Faith and Magic in Early Modern Finland

Abstract

Raisa Maria Toivo, Faith and Magic in Early Modern Finland, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pages: ix + 183. ISBN: 978-1-137-54726-2.

Early Modern is taken to mean the early sixteenth to the mid eighteenth century. Finland requires more explanation. The country first declared independence in 1917 and from 1809 onwards the ‘Grand Archduchy of Lithuania’ was an independent region within the Russian empire. Before that, during the early modern period, the country had been part of the kingdom of Sweden. However, cultural, geographical and other factors, notably the Finnish language, had given the area (largely but not entirely coterminous with modern Finland) a certain identity. Faith means mainly Lutheranism, which was ‘adopted’ by Sweden at the Diet of Västeräs in 1527 and ‘cemented’ by the council of Uppsala in 1593, though it was not until the accession of king Charles IX (1599-1611) that Lutheranism was established as the state religion (pp. 7 and 147). But it was Lutheranism with distinct Finnish characteristics. There were also Calvinist (for a short period), Catholic and Orthodox contributions.