‘Finland’s Great Famine, 1856-68‘ by Andrew G. Newby explores one of the most devastating yet often overlooked tragedies in Nordic and European history: the Great Finnish Famine of the 1860s. In 1868, the darkest year of a prolonged economic and climatic crisis, around 137,000 people—nearly 8% of Finland’s population—died from hunger and disease. The catastrophe left a profound mark on Finnish society, shaping demographic patterns, social structures, and political debate for generations. The policies adopted by Finland’s devolved administration largely reflected dominant European thinking of the time. In practice, this meant relief measures that often resembled the “colonial” approaches applied elsewhere in nineteenth-century famine responses, prioritising discipline, labour, and moral judgement over direct intervention. What makes the Finnish famine distinctive is its historical setting. Although Finland was part of the Russian Empire, it enjoyed wide internal autonomy and was actively forging its own economic, political, and cultural identity when the crisis struck. Responsibility for both action and inaction therefore lay largely at home, not in an imperial centre far away. ‘Finland’s Great Famine, 1856–68’ examines key themes such as emergency food substitutes, domestic and international charity, vagrancy and crime, relief works, and emigration—offering a nuanced portrait of a society under extreme pressure at a pivotal moment in Nordic history.
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