Annika Svahn ( fl. 1714), was a Finnish prisoner of war during the

Great Northern War The Great Northern War (1700–1721) was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedi ...

. The daughter of a vicar, she became the perhaps most well known victim of the abuse suffered by the civilian population in Finland during the Russian occupation

Greater Wrath The Great Wrath (, in contemporary sources: , 'Era of Russian domination/supremacy'; ) was a period of Finnish history dominated by the Russian invasion and subsequent military occupation of Finland, then part of the Swedish Empire, from 1714 ...

. Annika Svahn was the daughter of the vicar in

Joutseno Joutseno () is a former town and municipality of Finland. It is located in the province of Southern Finland and is part of the South Karelia region. The municipality was unilingually Finnish. Joutseno was consolidated with Lappeenranta on 1 Jan ...

, Benjamin Swahn. After the death of her father in 1701, when she was very young, her mother was allowed to remain in the vicarage as the house keeper of her father's successor, and she worked there as a maid. In midsummer 1710, Svahn was abducted naked from her

sauna A sauna (, ), or sudatory, is a small room or building designed as a place to experience dry or wet heat sessions, or an establishment with one or more of these facilities. The steam and high heat make the bathers perspire. A thermometer in a ...

by a group of Russian soldiers and brought as a slave to

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. In Saint Petersburg, she, as well as a couple of other Finnish females, were given some military training. In 1713, she was re-baptized in the Russian orthodox faith as Uliana. She was given a

dragoon Dragoons were originally a class of mounted infantry, who used horses for mobility, but dismounted to fight on foot. From the early 17th century onward, dragoons were increasingly also employed as conventional cavalry and trained for combat w ...

uniform and, alongside other Finnish women with a similar history, she was ordered to Finland to assist the Russian army in its conquest of Swedish Finland. She was wounded by a bullet in her thigh outside Borgå in 1714. The same year, she was given the task to act as a messenger for the Russians. She planned to desert, but was captured by the Swedish army on her way. She made her confession for the Swedish army authorities, who documented it. It is not known what happened to her after this.

References

Suomen kansallisbiografia (National Biography of Finland)
* https://web.archive.org/web/20121101153825/http://lappeenranta.fi/Suomeksi/Palvelut/Kirjasto/Etela-Karjala-aineisto/Joutsenolaisia_tarinoita/Annikka_Swahn%2C_tsaarin_rakuuna.iw3 {{DEFAULTSORT:Svahn, Annika 18th-century Finnish people Finnish women in war Swedish people of the Great Northern War Finnish prisoners of war Women in 18th-century warfare Russian serfs Russian military personnel of the Great Northern War 18th-century Finnish women 18th-century slaves

See also

References