The Enemy within: Homicide and Control in Eastern Finland in the Final Years of Swedish Rule 1748-1808 by Anu s> Koskivirta (review)

Abstract

I38 SEER, 83, I, 2005 Forthose who believe that an analysisof Russiancivil-militaryrelationships will help forecastwhat will happen, say, in Nigeria, thisbook is clearlya must. For other readers, and particularlyperhaps historians, this is a book ideally kept within easy reach, for its narrativesare good, its perspectivesengaging, and itsjudgments well-informed. Centrefor Russian andEastEuropean Studies J. N. WESTWOOD University ofBirmingham Koskivirta,Anu. TheEnemyWithin: Homicide andControl inEastern Finlandinthe FinalYears ofSwedish RuleI748-I808. StudiaFennica:Historica5. Finnish Literature Society, Helsinki, 2003. 2I7 pp. Tables. Maps. References. Bibliography.Index. ?3 I.00 (paperback). THE subject of homicide has been the subject of intense scrutinyby Nordic historians over the past three decades, and Anu Koskivirta's study of the frontierregion of Northern Savo and Northern Karelia is not only a valuable addition to the literature, but also an interesting measure of how the theoreticaland methodological assumptionshave changed. In his pioneering study of violent crime in southern Ostrobothnia between I790 and i825, publishednearlythirtyyearsago and now availablein an Englishedition (7The Knife Fighters, Helsinki, I998), HeikkiYlikangasdrew almost exclusivelyupon Finnish sources, with the sociologist Veli Verkko'sstudies of violent crime as his main theoretical point of reference. By contrast, Koskivirtais extremely well-readin the internationalliteratureon the subject,and is able to measure her case study against a wide range of theories. She is inclined to accept the thesis that violence tends to be more prevalent in frontierregions, especially when supplemented by the threat of an external enemy, though she also stresses the significance of what the long-serving Crown Bailiff of Karelia, GabrielWallenius,termed 'the enemy within';the propensityof the frontiersmen to attack their own people whenever war broke out. This was compounded by the absence of strong or respected authority in the region. Koskivirta displays considerable forensic skills in unravelling the circumstancesof a particularlytragiccase in which the local barber-surgeon who was responsiblefor conducting autopsies attackedhis children, killingtwo of them, before ending his own life. In her search of the bulky court records, she reveals a sad state of local incompetence, corruption and malpractice which, even if thiswere not the main cause of violent behaviourin the region, certainly undermined confidence in the justice of the administration. The main thrustof her argumentis found in her chapterswhich considerhomicide as a form of punitive control, and as an extension of conciliatory control. Drawing upon the theory developed by American sociologist Donald Black that takingthe law into one's own hands may be a form of social control, she concludes that, in the collective agrarianculture of eastern Finland, murder was often a means of maintaining the community's conservative power relations and was as suchjustified by those accused of the crime. One of the most strikingfeatures of violent crime in this region is the high incidence of fratricide;in one in ten of the trials for homicide in Northern Karelia, the REVIEWS I39 victim was a brother of the accused. A rapidly rising population, a growing shortage of land to farm, and tensions occasioned by fraternalconflicts over the division of responsibilitieswithin the extended family that was characteristic of the region are seen as the main causes for the high level of fratricide, and other inter-familialviolence. Koskivirtaconcludes that 'when the growth in the number of farms and farming partners reaches its final bounds, the price of a family model that guaranteed a flexible division of resourceswas fratricide',which suggestsan element of calculationnot entirelysupportedby the evidence. Like Ylikangas,she places great importance on the fact that a conviction requiredthe concurringtestimoniesof two competent eyewitnesses or the confession of the accused; the unwillingnessof the accused to confess and the frequentlackof eyewitnessesmeant that manypatentlyguiltypersons escaped punishment. Weakcontrol and the lack of penal certaintyultimately led to crimes inspiredby self-interest;contractkillings,for example, of which a number are described in detail here. Koskivirtahas the uncommon ability of being able to blend theoreticalanalysisand narrative;her summariesof the cases brought to court are riveting reading, but they also buttress her arguments. The one major reservation would be that she does not really succeed in explainingsatisfactorilythe significantdifferencein homicide rates within eastern Finland. One would also like to have known more about possible religiousor ethnic tensions in mixed communities such as Ilomantsi, where the homicide rate per year per IOO,OOO inhabitantsduring...