal, but it was likely, at least in part, motivated out of fear that the Russians would benefit from the peasants’ return, as the conqueror might force the peasants to pay taxes. The supplications to the king attest to the despair that this strategic decision elicited from the refugees. Several had traveled in secrecy to trade in Sweden, as the Russians had forbidden such trips, and feared that Russian soldiers would punish their families if they noticed their absence.74

Concluding Remarks: A Frail Hospitality

This chapter has traced the reception of Finnish and Baltic refugees in Sweden during the Great Northern War in terms of delegated and conditional hospitality, as well as the responses it provoked. My analysis has shown that Swedish authorities employed a number of security measures to deal with the perceived threats that the war and the internal refugees posed. When enemy soldiers occupied the Swedish territories around the Baltic Sea, King Charles XII acted as a rightful and honorable prince should: he urged his subjects to leave their homes and come to Sweden so that he could protect them and provide them with everything they needed. In exchange for their loyalty, he would offer them safety. In security terms, he identified the enemy as the main threat and his people as the ones to whom he owed protection, and he acted accordingly.

The king delegated the practical protection and reception of refugees first and foremost to a newly formed refugee commission. This commission identified a particular risk: that the refugees might try and take advantage of the situation by using tricks to get support that they were not entitled to receive. Thus, from the commissioners’ perspective, the refugees constituted a potential security threat to the Swedish state and its finances. To counteract this threat, the commission set up an administrative safety net, distributing all funds locally in Stockholm and demanding verifications and certificates from those who received such funds. These security measures were meant to ensure that no refugee received more than his or her share. The commission sought to avoid being taken advantage of; it sought to protect its hospitality and its sovereignty over the refugees.

However, rather than negating the risks, the measures ended up threatening the very fabric of hospitality. My analysis has shown that the commission’s guidelines for distributing funds were considered unfair by both refugees and the population in general. The difficulties faced by the refugees in receiving the funds, which they considered themselves to be entitled to, created rifts between the commission and the refugees. As we have seen, the commissioners themselves felt threatened as refugees forced their way into their meetings and demanded money. Both the commissioners and Jöran Nordberg described the refugees as unruly, taking over the streets with their loitering and attacks on decent people. Their descriptions are uncannily similar to how Derrida describes those who are shut out from hospitality: the rogues, the degenerates, the voyous, who are “unoccupied, if not unemployed, and actively occupied with occupying the streets.”75

According to Derrida, the conditions placed on each hospitality situation are not only prerequisites of extending that hospitality, they also effectively undermine it. As the host seeks to extend hospitality to the other by defining the other as precisely that—the “other”—and impose limitations upon him or her, hospitality ends up attacking itself. This autoimmune quality of hospitality separates insiders from outsiders, those who deserve help from those who are labeled as undeserving.76 As we have seen, autoimmunization fluctuates over time. During the first few years, the refugees in Sweden were met with fewer conditions and limitations, and they could receive help by knocking on the right door. The security measures imposed by the commission, however, aggravated the situation to the point of creating additional risks, forcing the refugees to circumvent the authorities to protect themselves. The growing distrust between refugees, authorities, and local communities seems to have escalated around 1715. The population stopped giving funds and refused hospitality to refugees knocking on their doors. Such autoimmune reactions, where security measures put both hosts and guests at risk, along with other xenophobic tendencies, may have compelled the refugees to build their own networks.

Another reaction for refugees was to try and return home. Such efforts were thwarted by the authorities both locally and centrally. Fearing that the returning refugees might collaborate with Russian troops, the refugees were ordered to stay put. This decision further testifies to the authorities’ distrust of the refugees. It endangered not only the refugees, but also their families in Finland, who were left to try to explain their family members’ illicit absence to the occupying power. Thus, even though the authorities’ policy was to welcome the refugees, and several documents attest to their efforts to do so, the fear that the refugees would abuse the hospitality on offer inspired the authorities to impose several conditions on it. These conditions generated mutual distrust between the refugees, the population in general, and the authorities: the refugees were supposedly devious, the population ungenerous and unfriendly, the authorities inaccessible and cheap. That the hospitality actions were of a provisional character further exacerbated this state of affairs.

My analysis of the security measures employed by central and local authorities indicates that their offered hospitality hinged on the refugees remaining in Sweden temporarily—as soon as the war ended, they were expected to return home. Although the refugees seem to have shared this desire, their responses to their circumstances also included networking that may have had more long-term effects than have been studied here. The investigation demonstrates the frailty both of hospitality and of early modern rulers’ obligation to protect their subjects. Although all agreed that the ruler was bound by that obligation, and although the ruler issued instructions to fulfill it, the practical solutions to hospitality dilemmas were enacted locally. And as we have seen, that local communities would assume responsibility for fulfilling their ruler’s obligations could not be taken for granted.

Notes

  1. 1.

    Bourbeau (2011: 1–2); Huysmans (2006: 45–62).

  2. 2.

    Janssen (2020); Kaplan (2018); Lachenicht (2017).

  3. 3.

    Derrida (2000a: 4–5; 2000b).

  4. 4.

    Derrida (2000b: 123–124).

  5. 5.

    Bulley (2017: 12–14). See also Bendixsen and Wyller (2019: 7–9).

  6. 6.

    Kleist (2017: 166).

  7. 7.

    Conze (2012); Huysmans (2006); Zwierlein (2012). See also Nauman (2021b).

  8. 8.

    See, for example, Descimon and Ruiz Ibáñez (2005); Janssen (2014); Krawarik (2010); Spohnholz and Waite (2014); Terpstra (2015).

  9. 9.

    Terpstra (2015: 157).

  10. 10.

    Janssen (2017); Müller (2016: 203–205); Terpstra (2015).

  11. 11.

    Janssen (2020: 235).

  12. 12.

    de Wilde (2017). For a somewhat more critical view, see Cavallar (2002: 121–167).

  13. 13.

    Janssen (2020); Kaplan (2018).

  14. 14.

    Janssen (2014); Kaplan (2018); Lachenicht (2017, 2019).

  15. 15.

    Brismark and Lundqvist (2017: 128f.); Kilbom (1958); Murdoch (2010).

  16. 16.

    Brett (2017); Höpfl and Thompson (1979); Kahn (2004). On this obligation in Sweden, see Nauman (2017, 2021a).

  17. 17.

    On composite kingdoms, see Elliott (1992); Koenigsberger (1989).

  18. 18.

    In the following, “Sweden” denotes the geographical area of Sweden, known as such both today and during the period in question here. To separate this territory from the realm, I use “the Swedish empire” to denote the political entity of the kingdom of Sweden, with all its underlying territories.

  19. 19.

    See, for example, Gustafsson (1998).

  20. 20.

    Nauman (2020: 131–132).

  21. 21.

    Glete (2002); Nilsson (1990).

  22. 22.

    Andersson (2018: 53–58); Lövgren (2000).

  23. 23.

    Kotef (2015). See also, Scott (1998); Torpey (2000).

  24. 24.

    Snellman (1970: 106).

  25. 25.

    The Swedish National Archive (hereafter SNA), Riksregistraturet (the Royal Registry, hereafter RR), vol. 651, letter of Mar. 9, 1711, p. 99.

  26. 26.

    Aminoff-Winberg (2007: 95–103).

  27. 27.

    See Blomqvist’s contribution to this volume.

  28. 28.

    Files of the commission are located in the SNA, Äldre kommittéer (Older Committées, hereafter ÄK) 449, vol. 1, 2. Ordinances and instructions are found either in the commissionary archive, or in SNA, Letters to the King. There were in fact two separate commissions. The first asked to be dismissed in 1715, after which a second was formed with some continuity of its membership. As the commissions’ work continued unhindered and no considerable difference is discernible between their position against refugees, they will here be treated together, in keeping with previous research, see Aminoff-Winberg (2007).

  29. 29.

    The residence of the supplicant is not always specified in the material. When the place of residence is important to the analysis, it will be remarked upon.

  30. 30.

    Snellman (1970, 1971). The commissions’ members were replaced in 1714, but the re-election of one of the burgher representatives assured a certain continuity.

  31. 31.

    SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 1, instruction July 30, 1712, §1.

  32. 32.

    On the principle of fairness in early modern Sweden, see Andersson (2020); Karlsson (1994: 243–247).

  33. 33.

    SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 1, instruction July 30, 1712, §1.

  34. 34.

    SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 1, instruction July 30, 1712, §2.

  35. 35.

    SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 1, instruction July 30, 1712, §7. All translations in this chapter are by the author.

  36. 36.

    SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 1, instruction July 30, 1712.

  37. 37.

    Johanna Aminoff-Winberg has published the lists, at https://www.genealogia.fi/hakem/flykting/flykting1.htm. Verifications are less well preserved, but those of 1716 are located in SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 2.

  38. 38.

    Aminoff-Winberg (2007: 71–72); Snellman (1970: 100–106).

  39. 39.

    SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 1, letter from the commission to the King, no date but resolved Feb. 18, 1713, letter of Sept. 28, 1714, letter of May 10, 1715.

  40. 40.

    See for example SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 1, letter from the commission to the King, Dec. 9, 1713, letter of Sept. 28, 1714, letter of June 21, 1715.

  41. 41.

    SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 1, letter from the commission to the king, May 10, 1715.

  42. 42.

    Ibid.

  43. 43.

    Ibid.

  44. 44.

    Ibid.

  45. 45.

    Ingrid Marie von Post, “Jöran Nordberg,” in Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon (Stockholm 1990–1991), p. 161.

  46. 46.

    SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 1, memorial of Jöran Nordberg, Jan. 30, 1716.

  47. 47.

    Ibid.

  48. 48.

    SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 1, “Kungl. Maj:ts förordning angående flyktingar,” 1716.

  49. 49.

    SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 1, memorial of Jöran Nordberg, Jan. 30, 1716.

  50. 50.

    SNA, Letters to the king, vol. 31, supplication of Anna Ditlevsdotter, no date.

  51. 51.

    Ibid.

  52. 52.

    Ibid.

  53. 53.

    Ibid.

  54. 54.

    The supplications are located either in SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 1 and 2, or in SNA, Letters to the king, vol. 31 and 32.

  55. 55.

    Almbjär (2019).

  56. 56.

    SNA, Letters to the king, vol. 32, supplication of Annika Johansdotter Falk, no date.

  57. 57.

    See, for example, SNA, Letters to the king, vol. 32, the supplications of the Schrodderers, Catharina Krook and Catharina Palm, all without date; SNA, Letters to the king, vol. 31, the supplications of Lischen Johansdotter, no date, and Karin Gabrielsdotter, Mar. 9, 1716; SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 1, the supplication of Anna Greta Wassman and Christina Nilsdotter, no date.

  58. 58.

    See, for example, SNA, Letters to the king, vol. 32, the supplications of Jacob von Erdtman and Ingeborg Lithorenia, both without date. On the early modern credit market, see Dermineur (2018); Muldrew (1998).

  59. 59.

    See, for example, SNA, Letters to the king, vol. 31, the supplications of Carina Bender, no date, Sara Johansdotter Flitman, after Oct. 10, 1708, and Elisabeth Raed, after Aug. 12, 1708.

  60. 60.

    SNA, Letters to the king, vol. 32, supplication of Elisabeth Jöransdotter, no date.

  61. 61.

    See, for example, SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 2, notes 617, 645, 719, and 727.

  62. 62.

    Compare SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 2, notes 75 and 602. See also SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 2, notes 449, 452, and 453.

  63. 63.

    For other examples of representatives, see SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 2, notes 40, 81, 137, and 636. Women could fill this function; see SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 2, notes 103, 134, 195, and 636. Several of the representatives belonged to the absolute elite of Swedish society (names such as Snoilsky, note 75), indicating that the refugees in question also were well established.

  64. 64.

    SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 2, note 240. Translating 42 daler to present monetary value is difficult, as the early modern economy was largely upheld by payments in kind; it roughly equals a farmhand’s annual salary, but the farmhand would also receive housing, food, and clothes. See Edvinsson and Söderberg (2011); Lindström and Mispelaere (2015).

  65. 65.

    SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 2, notes 81, 83, 84, and 85.

  66. 66.

    SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 2, “Designation och förteckning,” p. 22. Elias Moderus and his brother Olof are present in Johanna Aminoff Winberg’s list over refugees, https://www.genealogia.fi/hakem/flykting/flykting19.htm.

  67. 67.

    SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 2, notes 553 and 878.

  68. 68.

    See, for example, SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 2, notes 322, 631, 800, and 878.

  69. 69.

    For example, Johan Fritz helped over twenty refugees, and Anders Lanaus and E. Moderus helped a handful each, see SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 2.

  70. 70.

    SNA, ÄK 449, vol. 2, note 895.

  71. 71.

    SNA, Letters to the king, vol. 31, supplication by Anders Jacobsson and others, presented May 7, 1715.

  72. 72.

    See, for example, SNA, Letters to the king, vol. 31, supplications from Kårfwid Andersdotter and others, Ludvig Henriksson and others, and Anders Grå and others, no dates.

  73. 73.

    The request was explicitly refused in a letter dated Feb. 19, 1715, see SNA, RR vol. 680, but similar requests had been denied locally earlier as well.

  74. 74.

    See, for example, SNA, Letters to the king, vol. 31, supplication by Kårfwid Andersdotter and others, no date but probably around summer 1715, supplication by Lars Andersson and others, May 7, 1715, and supplication by Anders Grå and others, no date but probably around summer 1715.

  75. 75.

    Derrida (2005: 65).

  76. 76.

    Bulley (2017: 148–149); Derrida (2000b: 53; 2005: 34–35, 63–66).