Memories of the War of 1808-1809: Collected from the Mouth of the People

Castrén, Kaarle Alfred, 1845-1873Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.5
Word count
388K words
Chapters
39

Tags

Foreign Language Books World HistoryMilitary Military ConflictWar MemoryField CollectionFinnish HistoryCollective MemoryHistorical SourcesFolk NarrativeNordic SagaWartime LifePeople's Perspective

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Muistelmia vuosien 1808-1809 sodasta: Kansan suusta kokoillut by CastrénAuthor: Castrén, Kaarle Alfred, 1845-1873,Language: Finnish, Class: DL: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Release Date: Dec 15, 2015

Editor's review

This is a collection of oral historical material compiled in the late nineteenth century by the Finnish scholar Carsten Carl Alfred, centering on the Finnish War of 1808–1809. Rather than narrating from the perspective of generals or court archives, the compiler gathered memories "from the mouths of the people," bringing together the accounts of ordinary soldiers, peasants and eyewitnesses into a record of popular wartime memory. Its value lies in preserving voices from below that official history tends to overlook: hunger on the march, fear as homes were touched by war, plain-spoken assessments of both sides, and how war changed ordinary people's fates at the everyday level. As a free Project Gutenberg e-book, it is easy to search and excerpt at any time, making it suitable supplementary material for Nordic history, oral history and the social history of war. There is no need to seek a连贯 plot; it is better treated as a body of historical material awaiting interpretation, with attention to the narrators' standpoints, tones and elements of rumor. For readers studying the formation of Finnish national consciousness or the history of nineteenth-century folklore collection, the book is especially valuable for reference.

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Reading tips

  1. Look up the basic background of the Finnish War of 1808–1809 before entering the text, to avoid getting lost amid unfamiliar historical facts.
  2. Read by theme rather than in order—marching, supply, civilian experiences—for easier comparison across accounts.
  3. Note narrators' identities and sources of information as you read, distinguishing eyewitness accounts from rumor and later retelling.
  4. Read alongside contemporary official histories or military archives to observe differences between popular memory and official narrative.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
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  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
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  11. 11
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  18. 18
  19. 19
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  25. 25
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  27. 27
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  29. 29
  30. 30
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  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39

FAQ

Is this book the author's memoir of a war he experienced himself? No. The author, Carsten Carl Alfred, was a nineteenth-century compiler who collected wartime memories passed down orally among the people, not his own first-hand experience. The book presents ordinary people's accounts, edited by the compiler, and thus has the character of collected and retold historical material.
Can I read this book without knowing Finnish? The original is in Finnish; without Finnish you will need a translation or translation tools. For researchers, the Finnish original helps capture popular language and tone; general readers are advised to first find overview articles in English or Chinese to understand the content framework, then decide whether to go deeper into the original.
Is this book suitable as an introductory work on military history? Not really. It is a compilation of oral historical material and lacks a systematic account of campaigns and background. Introductory readers should first read general histories to build a framework, then use this book as supplementary material to sense the concrete impact of war at the popular level.

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About the author

Castrén, Kaarle Alfred, 1845-1873 Author · Finnish · 1845–1873

Kaarle Alfred Castrén (1845–1873) was a Finnish scholar about whom public information is limited; he is generally described as a philosopher who studied ethics and the philosophy of religion. Only one work by him is held in this collection: the Finnish historical account Muistelmia vuosien 1808-1809 sodasta: Kansan suusta kokoillut, whose title means "Memories of the War of 1808–1809: Collected from the People's Mouth." Drawing on oral accounts, the book concerns the war of 1808–1809 in which Finland was involved and presents ordinary people's memories and feelings about it, giving it value both as oral testimony and as historical narrative. The author died young, at twenty-eight, and left few writings; this book is the main basis for understanding his choice of sources and manner of writing.