GREAT NORTHERN WAR 300th ANNIVERSARY

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aukepalmhof
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GREAT NORTHERN WAR 300th ANNIVERSARY

Post by aukepalmhof » Sat Jan 22, 2022 1:22 am

The Great Northern War 300 Years, in the background, is a stylized open boat in which the islanders escaped and returned to the island.
The stamp commemorates the 300th anniversary of the Great Northern War, one of the worst disasters to strike Åland. The stamp visualizes the mass exodus and returns to Åland. The islands were occupied by Russia in 1714, and the islanders fled to Sweden. After the peace treaty in 1721, most Ålanders returned to the devastated and fire-damaged island. View the film with Åland artist Carl-Johan Listherby speaking about his design process when making the stamp: https://youtu.be/5Bd-rBOe5fM

https://www.wopa-plus.com/en/stamps/product/&pgid=67590
Åland Island 2021 INRIKS no face value sg?, Scott444.

With Finland already conquered in the summer of 1714, Russia attacked Åland in August. Villages were burned down and looted and several hundred Ålanders, mostly women, and children who did not escape in time, were captured and sold as slaves. The attack was not unexpected. Sweden had been at war against Denmark-Norway, Poland-Saxony, and Russia since 1700. Consequently, Åland was already on a war footing, and Åland boatmen were commissioned into the Swedish archipelago fleet. Still, most Ålanders had stayed at home to salvage the harvest, but they now fled by the skin of their teeth across the sea. Stories told by refugees from Finland, passing on their flight to Sweden, created great fear of the enemy. Everyone who could afford to flee did so, especially officials and priests, but also peasants, except for the islanders on Kökar. The island being of no strategic importance to the occupying Russian regime, they were left in peace. Most refugees ended up in Stockholm and Lake Malar archipelagos. Little aid was given to refugees who largely depended on the generosity of local residents. Those settling by the coast could make a living from fishing and seal hunting, but many suffered great hardship during their stay in Sweden. Peace was finally made in 1721, and most islanders returned in the following spring. Heavy work lay ahead; overgrown fields and meadows, stolen or feral cattle, houses burnt to the ground, demolished or in ruins. Only towards the end of the 1700s did Åland again have the same population as before the Great Northern War.

Sources: ”Ofärdsår på Åland”, The Åland Islands Emigrant Institute, 2020; ”Ett svunnet Åland” by Håkan Skogsjö, 2010 Great Northern War 300 years, Issue date: 7 May 2021 Artist: Carl-Johan Listherby. Design: Sofia Valtersson/Strax. Edition: 90 000 Denomination: Inrikes Aland Post Frimarken.
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