The Great Famine of 1695–1697, or simply the Great Famine, was a catastrophic

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompan ...

that affected the present

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, an ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...

and

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

, all of which belonged to the

Swedish Empire The Swedish Empire was a European great power that exercised territorial control over much of the Baltic region during the 17th and early 18th centuries ( sv, Stormaktstiden, "the Era of Great Power"). The beginning of the empire is usually ta ...

with the exception of Norway. The areas worst affected were the Swedish province of Finland and

Norrland Norrland (, "Northland", originally ''Norrlanden'' or "the Northlands") is the northernmost, largest and least populated of the three traditional lands of Sweden, consisting of nine provinces. Although Norrland does not serve any administ ...

Sweden proper Sweden proper ( sv, Egentliga Sverige) is a term used to distinguish those territories that were fully integrated into the Kingdom of Sweden, as opposed to the dominions and possessions of, or states in union with, Sweden. Only the estates of ...

. The Great Famine of 1695–1697 was concurrent with the "

seven ill years The Seven Ill Years, also known as the Seven Lean Years (), is the term used for a period of widespread and prolonged famine in Scotland during the 1690s, named after the Biblical famine in Egypt predicted by Joseph in the Book of Genesis. Est ...

", a period of national famine in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

in the 1690s.

Estonia

Finland

In the Swedish province of Finland, the Great Famine of 1695–97 was also referred to as "The Years of Many Deaths" by some Finnish historians, because it killed about a third of the Finnish population in only two years, or about 150,000 out of 500,000.Topelius, Zacharias (1899). ”Stora hungersnöden”. Fältskärns berättelser. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers förlag. P. 388-399 People widely relied on eating bark bread. It was Finland's worst demographic catastrophe. The summer of 1695 was particularly cold, and grains grew abnormally slowly. Rye was reported to grow as late as August 6, and early frost destroyed the little that had grown. January and February 1696 were exceptionally warm, and the harvest was started as early as mid-February, but the frost that came in March destroyed the harvest again. The abundant snow caused massive floods in the Spring, which delayed the harvest again. People resorted to begging on the streets for food, and even cannibalism was reported at least once.

Sweden

From 1688 onward, Sweden had been affected by early

frost Frost is a thin layer of ice on a solid surface, which forms from water vapor in an above-freezing atmosphere coming in contact with a solid surface whose temperature is below freezing, and resulting in a phase change from water vapor (a g ...

and bad harvests. This culminated in the winter of 1695, which was described as the coldest since 1658 and the rye did not flower before July. Because of this, the Great Famine of 1695 is also referred to as ''Det stora svartåret'' ("The Great Black Year"). The harvest of 1696, furthermore, was reportedly so bad that each farm produced only one loaf of rye bread. Outside of Finland, the northernmost provinces of Sweden were the most severely affected. Desperate famine victims from the countryside left for the cities in search for food, especially to the capital of Stockholm, where in the spring of 1697 the streets were reportedly strewn with corpses and people dying of starvation.

Israel Kolmodin Israel Gustaf Kolmodin (24 December 1643 – 19 April 1709) was a Swedish hymnwriter and Lutheran priest, active in the Church of Sweden The Church of Sweden ( sv, Svenska kyrkan) is an Evangelical Lutheran national church in Sweden. A former ...

wrote the psalm ''

Den blomstertid nu kommer Den blomstertid nu kommer (literally: ''Now the time of blossoming arrives'', Suvivirsi in Finnish) is a Swedish summertime hymn, traditionally credited to Israel Kolmodin after walking at Hångers källa outside Visby. It was first published ...

'' in 1695 in connection to the famine, intended as a prayer to God that the next summer would bring food.

Causes

The 1690s marked the lowest point of the

Little Ice Age The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Ma ...

, of colder and wetter weather.I. D. White, "Rural Settlement 1500–1770", in M. Lynch, ed., ''Oxford Companion to Scottish History'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), , pp. 542–3. This reduced the altitude at which crops could be grown and shortened the growing season by up to two months in extreme years, as it did in the 1690s.T. C. Smout, "Land and sea: the environment", in T. M. Devine and J. Wormald, eds, ''The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), , pp. 22–3. The massive eruptions of volcanoes at

Hekla Hekla (), or Hecla, is a stratovolcano in the south of Iceland with a height of . Hekla is one of Iceland's most active volcanoes; over 20 eruptions have occurred in and around the volcano since 874. During the Middle Ages, the Icelandic Nor ...

in Iceland (1693) and Serua (1693) and Aboina (1694) in Indonesia may also have polluted the atmosphere and filtered out significant amounts of sunlight.I. Morrison, "Climate: ", in M. Lynch, ed., ''Oxford Companion to Scottish History'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), , pp. 99–101.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Great Famine Of Finland (1695-1697) Finland 1695 17th century in Sweden Famines in Russia Disasters in Finland 17th-century health disasters 1690s in Finland 1695 in Finland 1696 in Finland 1697 in Finland 1695 in Sweden 1696 in Sweden 1697 in Sweden 1690s in Norway 1695 in Norway 1696 in Norway 1697 in Norway 17th-century famines Natural disasters in Finland Incidents of cannibalism Cannibalism in Europe

Estonia

Finland

Sweden

Causes

See also

References