Friend or Foe? Soldiers and Civilians in Helsinki, 1747–1807

Abstract

The construction of the sea fortress Sveaborg outside Helsinki started in 1748 and caused an enormous influx of military staff into town; the soldiers far outnumbered the civilian population. The locals’ hospitality towards the army was not voluntary; the law obliged all burghers to accommodate military staff in their own homes. The biggest risks when soldiers arrived in town were related to public health, public order, and the billeting of soldiers. In mid-eighteenth-century Helsinki public health was not yet a concern, but the large-scaled billeting was an acute problem. Public order was a pressing concern too, to avoid conflicts the social order had to be maintained, everyone should know their proper places and behave accordingly. Since the army arrived in peacetime to its own country, the army and the local authorities constantly negotiated about the terms of the hospitality to maintain a safe and peaceful co-existence. The townsmen remained masters of their own houses and their own town, but they still had to submit to the state, the social hierarchies, and the common good. But the billeting also provided new economic opportunities for the burghers in the tavern and alcohol business, as well as skilled workforce for bold entrepreneurs.

Introduction

The town of Helsinki, founded in 1550, had always been militarily important in the Swedish realm, but in the eighteenth century, its strategic importance grew. In 1748, the construction of the sea fortress Sveaborg (nowadays Suomenlinna) outside of Helsinki began and military presence in the town increased. The influx of soldiers peaked in the early 1750s. The construction works halted in 1757, but, during Gustavus III’s reign (1746–1792, r. 1771–1792), the construction works were resumed and the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790) led to a new wave of military staff arriving in Helsinki. Garrison regiments remained in Helsinki until 1809, when Finland was annexed to the Russian empire. Hence, in terms of receiving guests, Helsinki was extreme. The number of soldiers far outnumbered the civilian population: in the 1750s, the population grew from 1500 inhabitants to around 2000, while the number of military personnel amounted to almost 10,000 individuals, sometimes accompanied by their families. Although the peak-season lasted for just a few summer months, some officers and soldiers stayed for years. The state’s right to deploy soldiers could not be questioned, but since the army arrived in peacetime to its own country, it had to negotiate with the local community and authorities.¹

The locals’ hospitality towards military staff was not voluntary. However, the coercive aspect does not mean that the concept of hospitality does not apply. As historian Gabriele Jancke has shown, the early modern era also knew of the legal concept of public hospitality; all households were obligated to provide for the needs of the common good and the state, which meant a duty to offer certain acts of hospitality, e.g., to accommodate military staff.² This hospitality was an act of submission to the state and refusing it would have been an attack on the legal order and the authority of the state. According to Swedish law, burghers were obliged to accommodate soldiers in their own homes. They had to cater for the soldiers’ needs for food and shelter, but, at the same time, local authorities also tried to protect local inhabitants from their negative effects. As historian Jean-François Tanguy points out for nineteenth-century Rennes (Brittany), the three main risks for local inhabitants when soldiers arrived in town were related to public health, public order, and the billeting of soldiers to their homes.³ It was in the hosts’ and the local authorities’ interest to minimize their own expenses and inconveniences. In mid-eighteenth-century Helsinki, public health was not a concern, yet, but the large-scaled billeting was an acute problem. Public order was also a pressing concern: to avoid chaos, it was necessary for everyone to know their proper place and behave accordingly.

Even involuntary hospitality was not unconditional. The host was still the master of his own house.⁴ The army was supposed to maintain discipline and control its staff, and the soldiers were expected to comply with certain behavioural norms implicit in being guests. Both hosts and guests were subject to different types of security measures. The concept of “hostipitality,” introduced by Jacques Derrida, captures the locals’ ambiguous feelings. Derrida deconstructs the idea of hospitality and reveals the potential hostility that underpins it. He argues that as the guest is welcomed into the host’s home, certain conditions and expectations must be met.⁵ In Helsinki, the local hosts could define their boundaries, but their guests represented the state and could demand the hosts’ submission to the state. Hospitality and hierarchy clashed; the demands of the army may have been framed as polite requests, but they were in reality commands. As will be shown in this chapter, local property-owners in Helsinki welcomed guests into their homes, but they complained about it and did their best to avoid it.

The sources used in this study were mainly produced by local civil authorities and the courts. The town council organized the billeting, gave permission for taverns to serve alcohol to guests, and dealt with complaints. In the local courts, matters regarding debts, slander, and violence were settled. The source sample will reveal a common problem to this source type: they focus on conflicts rather than on peaceful coexistence. Smooth relations where everybody behaved as expected and no problems occurred hardly left any traces in the sources.

This chapter focuses on two town problems previously studied by Tanguy: billeting and public order. The focus regarding public order will mainly be on social order; the primary aim of the negotiations between the army and the local authorities was to maintain peace by maintaining the social order. The chapter will not address the question of public health, since the local authorities only rarely concerned themselves with those questions. The last sections expand the scope a little further, exploring the sexual and economic relations between hosts and guests. The focus lies on those two periods when billeting was most extensive, namely the intense fortress construction period in the 1750s and Russo-Swedish War of 1788–1790.

Background

In 1747, Helsinki had around 1300 inhabitants, but after the beginning of the construction of Sveaborg, the local population increased rapidly.⁶ In 1750, the town had over 1500 inhabitants and in the late 1750s, over 2000. The growth slowed in the 1760s, but by 1780, the town had over 2500 inhabitants, and in 1800, just over 3000.⁷ The demographic growth was fastest in the 1750s and moved at a slower pace during Gustavus III’s reign. Since the billeting system was based on the household, however, the number of households might be more relevant than the number of individual inhabitants. In 1750, Helsinki had 249 taxpaying households, but in the late 1750s, the number had risen to over 400 households. In the 1760s, the number was reduced slightly to 360 households. The rapid growth later picked up again: in 1780 there were roughly 450 taxpaying households and in 1800, around 570.⁸ The number of households grew faster than the population: while the population grew by 98% between 1750 and 1800, the number of households increased by 130%.

The wealthy merchant elite formed a small group of the population. Most burghers were craftsmen or petty burghers, such as butchers and tavern-keepers. However, many urban dwellers lacked burghers’ rights completely. These inhabitants could either belong to the higher social strata or to the lowest; among them were, for example, servants, apprentices, and manufacturing workers, as well as priests and civil servants.⁹

Upon the army’s arrival, burgher status was both an advantage and a disadvantage. The billeted soldiers were distributed among the burghers in proportion to their taxes, so the wealthier a burgher was, the more soldiers he had to accommodate. Nevertheless, burghers also had a profitable privilege: in eighteenth-century Sweden, the right to produce and sell alcohol and beer was usually reserved to burghers. The petty burghers traditionally had a collective right to the alcohol business. Tavern-keeping was not that strictly regulated, but this business too was dominated by petty burghers. Traditionally, brewing and tavern-keeping tended to be carried out by widows.¹⁰

Helsinki was thus a socially heterogeneous town with a strict social hierarchy and social order. Different social groups had different obligations, but also different means of possibly profiting from the army’s presence. Their interests as hosts would have been quite different. For some of them, the soldiers were a nuisance, a competition, and a cost; for others, they were customers, a workforce, and an opportunity for social mobility. Yet, the army’s personnel formed a heterogenous group, too, whose members enjoyed different opportunities for blending in and adapting to the local way of living. Roughly, the army’s personnel in Helsinki can be divided into three groups: allotted soldiers, enlisted soldiers, and the civil staff employed by the army.

The allotted regiments formed the construction workforce for the fortress. In the summer of 1749, there were around 2800 allotted Finnish soldiers deployed in Helsinki, whereas in the summer of 1750, their numbers had grown to around 6000. In 1751, allotted regiments from central Sweden were sent to Finland, and an average of 7000 soldiers worked in Helsinki on a daily basis. The peak did not last for long. Already by 1756, the number of soldiers had fallen to 2000. The Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) halted the construction works altogether, and, after 1757, the allotted regiments disappeared almost entirely for decades. Finnish allotted soldiers usually stayed in Helsinki from May until September, while Swedish soldiers could also stay over the winter.¹¹ The allotted Finnish soldiers were farmers with a small croft in the countryside, where their families usually remained during the husband’s deployment. On their leaves, the Finnish soldiers usually walked home.¹² In the countryside, they blended in with the local crofters, and the people of Helsinki probably viewed them mostly as provincial peasants.¹³ In Helsinki, the magistrate’s protocols and the court records rarely mention allotted soldiers; such figures only occasionally engaged in economic activities within the town, and the local authorities showed little concern over them.

The enlisted regiments formed the garrison on Sveaborg and became a permanent part of Helsinki’s daily life during these years. The first battalions from the enlisted Finnish Artillery regiment had arrived in Helsinki in 1744, and further artillery battalions soon followed. In 1751–1753, two enlisted infantry regiments arrived in Helsinki as well, which included around 2000 soldiers plus their families. These regiments partly left Helsinki during the Seven Years’ War, but later returned, staying until 1808. The fortification had staff in Helsinki since the 1740s, and from the 1760s onwards, the fleet also had staff permanently deployed there.¹⁴

The enlisted soldiers and their families settled down for longer periods. High-ranking officers could also bring their servants and other staff. The enlisted soldiers came from very different social backgrounds. Some soldiers had an artisanal education, for example, having been trained as carpenters or tailors, but never advancing to the rank of master.¹⁵ High-ranking officers often belonged to the noble and land-owning elite, but among the common soldiers were many landless and unskilled men, sometimes recruited by force as permitted by law where they were identified as vagrants or beggars. Enlisted soldiers had a worse reputation than allotted soldiers; they were considered as less disciplined and as posing a greater threat to public order. The enlisted infantry regiments arriving in Helsinki in the 1750s consisted of soldiers recruited in Sweden or from German-speaking areas, sometimes even from farther away. Only later did the authorities start to recruit infantry from within Finland.¹⁶ The locals probably felt greater reluctance towards the billeted soldiers, and, in the 1750s, when both tenure regiments and enlisted regiments were deployed in Helsinki, conflicts were more likely to occur between Helsinki’s inhabitants and staff from the enlisted regiments. However, the enlisted soldiers stayed longer and lived closer to the civilians, which might explain part of this phenomenon.¹⁷

The third group of military personnel was the civil staff employed by the army. Most of them were craftsmen, such as blacksmiths or masons, but we also find sailors, clerks, and medical staff among their ranks. Many craftsmen were recruited from German-speaking areas, especially technical experts. These people lived in a borderland between the military and civilian society, and it was not always clear which norms and rules applied to them. Some were just temporary visitors, while others settled down in Helsinki and joined the local host community. Professionally, these craftsmen had a lot in common with the local burghers and could thus be considered as competitors, but they were also a valuable workforce.¹⁸

Billeting¹⁹

In Sweden, the billeting system was a duty imposed on the burghers that already existed in the sixteenth century, and it was implemented in Helsinki at around the same time.²⁰ In the seventeenth century, garrison cities were mainly found in the Baltic States, Ingria, and Karelia, but after the Great Northern War (1700–1721), garrisons reappeared in Finnish towns.²¹ The burghers had to provide accommodation either in the form of living space or in monetary compensation. If the army required accommodation in the burghers’ homes, certain standards had to be met. Each burgher received a suitable officer or some soldiers as guests and had to provide them with heating, lighting, and bedding.²²

The burghers’ duty to accommodate soldiers in their homes applied to garrison regiments only; it did not extend to the regiments deployed for construction works. Hence, the burghers could negotiate with the army about such arrangements.²³ The allotted workforce was mainly accommodated in barracks or tents. One simple reason for this was the lack of space: Colonel Augustin Ehrensvärd (1710–1772) wrote in 1748 that soldiers had to be accommodated in saunas, sheds, and outhouses due to the absence of other possible solutions, and he further claimed that it was nearly impossible to accommodate even one more soldier in Helsinki.²⁴ Even before work on the fortress began, Ehrensvärd had started to build barracks for the soldiers.²⁵ However, the locals still had to accommodate some officers from allotted regiments.²⁶

Due to a lack of sources, it is impossible to determine how many soldiers the burghers in Helsinki had to accommodate and for how long. In May 1751, when both Swedish allotted regiments and enlisted regiments started to arrive in Helsinki, those who were accommodated comprised one general, one colonel, two lieutenant colonels, one major, one artillery scribe, eleven captains, 32 lieutenants and ensigns, 35 non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and 522 soldiers. The officers belonged to both the allotted and enlisted regiments, while the soldiers were all enlisted artillerists.²⁷ In 1753, instead of the two companies from the artillery regiment that had earlier been accommodated, the town now had to accommodate four companies.²⁸ In 1754, at least two of the artillery companies eventually moved out to the fortress island.

The duty to accommodate soldiers also extended to their families.²⁹ In Sweden, soldiers were usually married, and enlisted soldiers’ wives often followed their husbands into deployment.³⁰ The families’ right to accommodation could even extend to after the soldier himself had moved into a barrack. After the artillery regiment had moved out to the fortress island in 1754, many families thus remained in town, and in June 1755, councillor Nils Larsson Burtz complained that soldiers’ families were still living in Helsinki.³¹ For the wives, staying in town offered opportunities for earning money by washing, sewing, nursing, or cooking. Many women also sold food and beverages, either in small stands or as they circulated through the streets.³²

The burden of accommodating soldiers gradually diminished after 1755. In September 1757, Anders Johan Nordenskiöld (1696–1763) promised that the billeting in Helsinki would stop as soon as all soldiers could be lodged in barracks. However, it is uncertain exactly when the last soldiers moved out of the local burghers’ homes. The Crown implemented large-scale billeting in Helsinki for shorter periods even later, like when troops returned from the Pomeranian War (1757–1762) or after a fire destroyed some barracks in 1771.³³ The accommodation problem re-emerged in the 1790s during and after the Russo-Swedish war.³⁴

The Crown tried to secure a certain standard of living for soldiers and to uphold the military hierarchy and social order. According to the accommodation prescript of 1720, a general or a colonel was entitled to a certain standard, including a bigger room and a smaller chamber, a kitchen, a cellar, a room for his servants, a stable for four horses, one good bed, and two poorer beds. For lieutenant colonels and majors, the requirements included a bigger room and a smaller chamber, a kitchen, one good bed, one poorer bed, lodgments for his servants together with the host’s servants, as well as a stable for two horses. For captains, the requirements were a room or a chamber, one good bed, one poorer bed, and lodgings for one male servant. Lieutenants and ensigns were entitled to a small chamber, one good bed, one poorer bed, and lodgings for a male servant. NCOs and soldiers had to be content with a bed and lodging with their hosts.³⁵ These requirements can be understood as security measures employed to protect both hosts and guests. While soldiers were not forced to be content with insufficient arrangements, the guidelines nevertheless made clear that they could not demand too much from their hosts either.

Still, in Helsinki, it was simply impossible to fulfil these requirements. In the 1750s, 250–400 households were unable to accommodate the thousands of soldiers according to these standards, especially since officers were entitled to the equivalent of a small house. Several complaints to the local authorities demonstrate that soldiers struggled to obtain the standard to which they were entitled.³⁶ Everyone knew about the lack of space, and there seems to have been some agreement that it was untenable to ask for what the guidelines stipulated. Thus, most complaints centred on things other than rooms. Often, officers complained that they had not received enough candles or firewood, while the common soldiers objected to the lack of bedding.³⁷ The standards in Helsinki also fell short during the Russo-Swedish War, at which time the town council had to accommodate several officers in the same room.³⁸

Billeting also triggered complaints from the burghers. The Swedish Diet debated the question in the 1760s and passed a new regulation in 1766, according to which the burghers obtained the right to commute for billeting duty into a monetary payment instead. Other homeowners in the cities were from then on obliged to lodge soldiers, although the nobility and clergy remained exempt.³⁹ Other homeowners had in fact been involved earlier as well, sometimes even priests and noblemen, by voluntarily helping and renting out spare rooms. Still, they had not been legally obligated to do so. Only in extraordinary situations had the statutes of 1720 given town councils the opportunity to request that all local homeowners provide lodgings. In Helsinki, the desperate local authorities likely used this option. In March 1750, the feldsher Kyhl had officers living in his house, and in October the same year, the lower civil servant Jöran Wervelin was summoned to court for not having repaired his house in an effort to avoid accommodating soldiers.⁴⁰

As Wervelin’s case shows, locals could try to escape from their duties through means of hidden resistance. As the town council’s minutes show, billeting was far from popular among the locals. An honest way to escape it was to rent rooms somewhere else for the billeted soldiers; a burgher did not have to accommodate the soldiers in his own house, he just had to arrange accommodation for them at his own expense.⁴¹ Another, although less acceptable, way was to refer to the regulations and claim that it was impossible to meet their guidelines. In 1789, the merchant Johan Sederholm protested that he could not accommodate Lieutenant Bentzelstierna, because the latter would have had to share a room with other officers, since there were no chambers left. This would have been against the statutes and the merchant therefore refused to receive the lieutenant.⁴²

Even the town council could be reluctant to billet an officer, and it sometimes hid behind the statutes. The newly appointed Colonel Cronhjelm, commander of an infantry regiment on garrison duty and the local commander-in-chief, experienced this upon his arrival in Helsinki. He complained in August 1753 to the town council that he had not received any quarters. However, the council declared that they were unable to help him. Since no commander-in-chief had ever been billeted in Helsinki before, they found it necessary to await instructions from Stockholm regarding how many rooms he was entitled to. Cronhjelm replied that he would in that case use the commander-in-chief’s power and take quarters where it best suited him.⁴³

The army was aware of the civilians’ dislike of accommodating soldiers, and in 1750 came up with a system to create a bonus for good hosts who provided accommodation without complaints. Lieutenant Ribbing from the artillery suggested that the soldiers should be relocated among the burghers, so that good hosts would be granted good-natured and modest soldiers, while burghers who failed to follow the rules would receive troublemakers. The town council had no objections to this plan, provided that no one would have to accommodate more soldiers than before.⁴⁴ It is doubtful whether this plan was ever implemented, but maybe the threat of it was enough to frighten burghers into compliance.

Living Together

A description from Helsinki during the Russo-Swedish war shows how local living arrangements could turn into an excessive number of billeted soldiers and badly behaving guests.⁴⁵ In November 1789, the local merchant Carl Etholén complained about the improper behaviour of two captains and the damage they caused to his house, and he also complained about the number of soldiers he had to accommodate. Even before Etholén was assigned these two captains, he had struggled with a severe shortage of space in his house. He was already accommodating two other officers and their servants, as well as three NCOs, which likely meant at least seven persons, maybe more. The adult members of the Ethólen household, staff and family included‚ totalled seven themselves, according to the tax record,⁴⁶ making them a minority in their own home.

The military rank of the officers assigned to Etholén is not mentioned in the court records, but they would have been entitled to at least one chamber each, while the NCOs needed a bed each. The two new captains should, according to the prescript from 1720, have one room each. Moreover, the home was used for the merchant’s business: on the ground floor was his shop, a room for his bookkeeper and other employees, and a small chamber he used himself. The upper floor consisted of one bigger room and two small chambers. This floor was occupied by his wife, children, and sister-in-law, as well as by the female staff. It is clear that Etholén could not possibly have accommodated all these soldiers according to the official regulations. His house was simply not big enough for his guests.

Since the Etholén family was short of space, the two officers lived in a rented room in the house of his uncle’s widow. The officers’ servants and the three NCOs lived in Etholén’s servants’ quarters. Despite this, two more captains had been billeted to his upper floor, and they were determined to move in, not at all behaving as proper guests. While their host was away at a wedding, the captains forced open the doors and carried up their belongings. Later at night, while the household was sound asleep, they came back, forcing the Etholén family to flee their own home to their neighbours. The town council pitied Etholén and decided that the captains should stay at the vicarage until other quarters were available. The captains were also ordered to compensate Etholén for the damage to his doors.⁴⁷

By entering the premises by force, the soldiers clearly broke the code of conduct for guests. During peacetime, soldiers were not supposed to enter into people’s homes by force, which would have been an intrusion and a breach of domicile. Cases where civilians sued soldiers because of threats, violence, or damage to property were rare in Helsinki, even during the peak years of billeting in the 1750s.⁴⁸ Only a few exceptions are visible in the sources, which further accentuate the general absence of legal conflict. In 1753, the innkeeper Gustaf Wetter accused Lieutenant Stjernvall and NCO Schiönström of having arrived at his house in the middle of the night, shouting, yelling, kicking his door, and demanding accommodation. The material damages were insignificant; the burgher was mainly upset at having been woken up.⁴⁹ This slight inconvenience was enough to make him complain in court, which indicates that the local inhabitants did not quietly suffer intrusions into their homes.

In similar cases, the soldiers were the aggressive party, forcing themselves into local inhabitants’ homes. However, based on the civil court records, it was more likely that local civilians attacked soldiers, rather than the other way around. Between 1752 and 1755, the lower civil court processed seven cases where soldiers or their wives accused civilians of manhandling them, but only three cases where civilians accused soldiers.⁵⁰ Historian Petri Talvitie’s study of soldiers’ criminality in Helsinki shows that civilians were more prone to violence than soldiers were.⁵¹

The butcher Gudmund Mether often got himself into trouble, sometimes with military staff. In May 1756, he was accused of hitting a soldier’s wife named Anna Maria Sjöberg. Together with her husband, she and her children had been billeted at Mether’s house. As one of her children had been crying, she had threatened him with a beating unless he quieted down. The butcher tried to calm her down, at which she started to slander the butcher, who in turn hit her.⁵² In this case, the problem was obviously not only the butcher’s temper. Rather, the conflict concerned the authority of the house and the maintenance of social order. As Derrida points out, a condition for hospitality is that the host always remains the patron, the master of his own home, exercising sovereignty over the space that he opens to the stranger.⁵³ The soldier’s family members were guests and were expected to respect the homeowner’s authority.

The same problems regarding the authority of the master of the house when faced with billeted soldiers has been described by historian Christopher Collstedt for seventeenth-century Scania. Collstedt argues that the conflict between soldiers and civilians was partly related to the cultural concept of honour and partly to the religious concept of the household hierarchy. The Lutheran household hierarchy, instituted by the Church, gave the male master power over his household: women, children, servants, and other members of the household should obey him. This patriarchal social order also applied to men: adult sons, male servants, and other male household members were supposed to conform. Billeted soldiers were difficult to fit into this model, and conflicts could hardly be avoided.⁵⁴

When wives and widows acted as householders, they too possessed authority over other household members. Women became violent, too: in 1754, the carrier’s wife Annika Carlsdotter Palin was accused of slandering and beating NCO Jacob Drossel’s lover, madame Holthausen, who had been baking bread at Palin’s home.⁵⁵ Men could also fall victim to the local civilians’ anger, as demonstrated when the enlisted soldier Jacob Östman accused a customs inspector and his wife of attacking him both verbally and physically in 1755.⁵⁶

In all known cases, civilians attacked common soldiers or low-ranking NCOs. There is no indication that locals ever became violent towards high-ranking officers or noblemen. The host’s authority in his or her home had limits, and aggression was restricted to people of the same, or lower, social standing. In Helsinki, two different social orders collided in the host/guest relations: the social order of the household and the social order of the state. Local householders were the Crown’s subjects, and they had to bend to the state’s hierarchy. An attack on a person of rank would have questioned this social order and could have been interpreted as an attack on the state.

Public Spaces

Civilians not only shared their homes with the soldiers but they also shared public spaces. The most difficult space to share was the church: the Ulrika Eleonora Church in Helsinki was tiny, far too small for the growing population, and the army did not construct any church of their own. Sharing the church proved to be a longer lasting problem than billeting. This too was a matter of negotiation between local civilians and the army, where the delicate balance of two conflicting social orders had to be maintained.

The seating order in church reflected the social order, both in town and in the realm. Every important man in town had his own seat, reflecting his social status, wealth, and reputation. The closer the seat was to the altar, the more distinguished was its occupant. First came the nobility and the staff of the county governor, then the local councillors, and so on in descending order of rank.⁵⁷ Since the burghers had their own seats in church, the army caused problems when they claimed seats of their own. The soldiers were supposed to stay on the gallery, which was far too small to accommodate them all. Many high-ranked officers belonged to the nobility and were of higher social standing than the local burghers. They maintained that this status should be reflected in their seating. Yet, the burghers of Helsinki refused, as their downgrading of seating would have indicated a downgrading of social standing. This conflict dragged on every Sunday—or at least on bigger holidays—for decades.⁵⁸

The growing urban population and the arrival of more military staff in Helsinki during the 1788–1790 war made the problem acute. The church council received complaints about crowded benches and aisles. In 1788, it finally settled on a simple solution: to hold separate services for the army and the civilians. According to the council, this would implement better order in the church.⁵⁹ After the war, local townsmen advocated a definite separation between the civil and the military congregations, but the army disagreed. They saw the separation as highly undesirable, as a shared communion was supposed to remind people of the equality and harmony between the two congregations.⁶⁰ Symbolically, the act of sharing a meal in front of God was a gesture of hospitality and denying the guest a place around the “table” was an offence.

Another public space, which the locals refused to share with the army, was the cemetery, located beside the church. However, there is no indication that the army ever tried to invade this kingdom of the dead. The common soldiers were buried either on Vallisaari island or outside town on a burial ground that had formerly been used to bury victims of the big famine in the 1690s and the plague of 1710.⁶¹ Exceptions were made only for the most important officers. For example, Colonel Augustin Ehrensvärd was temporarily buried in Helsinki’s cemetery while a tomb was prepared for him at the fortress.⁶² Hospitality thus mainly applied to the living, but when the local cemetery became too small for the townspeople themselves, their new cemetery was placed in close vicinity to the military cemetery—but it was just slightly better maintained and surrounded by a wall to mark the division.⁶³

The new cemetery was needed due to an outbreak of louse-born relapsing fever in 1788–1791, killing around 200 civil inhabitants. The disease originated with Russian war prisoners and spread among soldiers during the summer of 1788. It then rapidly infected civilians, but the local authorities adopted only a handful of measures to secure public health. In January 1790, the town council urged the municipal physician to combat the disease. He made a public announcement that the inhabitants should air their houses and sweep their floors with spruce boughs.⁶⁴ In the eighteenth century, the mechanism of contagion was unknown; the disease was attributed to bad air, not to crowded living conditions.⁶⁵

Taverns

Helsinki’s inhabitants shared streets, the marketplace, and other outdoor spaces with the army. The soldiers caused disturbances outdoors, as packs of shouting soldiers roamed through town after the taverns’ closing time. In the 1770s, the public prosecutor Carl Fredrik Lytke complained to the county governor that soldiers from Sveaborg arrived in town on their days off and that their nocturnal noises prevented the inhabitants from sleeping.⁶⁶ In the eighteenth century, Helsinki lacked a police force; instead, it was the local fire patrols and the army’s guards who were responsible for maintaining public order at night. In 1753, the town council decided to employ fireguards for patrolling the streets at night throughout the year. Their task was to look for fires, but also to uphold public order. However, these guards were usually old men, sometimes disabled, and in the event of brawls, they rang their bells to get assistance from the army’s guards.⁶⁷

The question of drunken soldiers divided the locals, since tavern-keeping and beer-brewing formed important livelihoods for many of them. Taverns were often kept at home and billeted soldiers were guaranteed customers. The local inhabitants did not have to feed the soldiers at their own expense since the state provided the soldiers with salaries and some food. Yet, the state expected the locals to sell drinks to paying soldiers.⁶⁸ In 1747, before the enormous building project started, there were thirteen legal and registered tavern-keepers in Helsinki, but by the next year their number had risen to 75.⁶⁹ In 1757, when most soldiers had left Helsinki, the number of legal taverns fell to seventeen.⁷⁰ After the enlisted regiments returned to Helsinki after the Seven Years’ War, the number of taverns started to grow yet again. In the late 1770s, there were 50 taverns, and in 1788, just on the verge of Gustavus III’s Russian War, the number had risen to nearly 100.⁷¹

The local authorities and burghers fiercely defended their lucrative alcohol business from intruders.⁷² Despite their best efforts, there were nevertheless plenty of illegal taverns.⁷³ In 1784, the burghers complained to the commander of Sveaborg about illegal taverns kept by soldiers on leave and their wives. According to the burghers, these taverns caused noise and brawls, and led to numerous thefts. No mention was made of legal taverns, which, in the eyes of the burghers at least, seem to have been free from such problems. The burghers wanted to get rid of their unwanted competitors, preferring that soldiers on leave skip town altogether and return to their home regions. The commander solemnly declared that soldiers were forbidden to keep taverns, but it is unlikely that this prohibition had any effect. To please the burghers, the army often issued prohibitions and requests that nevertheless seem to have had little effect.⁷⁴

In the 1750s, everyone, from poor widows to wealthy councillors, was involved in the alcohol business. Through this strategy, the locals turned the influx of military personnel into an economic advantage. In the late eighteenth century, the tavern business had become a business for the less wealthy. Nearly all petty burghers won their livelihood either completely or in part from taverns.⁷⁵ This might explain why the local authorities were more concerned about the immoral living in the 1790s than they were in the 1750s, since by then the councillors’ own economic interests were no longer involved.

The thriving tavern business in town generated moral concerns. The prospering nightlife with drinking, dancing, and gambling in particular was considered to be a bad example for the local youth. Female camp followers were mainly the concern of the army, and the local authorities preferred to stay away from the army’s internal affairs. Still, there were worries regarding public health, specifically about sexually transmitted diseases. Obviously, the local authorities also suspected that civilian inhabitants were involved. In 1790, an announcement was made in church that people who allowed immoral behaviour in their houses would be punished.⁷⁶

Sexual Relations

Gambling, drinking, and “immoral living” were a concern, but maybe not as much as might have been expected. In general, the local authorities did not turn such phenomena into a security issue. Sexual relations between soldiers and local women had existed since the 1740s.⁷⁷ During the years 1752–1755, we find thirty trials regarding pre-marital sexual relations involving soldiers and local women in the Helsinki court records.⁷⁸ The court often took these trials quite lightly and the penalties for wrongdoing were not too harsh. After the army’s arrival, the number of children born out of wedlock increased dramatically,⁷⁹ but a similar trend can be observed in other eighteenth-century Swedish towns. The army, therefore, was not necessarily deserving of all the blame.⁸⁰

The camp followers were considered the army’s problem and civil authorities rarely interfered. In the 1750s, we find only two cases of women accused of immoral living in the civil court’s records. These women were non-locals, which might explain why they were deported to the spinning-house in Turku.⁸¹ In the 1760s, the army tried to deport a local unemployed woman, Justina Mosberg, who was accused of immoral living and said to suffer from a sexually transmitted disease. In her case, the local authorities reacted swiftly, bringing her before the civil court. Many witnesses defended her; she was a good girl, just a little too interested in dancing, they said, and a new employer quickly appeared with a job offer.⁸² Justina’s father had been a local entrepreneur who died heavily indebted when she was just a child, and she was viewed as a member of the local community who had fallen into misfortune.⁸³ Her case shows that the local community protested furiously and went to great efforts if the army tried to touch one of its own members, no matter how such individuals behaved. As a guest, the army should respect the host community’s integrity and authority in its own town, and allow the local community to deal with its own members according to its own rules and principles. Strangers could be deported, but the army could not dictate how the host community should act towards local inhabitants.

It is easy to assume that soldiers abandoned their local sweethearts if the women fell pregnant. However, contrary to many other European countries, the Swedish army encouraged soldiers to marry.⁸⁴ It was not only the common soldiers without rank who married local women, but officers, NCOs, and other military staff also did so. The marriages between the civil and military population spread to higher social strata in the late eighteenth century and provided the hosts with an opportunity to climb the social ladder. A common trend was that the children of wealthy merchants started marrying poorer members of the nobility: accommodating high-ranking officers in their homes opened up a fast lane for local merchants’ daughters to meet suitable officers and noblemen with an eye to marriage.⁸⁵

Economic Relations

The mixing of the civilian and military population in Helsinki through marriage was a slow process, but the two groups swiftly found other ways to meet. Exchanges of goods and services between hosts and guests occurred even outside the alcohol business. The local court records reveal a large degree of economic interaction: in 1752–1755, nearly 36% of all civil court cases where military personnel was involved concerned economic transactions.⁸⁶ The soldiers could act as debtors, creditors, sellers, buyers, or employees. For example, in 1754, the soldier Henrik Nymalm demanded payment for a cow from the butcher Gabriel Wikström,⁸⁷ while the soldier Johan Hortenius argued with carrier Palin about the sale of a horse.⁸⁸

Court records also show that soldiers worked for locals. The Crown paid enlisted soldiers poorly; the Swedish military system was built on regular periods of leave so that soldiers could take employment elsewhere.⁸⁹ The Crown’s motivation for this system was financial, but it could also be seen as providing a boon for host communities in garrison towns, supplying them with a cheap workforce. Yet, in Helsinki, the army was worried about the lack of suitable jobs for thousands of soldiers. The general governor of Finland, Gustaf Fredrik von Rosen (1688–1759), therefore decided to increase the enlisted soldiers’ salaries, but this arrangement ended in 1753. There is no evidence that the soldiers’ options for finding employment had improved by then; these cuts were purely motivated by poor state finances.⁹⁰

Some soldiers worked as day-labourers in town or on manors in the surrounding countryside. Once again, it is only when a conflict arose that we can find these cases. For example, in 1755, the enlisted soldier Anders Selling complained that he had not received his salary from the high-ranked civil servant Anders Hellenius, who had employed Selling to paint his house in red.⁹¹ In the 1760s, the soldier Martin Gutatis faced similar problems after doing forestry work at Gumtäkt manor, owned by a local merchant.⁹² However, in their complaints about illegal taverns in 1784, the locals also complained about soldiers on leave staying in town.⁹³ Here, soldiers seeking jobs were depicted as a nuisance and a threat towards public order; the locals wanted them to leave town when they were on leave. The soldiers and their wives seem to have been perceived as especially irritating when they sold alcohol and food, a business the locals preferred to keep to themselves. The guests were supposed to be content with the jobs the hosts offered them, not to become entrepreneurs themselves in lucrative trades.

For some skilled soldiers and military personnel, it was easier to find jobs since local entrepreneurs were in desperate need of them. The fortress construction boosted the brickwork industry in Helsinki and its hinterlands, but the locals lacked the necessary expertise. Military staff who had worked in the Crown’s brick factory were therefore crucial for these brickwork facilities. The enriched merchants in Helsinki also started to build ships, but the lack of a skilled workforce forced them to recruit soldiers from the Crown’s shipyard. They even negotiated directly with the army and the Crown to get skilled shipbuilders.⁹⁴

Due to the lack of a skilled workforce in the 1740s and 1750s, local authorities actively recruited craftsmen from Stockholm. Moreover, up to 20% of the enlisted soldiers were former apprentices. Even though crafts in eighteenth-century Sweden were restricted to masters and burghers, until 1789, soldiers too were permitted to sell their own products directly to consumers if they did not set up regular workshops or employ staff.⁹⁵ Local craftsmen strongly resented this competition; sometimes they ransacked soldiers’ quarters and brought matters to court. They could also protest when military craftsmen wanted to establish themselves as masters and burghers in Helsinki. Nevertheless, this was the quest of individual guilds and craftsmen, not a common pursuit shared by all inhabitants. The local authorities tried to avoid these conflicts, and even after 1789, courts often dismissed such cases. The trials reveal that many local inhabitants were involved themselves, usually as customers. However, they could also participate actively by letting out workshops or providing soldiers with tools.⁹⁶ Usually, the local burghers stuck together against the guests, at least publicly, but in these cases, the lines between them visibly cracked. Public hospitality did not have to be gratuitous or unselfish, but the hosts could certainly try to benefit from it.

Concluding Remarks

Helsinki offers an extreme example of military presence in a garrison town, turning the civilians into a minority in their own hometown. It is also an extreme example of hospitality, where the guests clearly outnumbered their hosts. The townspeople were forced by law to show public hospitality for the common good of the realm, although they complained about the billeting and sometimes tried to escape their duties through forms of hidden resistance.

Yet, although Helsinki was an extreme case, it was also a typical case. All over Europe, garrison towns experienced the problems that Jean-François Tanguy has identified: billeting of soldiers, disturbance of the public order, and threats towards public health.⁹⁷ For Helsinki in the eighteenth century, billeting periodically reached such tremendous proportions that the local authorities had to focus on maintaining social order at all costs in order to preserve public order.

Although hospitality in Helsinki was not voluntary, it was never unconditional. The soldiers were guests and were expected to behave accordingly. Hospitality was a constant matter of negotiation between the army and the civilians. The local inhabitants had to maintain a delicate balance between submission to the state and the assertion of their authority in their town and homes. To avoid open conflict, it was necessary to maintain social order in a way that suited both the army and the civilians. State and military hierarchies had to be respected, but so too did the master’s position in his household and the local inhabitants’ right to their own public spaces. This was no easy task, but they somehow managed; the town remained functional and relatively calm, and violent confrontations were rare.

Both the army and the local authorities took measures to promote security in town for both soldiers and civilians. Still, it is only in the late eighteenth century that we find evidence of nightlife being securitized. The hospitality of the locals always showed signs of what Jacques Derrida has called “hostipitality.” Homeowners sought to maintain authority over their households and could even use their fists to force guests to respect them. The burghers and the local authorities also made it clear to the army that they did not accept intrusions into businesses that they regarded as being under their privileged control, nor would the host community quietly watch when the army claimed jurisdiction over local inhabitants.

However, not all interactions between hosts and guests were coercive or involuntary. For decades, many inhabitants of Helsinki earned their livelihood through tavern-keeping and beer-brewing. Hospitality had its advantages for those who were able to see its positive aspects. The army staff provided local entrepreneurs with a skilled workforce and could offer suitable husbands for local women. Some soldiers were more welcome than others, depending on their social standing and their skills. Not all locals nor all soldiers were alike or shared the same interests: public hospitality could make some people prosper while others perished.

Notes

• 1. Aalto et al. (2020: passim), Granqvist (2021: 232–233).

• 2. Jancke (2013: 198–212).

• 3. Tanguy (2006: 135).

• 4. Derrida (2000: 4–5).

• 5. Derrida (2000: 12–15).

• 6. Aalto et al. (2020: 32).

• 7. National Archives of Finland (hereafter FNA), Swedish-Finnish congregation of Helsinki, II Dc:1, Demographic statistics 1750–1801.

• 8. FNA, Swedish-Finnish congregation of Helsinki, II Dc:1, Demographic statistics 1750–1801.

• 9. Aalto et al. (2020: 281–286, 461–462).

• 10. Aalto et al. (2020: 175–184, 369–374), Granqvist (2016: 115–116).

• 11. Aalto et al. (2020: 151–153).

• 12. Ericsson (1997: 40–41), Viljanti (1940: 95), Vuorimies (2015: 53–99), Gustafsson (2018: 183–186).

• 13. Screen (2007: 57–58), Niemelä (1990: 189).

• 14. Hirn (1970: 13), Screen (2010: 14–15), Roos (1960: 13), Hedberg (1964: 29–31), Hatakka (2012: 108–112).

• 15. Hirn (1970: 108), Granqvist (2019: 3–4).

• 16. Hirn (1970: 88–107), Talvitie (2014: 48, 56), Screen (2007: 162).

• 17. Talvitie (2014: 56–57), FNA, Renovated court records, Records of the Treasurer’s court in Helsinki 1752–1755.

• 18. Gustafsson (2016).

• 19. On the billeting of soldiers in Helsinki during the 1750s‚ see Gustafsson (2021).

• 20. Gidlöf (1976: 721), Jansson (1991: 209), Aalto (2012: 89–94, 135–144, 214–216, 220–224).

• 21. Lappalainen (1993: 11–12).

• 22. Frohnert (1985: 21).

• 23. Jansson (1991: 210).

• 24. Ericsson (1937–39: 146).

• 25. Nikula (2010: 110), Ericsson (1937–1939: 147).

• 26. Hornborg (1950: 298).

• 27. Helsinki City Archive (hereafter HCA), Town Council Archive Ca:55, Protocols of Helsinki Town Council May 25, 1751.

• 28. HCA, Town Council Archive, Ca:59, Protocols of Helsinki Town Council, Oct. 12, 1753.

• 29. Magnusson (2005: 200).

• 30. Gustafsson (2018: 186).

• 31. HCA, Town Council Archive, Ca:61, Protocols of Helsinki Town Council Sept. 26, 1755.

• 32. Lennersand et al. (2017: 187–192), Lennersand (2017: 165–169), Hammar (2017: 145–146). On the situation in Europe, see, for example, Hurl-Eamon (2008).

• 33. Hornborg (1950: 301).

• 34. Hornborg (1950: 408–410).

• 35. “Utdrag utur alle ifrån den 7 Decemb. 1718 utkomne Publique Handlingar…,” 1742: 254.

• 36. HCA, Town Council Archives, Protocols of Helsinki Town Council 1751–1757.

• 37. See, e.g., HCA, Town Council Archive, Ca:53, Protocols of Helsinki Town Council June 9, June 25, and Sept. 15, 1750.

• 38. HCA, Town Council Archive, Ca:95, Protocols of Helsinki Town Council Nov. 16, 1789.

• 39. Gidlöf (1976: 723).

• 40. HCA, Town Council Archive, Ca:53, Protocols of Helsinki Town Council Oct. 19, 1750.

• 41. See, e.g., HCA, Town Council Archive, Ca:53, Protocols of Helsinki Town Council Jan. 15, and June 30, 1750.

• 42. HCA, Town Council Archive, Ca:95, Protocols of Helsinki Town Council Nov. 16, 1789.

• 43. HCA, Town Council Archive, Ca:59, Protocols of Helsinki Town Council Aug. 18, 1753.

• 44. HCA, Town Council Archive, Ca:53, Protocols of Helsinki Town Council June 4, 1750.

• 45. HCA, Town Council Archive, Ca:95 Protocols of Helsinki Town Council Nov. 23, 1789.

• 46. FNA, County accounts, Accounts of Uusimaa and Häme, Census of 1790.

• 47. HCA, Town Council Archive, Ca:95 Protocols of Helsinki Town Council Nov. 23, 1789.

• 48. Talvitie (2014).

• 49. FNA, Renovated court records, Records of the Treasurer’s court in Helsinki Apr. 3, 1753.

• 50. FNA, Renovated court records, Records of the Treasurer’s court in Helsinki 1752–1755.

• 51. Talvitie (2014: 56–57).

• 52. FNA, Renovated court records, Records of the Treasurer’s court in Helsinki May 11 and May 12, 1756.

• 53. Derrida (2000: 13–14).

• 54. Collstedt (2012: 223–224).

• 55. FNA, Renovated court records, Records of the Treasurer’s court in Helsinki Apr. 22 and May 5, 1755.

• 56. FNA, Renovated court records, Records of the Treasurer’s court in Helsinki May 9, 1755.

• 57. Laine (2006: 19–24).

• 58. Aalto et al. (2020: 532).

• 59. FNA, Swedish-Finnish congregation of Helsinki, Minutes of the parish council 1767–1816 II Ca:1, Dec. 5, 1788, Apr. 27, 1789, and May 3, 1789.

• 60. FNA, Swedish-Finnish congregation of Helsinki, Minutes of the parish council 1767–1816 II Ca:1, Sept. 28, 1794.

• 61. Aalto et al. (2020: 445–447).

• 62. Nikula (2010: 500–507).

• 63. Aalto et al. (2020: 445–447).

• 64. Aalto et al. (2020: 442–447), Parland-von Essen (2010: 95–97).

• 65. af Hällström (2007: 26–28).

• 66. HCA, Town Council Archive Cb:82, acting town prosecutor Carl Fredrik Lytke to county governor Anders de Bruce (undated), remitted to the town council on June 4, 1778.

• 67. Hornborg (1950: 292–296).

• 68. On arrangements for the soldiers’ provisions and their salaries‚ see Hatakka (2015, 2019: 47–58).

• 69. Aalto et al. (2020: 182–184).

• 70. Aalto et al. (2020: 255–257).

• 71. Aalto et al. (2020: 368–369).

• 72. See, e.g., Granqvist (2012).

• 73. Aalto et al. (2020: 422–423).

• 74. Granqvist (2016: 148).

• 75. Aalto et al. (2020: 182–184, 255–257, 368–369).

• 76. Parland-von Essen (2010: 87–88).

• 77. FNA, Swedish-Finnish congregation of Helsinki, list of births and baptisms 1745.

• 78. FNA, Renovated court records, records of the Treasurer’s court in Helsinki 1752–1755. See also Talvitie (2014: 60–61).

• 79. FNA, Swedish-Finnish congregation of Helsinki, list of births and baptisms 1751–1764.

• 80. See, e.g., Bergfeldt (1997), Håkansson (1999).

• 81. Aalto et al. (2020: 210–211).

• 82. FNA, Renovated court records, records of the Treasurer’s court in Helsinki, Dec. 4,5 and 10, 1765.

• 83. Åkerman (1937: 54‚ nr. 235).

• 84. Gustafsson (2018: 173–174), Lennersand et al. (2017: 188–189).

• 85. Aalto et al. (2020: 472–476).

• 86. FNA, Renovated court records, records of the Treasurer’s court in Helsinki 1752–1755.

• 87. FNA, Renovated court records, records of the Treasurer’s court in Helsinki June 14, 1754.

• 88. FNA, Renovated court records, records of the Treasurer’s court in Helsinki May 2, June 14, and Aug. 2, 1754.

• 89. Granqvist (2019: 4), Andersson (1997: 167–168).

• 90. Aalto et al. (2020: 175–182).

• 91. FNA, Renovated court records, records of the Treasurer’s court in Helsinki Aug. 29 and Sept. 5, 1755.

• 92. FNA, Renovated court records, records of the Treasurer’s court in Helsinki June 4, 1761.

• 93. Granqvist (2016: 148).

• 94. Gustafsson (2016: 36–42), Granqvist and Gustafsson (2013: 160).

• 95. Aalto et al. (2020: 422–426), Granqvist (2019).

• 96. Aalto et al. (2020: 422–426), Granqvist (2019), Gustafsson (2016: 42–45).

• 97. Tanguy (2006: 135).