Fairy aliens

 

Staffan Stigsjöö´s book “Tefatsfolket – vänner eller fiender?” contains a number of UFO experiences that predates Kenneth Arnold´s famous observation in 1947. Two of the more interesting are Finnish.

In 1942, a schoolgirl in Finland had what can only be described as an abduction experience. She encountered a female human-looking alien who led her inside a strange “machine”. A boy had already been involuntarily taken onboard the craft. He was hysterically screaming throughout the experience, while the girl felt completely safe. The female alien told her that it´s important to believe in Jesus, that his word is true, and that the human soul is eternal. So is the universe. The alien apparently had maps on her table. After the experience, the girl felt sick, couldn´t eat, went blind and was hospitalized, where the doctors couldn´t find anything wrong with her. She was at the hospital for a month and stayed home from school the entire semester. For a year afterwards, she felt intense fear every time she approached the location of the “machine”. The boy went mad and ended up in a mental asylum.

Another account deals with an event in 1939. It took place in Ingermanland (Ingria), an area in the Soviet Union which at the time had a large Finnish population. Two kids, aged three and four, were out walking in the forest and got lost. They then observed a white “hat-shaped” object that hovered above ground. A man dressed in a white outfit approached and told them that their parents would soon find them. When the parents approached, the mysterious man withdrew to the flying hat, which then disappeared. One of the witnesses later said that she had interpreted the man as a guardian angel, but as an adult realized that it must have been “a real person”.

Both these pre-1947 encounters were presumably reported to ufologists after 1947, so one cannot rule out that they have been colored by the post-Arnold UFO/alien hype. They are still fascinating, since they sound like hybrids of modern UFO lore and pre-UFO folklore. The Finnish report has traits of a fairy encounter, while the Ingrian report does sound like a meeting with an angel. Which just shows us that we´re dealing with an evolving cultural phenomenon. Fairy lore and folkish Christianity morphs into “alien abductions” and “UFO observations”.

Unless it´s fairy glamour. 

The mystery of Karl XII

“Karl XII: En biografi” is a biography in Swedish written by Bengt Liljegren. The book was published in 2000. Karl XII (or Charles XII) was king of Sweden from 1697 to 1718. During most of that period, Karl was away from Sweden waging wars in the Baltic provinces, Poland, Germany or Russia. He was also semi-interned in the Ottoman Empire for several years. The “Great Northern War” ended for Karl XII on the 30^th November 1718, when he was shot dead in Norway during a siege. The Swedish defeat in the 18-year long war effectively ended Sweden´s great power period, Russia taking Estonia, Latvia, Ingria and West Karelia. Czar Peter the Great built St Petersburg, soon to become the Russian imperial capital, on territory conquered from the Swedes (or reconquered since Russia controlled the area before Sweden´s rise to regional great power status). Sweden also lost some of its German possessions, but was allowed to keep Finland, which had been occupied by Russia during the course of the war. Karl XII´s death also ended the first period of absolutist rule in Sweden, absolutism being replaced by a constitutional monarchy dominated by the Diet or Parliament (“the Age of Freedom”).

In Sweden, Karl XII is still extremely controversial, the “great warrior king” being a symbol for right-wing extremism. When I was younger, left-wing radicals and neo-Nazi skinheads near-rioted on the 30^th November every year at Kungsträdgården in Stockholm, where a 19^th century statue of Karl XII is located, menacingly pointing eastwards (at Russia). Leftists and liberals have often pointed out how absurd and anachronistic Karl XII is as a Swedish nationalist symbol. The king ruled a multi-ethnic state, many of his officers and officials were foreigners, and he attempted to create an alliance of Swedes, Cossacks, Tatars and Turks against Russia. Tatars and Turks are, of course, Muslim. Liljegren doesn´t mention the old legend that Karl XII brought the Travelers (a kind of Gypsies) to Sweden. At the same time, the slightly trollish liberal take on Karl XII is another form of propaganda, since it´s just as anachronistic to portray the old dictator as “pro-immigration” or “anti-racist” in the modern sense. Paeans to Karl XII have usually been a right-wing preserve, leftists – somewhat strangely – preferring his father, Karl XI (who created the system the son was defending). In his book, Liljegren describes how the views of Karl XII have changed back and forth over the years, among both historians and the public.

Above all, he describes the actual reign of Karl XII. While Liljegren is admirably objective in his style of writing, it´s difficult not to be critical of the monarch after reading the 442-page tome. Since Sweden was attacked by a triple alliance of Russia, Denmark-Norway and Poland-Lithuania-Saxony, one can hardly fault Karl XII for taking up arms in defense of his realm. However, his concrete way of doing so ultimately proved disastrous for both Sweden and himself. Instead of concentrating on defending the Baltic provinces against Russia, Karl spent years fighting a quixotic war in Poland and then attempted to march on Moscow without due preparations. The Russians decisively defeated the Swedish army at the infamous battle of Poltava, forcing the king to flee south to Bessarabia, then controlled by the Muslim Ottoman Empire. After finally returning to Sweden, rather than counter-attacking the Russians (who had occupied half of the then Swedish kingdom), Karl embarked on two equally weird and badly thought-out campaigns in Norway. The entire reign of Karl XII was marked by famine, pestilence and war. 200,000 Swedish soldiers were killed. At the time, the Swedish kingdom had a population of only two and a half million!

I get the impression from Liljegren´s book that while Karl XII was a brilliant tactician on the battlefield (at least in the beginning of the war), his long-term strategy left much to be asked for. Diplomatic finesse he had none. The young king had a reckless streak, constantly being on the attack (literally), even when diplomacy and tactical retreats would have suited the situation better. With more strategic thinking and planning, Karl might have been able to hold on to the Baltic provinces – or at least to Estonia and Latvia. Some of his wilder plans were never put into operation: Karl XII apparently toyed with the idea of invading Britain in alliance with the Jacobites, and also wanted to establish a Swedish colony on Madagascar in alliance with local pirates! Mostly as a thought experiment, he also developed a new numeral system with 64 as its base, a system defended by Emmanuel Swedenborg (the future Seer of the North) in a pamphlet written mostly to show loyalty to the king-dictator. 

What struck me most when reading “Karl XII: En biografi” was the intractable personality of the king. On the one hand, he was authoritarian, unapproachable, inflexible to the point of obsession, and had a sadistic humor. Foreign diplomats described him as unkempt and extremely rude. On the other hand, he clearly had *something* which made officers and common soldiers follow him and trust him, even to the point of death. Some kind of mysterious charisma? Karl XII always dressed in uniform, didn´t wear a wig and kept his hair short – all three things unheard of among contemporary monarchs and aristocrats. This gave him a “plebeian” look. He cultivated an image of being an ascetic warrior, married to his army. Like many other Swedish kings, he also distrusted the higher nobility as a class, much preferring the lower nobility and the commoners. The king was also something of a religious zealot, which gave him a fatalistic outlook on life - everything was preordained by God, so why worry about failure. Above all, he seemed impervious to suffering.

My impression of Karl XII´s personality type is very negative. Was he a sociopath? Or did he have some kind of autism spectrum disorder? What makes the whole thing doubly disturbing is that his inflexible orders were usually followed meticulously, even by people who knew better. Karl XII´s father Karl XI had turned Sweden into a well-drilled militarist absolutist state – and the son was reaping the benefits.  

That is, until the 30^th November 1718 (or December 11 according to the Gregorian calendar now in use). For centuries, rumors have claimed that Karl XII wasn´t killed by a Norwegian bullet, but by one of his own people. A French immigrant serving as an officer in the Swedish army, André Sicre, was widely suspected of being Karl XII´s assassin by his contemporaries. Liljegren believes that the king was murdered and that Sicre may indeed have done it. Cui bono? The author regards it as extremely suspicious that Frederick of Hesse – who subsequently became king of Sweden – acted so fast after the death of Karl XII, purging the most prominent Karoline loyalists while buying off the officer corps with lavish gifts. And why had the same Frederick only six months earlier issued instructions about what should be done in the event of the king´s death, instructions never before heard of? And guess who promoted André Sicre? Yes, the very same Frederick… 

If Frederick was the main conspirator, the conspiracy failed after his “Hessian” faction had purged the pro-Karl “Holstein” faction. In the aftermath of the purge, the Hessians quickly lost the initiative to a third group, the “men of freedom”, who abolished royal absolutism. Frederick (who was married to Karl XII´s sister Ulrika Eleonora) eventually did become king, but without much effective power. It should be noted that other historians, including Peter Englund, strongly support the idea that Karl XII was killed by enemy fire.

Perhaps the debate will continue for another 300 years…

Still, if Swedish is your first language, “Karl XII: En biografi” does give a good overview of the life and times of the most divisive king in Sweden´s history. And perhaps his death, too.

The Cross of Pribina

A review of "One Europe, Many Nations" by James B Minahan 

Like the other reviewer, I'm somewhat ambivalent towards this encyclopedia. It really does contain factual errors and peculiar omissions, showing that the author can't really handle the vast material he has amassed to write this work.

Here are some I spotted in the chapter on Slovakia, a nation I happen to be familiar with. The Slovak language is based on the Central Slovak dialects spoken around Banská Bystrica, *not* the Western dialects around Bratislava. The author never mentions the mission of Cyril and Methodius, despite its central significance for Slovak nationalism. That's like writing about the United States without mentioning, say, the Pilgrim Fathers. He incorrectly calls the double cross at the Slovak flag “the Cross of Pribina”. Every Slovak I met calls it the cross of Cyril and Methodius, or simply the double cross. A quick search on the web reveals that the Cross of Pribina is a Slovak medal awarded by the President, and looks nothing like a double cross. Finally, it's anachronistic to use the name Bratislava before 1919, when the city was called Pressburg, Presporok or Pozsony. The point is not to nitpick – many other facts in the Slovak entry are quite correct, but these are glaring errors and omissions showing that the author knows little about Slovakia, and somehow misinterpreted whatever sources he was using.

Here are some other errors (I think!). In the Ingrian entry, Ingrians and Izhorians are treated as the same people, when in fact they are distinct. In the Wallonian entry, Wallon and Picard are said to be the same language. The Scanian entry treats the Scanians as an oppressed group within Sweden, suggesting that the author was taken in by some particularly virulent Scanian nationalist. The author also confuses Skåne with Skåneland (a broader concept).

On the other hand, *all* entries doesn't seem to be wrong (the one about Sorbs seems correct – there really are Sorbs in Poland, for instance). I'm also willing to cut the author some slack when it comes to the exact numbers of each nationality covered. It's often a hotly contested issue how large (or small!) a national or ethnic group actually is, and the same goes for language fluency. I admit that I kind of like the author's “Titoist” tendency to split large nationalities into smaller groups. Yes, the encyclopedia does include articles on Rhinelanders, Alanders, Romands, Andalusians, Swabians, Voralbergers, Lombards and Sanjakis. (I didn't see any entries on Gorani and Sarakatsani, though. Maybe next time?) Conversely, I noticed that the author has a somewhat broad definition of “Europe”. Geographically speaking, the three Transcaucasian nations of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are not European. However, I'm willing to cut him some slack here, too, since all these terms are somewhat fluid anyway.

I think this work shows the perils of trying to write an entire encyclopedia all by yourself. John Michael Greer can do it, but then, JMG is a super-nerd. And even he probably couldn't pull off a pan-European encyclopedia (with Caucasus and Transcaucasus appended). The author should be commended for his efforts, but perhaps next time assembling a team for a project of this type could be better…

I'm willing to fact-check the Slovak entry.

From Kirjasalo with love

A review of the Ingrian flag. 

Ingria (Ingermanland) is a region at the Russo-Finnish border. It was controlled by Sweden from 1583 to 1595 and again from 1609 to 1703 (during this time, the Swedish kingdom also comprised Finland). From 1703 (officially 1721) onwards, Ingria has been controlled by Russia. Most of its population, however, was Finnish until the Soviet period, when Stalin more or less exterminated the Ingrian Finns through forced resettlement, Russification and purges. The Finns had settled in Ingria during the Swedish period. The original inhabitants of the area are known as Izhorians and Votes. They, too, are mostly gone today.

This is the flag of the Republic of North Ingria, a short-lived state (1919-20) established by anti-Bolshevik Ingrian Finns during the Russian Civil War. It only comprised the northernmost parts of Ingria and was in practice a puppet state of Finland. The flag, a typical Nordic cross flag, is based on the Ingrian coat of arms (adopted in 1618) which is yellow, blue and red. The flag survived the collapse of the “republic”, and is now used either as a symbol of the Ingrian Finns, or of the territory of Ingria as a whole. As far as I know, it has no official standing in Russia and is therefore mostly used by cultural associations of Ingrian Finns in Finland and Sweden. Izhorians and Votes have their own ethnic symbols.

Symbol of eternity

A review of the flag of the Votes.

This is the flag of the Votes, an almost extinct people living in Ingermanland or Ingria, an area in the St Petersburg region of Russia. The Votes and the Izhorians, another almost extinct ethnic group, were the original inhabitants of Ingria. When Sweden conquered Ingria during its “great power” period, the area was settled by Finns. Even later, the Russians became the dominant nationality in the region. Today, only 64 (sic) Votes are left, most of whom can't even speak the Votic language, which is related to Estonian and Finnish. Around the year 2000, a linguist named Ferenc Valoczy designed a typical Nordic flag for the Votes, showing a green cross on a blue field. It quickly went viral, at least on websites devoted to things Votic. However, the Votes themselves never accepted it and commissioned a new flag from the poet Aleksandr Gurinov. The design shown here is Gurinov's. The white field stands for Vatland or the Land of the Votes. The blue fields symbolize the Gulf of Finland and Lake Peipus, between which Vatland is situated. The red cross is the most interesting part. It seems to be an ancient pagan symbol and is described this way by the Votic newspaper Maya Vyachi: “Symbol of the memory of the ancestors, heroism in defense of their land, symbol of eternity, reminding us that the ties between the generations should never be broken, symbol of the unity of things material and spiritual.” Amen to that!