Tony Lurcock - Not So Barren Or Uncultivated: British Travellers in Finland, 1760-1830

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Not So Barren or Uncultivated

BRITISH TRAVELLERS IN FINLAND 17601830

Tony Lurcock grew up in Kent and was educated at Oxford. He became lecturer in English at Helsinki University, and subsequently at bo Akademi. He returned to Oxford for research, and taught there, and in America, until his recent retirement.

A second volume of extracts from travellers accounts compiled by Tony Lurcock, No Particular Hurry: British Travellers in Finland 18301917 , is also available.

First published in 2010

by CB editions

146 Percy Road London w12 9ql

www.cbeditions.com

All rights reserved

Tony Lurcock, 2010

Front cover: Viewing the Midnight Sun. TORNAO IN LAPLAND .

Engraving by Thomas Bewick; frontispiece of Matthew Consetts A Tour through Sweden, Swedish Lapland, Finland and Denmark , 1789.

Tony Lurcock has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as author of this work

ISBN 9781909585089

Ebook conversion by leeds-ebooks.co.uk

Not So Barren or Uncultivated

BRITISH TRAVELLERS IN FINLAND

17601830

Tony Lurcock

He then directed his course for Abo in Finland,

where there is nothing that pleased him in the survey,

or can amuse by the description... He found the

province of Finland, however, not so barren or

uncultivated as he had been taught to expect.

Critical Review (1775)

Arrival in Turku, nineteenth century

Contents

Map

Acknowledgements

Composing this book has been largely a solitary activity, carried out over several decades, with many long periods of inattention. It is probable that I have forgotten some of the people who have given help or advice along the way, and very probable that several such people have forgotten that they ever helped or advised.

The following have certainly given help at different times and places, in matters both literary and technical: Ben Goluboff, Tim Griggs, Bill Mead, Bernard ODonoghue, Simon Rae, David Ripley, Roger Sell, Katherine Turner and David Wilson. On the home front my sons, Pontus and Casper, have been the books allies in several areas: typing out more than a hundred thousand words onto a computer, maintaining and explaining the said computer, helping with all sorts of word-processing problems, and offering advice on content and style.

My friend Silvester Mazzarella has stuck with me and with the project since the beginning, reading and commenting on numerous drafts, and always leaving me feeling that it was all worthwhile. As the book headed for publication Jonathan Clark sorted out various word-processing problems, and masterminded the production of the map and frontispiece.

I thank Dominique Enright for proof-reading, and Charles Boyle for expertise in matters of design and production.

Any comments, corrections or additions would be welcomed by the author at 9 Monmouth Road, Oxford OX1 4TD, UK , or by email to .

Place Names in Swedish and Finnish

Archaic Swedish spellings are in parentheses. Places which are mentioned only once are usually translated in the text. In a book of this size it has not proved possible to provide a map which shows every small village and settlement, but they can easily be found of the website kansalaisen.karttapaikka.fi. The site recognises only Finnish names. To trace the journeys through the land Archipelago type in Ahvenanmaa.

Bjrneborg	Pori
Borg (Bergo)	Porvoo
Brahestad	Raahe
Elsing (Helsing)	Helsinki (village)
Enontekis	Enonteki
Fredrikshamn	Hamina
Gamla Karleby	Kokkola
Helsingfors	Helsinki
Lovisa (Louisa)	Loviisa
Ny Karleby	Uusikaarlepyy
Nyslott	Savonlinna
Peterlax	Pyterlahti
Pyttis	Pyht
Sibho	Sibbo
Sveaborg	Suomenlinna
Tammerfors (Tamerfers)	Tampere
Tourne	Tornio
Uleborg	Oulu
Vasa	Vaasa
bo	Turku
vertourne	Ylitornio

Preface

This book has its origins in occasional talks given to Finnish-British Societies in various towns in Finland some forty years ago. They were readings rather than lectures, and offered striking and amusing extracts from books by British travellers in Finland. Over the years I have found many more books, and discovered a good deal about many of the writers.

Viewed chronologically these accounts arrange themselves in a developing pattern. In the eighteenth century Finland was a destination almost exclusively for those who were rich and titled, as well as bold and adventurous. With the coming of the steamboats, first on the Baltic, and later from England, sightseers from a different class of society appeared, and by the end of the nineteenth century ladies as well as gentlemen were taking leisurely tours of Finland, especially in the lake district. The twentieth century saw visitors of all classes travelling to Finland, often interested in the politics and social institutions of this new republic, and attracted also because it was unbelievably cheap. The present volume covers the earliest part of this history, from the 1760s to the 1830s.

All of the books which are discussed and cited are by English or Scottish authors, and were published in Britain. The book has two limitations: I have made no attempt to compare British travellers with, for example, those from Germany or France, nor have I (with one exception) made use of or sought out unpublished material. The presentation is broadly chronological, but I have put a few writers a little out of sequence where I have felt that this would make the book more cohesive.

The book is first and foremost an anthology. The extracts are chosen from a score or more of accounts, with a short introduction to each writer. I have attempted to make the book more than a chronology by linking some of the recurrent features, ranging from the writers often rudimentary ethnological instincts to their opinions of the roads and post-houses. There is not always a great deal of consensus: every traveller tells his own tale. It is amusing rather then bewildering to find, for example, how some of them considered that crossing from Finland to Russia was to move from civilisation to savagery, while others held the opposite opinion.

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