Sweden's Russian Lands, Ingria and Kexholm Province, 1617 - ca. 1670: The Interaction of the Crown with Its New Subjects

The Swedish policy of religious conversion, harsh taxation and competition for labour and taxpayers were the key issues in the political and social history of Ingria and Kexholm Province during the seventeenth century. During the war of 1656-1658, the Russian tsar got and finally retained tens of thousands of new taxpayers and settlers from these Swedish dependencies as a substitute for the fact that Russia had not been able to reconquer the territories it had lost to Sweden forty years earlier. The article explores the interaction between the Swedish Crown and its Ingrian subjects and pays due attention to the fact that this interaction materialized in conditions which were more unfavourable to the Crown than the ones prevailing in the core area of the Swedish kingdom. The religious policy of the Swedish Government towards the Orthodox failed almost completely. The strivings and identity of the Orthodox were in a too sharp contrast to the religious objectives of the Government. Time also worked against the Government's policy. It did not have enough time to show whether positive results could be reached. Economic reasons also played a role in alienating the Orthodox in Ingria and in Kexholm Province from Sweden. The fiscal needs dictated by the great-power policy were colossal, and no part of the Kingdom of Sweden could opt for a free ride. Until the 1656-1658 war, Orthodox peasants simply preferred to desert to Russia rather than oppose these policies. In the early days of the war, some of them rebelled, many voluntarily joined the withdrawing Russian troops and others were forcibly abducted; as a consequence, Sweden lost a great number of taxpayers permanently. The crop failures related to the Little Ice Age as well as the tax increases and conscriptions ordered by King Gustav II Adolf and the ensuing regency regime, together with the attraction of the swidden lands in the east, on the other hand, drove thousands of Lutheran Finns in Viborg Karelia and Savo to migrate to Ingria and Kexholm Province. The Crown was neither able to prevent the Finnish peasants, farm hands and deserters from moving to the newly conquered eastern territories, freed from conscription, nor could it contain the migration of the Orthodox population from those same territories. After the war of 1656-1658, the population there consisted of Lutheran Finns everywhere, except in the Western parts of Ingria and the North-eastern fringe of Kexholm Province. The article is based mainly