Olavinlinna Castle
In Finnish history, the prehistoric era is generally
considered to end and the Middle Ages to begin in the 1150s, when, according to
a Swedish chronicle, King Erik of Sweden and English-born Bishop Henry
undertook a crusade to the southwestern parts of Finland. The chronicle's claim
that the Bishop 'baptized' the Finns has later been modified. Archaeological
finds have shown that Christianity had reached the Finns as early as the
eleventh century, and the main purpose of the crusade was thus to establish
Swedish dominion in Finland and organize a bishopric there.
The first crusade was also part of much wider
political and ecclesiastical perspective. Sweden was Roman-Catholic at the
time. To the east of Finland lay the Novgorod republic, which was
Greek-Orthodox. Finland was a country rich in natural resources in the middle
and came to be seen as a desirable territory by both sides from about the twelfth
century onwards. The Swedes arranged two more crusades, one in 1239, to
Häme in central Finland, and another in 1293, to Karelia (Viborg) in the
East. Meanwhile, the people of Novgorod made repeated raids into Finnish
territory, burning the city of Turku in southwestern Finland as late as 1318.
These conflicts did not end until 1323, with the peace treaty of
Pähkinäsaari, which finally established that Finland was part of the
kingdom of Sweden. The Swedes had to take up arms to defend the border numerous
times during the Middle Ages and the 16th century, especially after the
Muscovites took over Novgorod in the 1470s.
Thus the Swedes consolidated their power east of the
Åland sea through three crusades. After each crusade, a castle was built
to serve both defensive and administrative purposes. Turku castle was built at
the mouth of the Aura river in southwest Finland, by the city of Turku, the
foremost town in Finland up to the beginning of the 19th century. Häme
castle in Häme was built after the second crusade. The third crusade led
to the building of Viborg castle, on an island in the Gulf of Finland off the
coast of Karelia. These three castles became the centers of three provinces
discernible as early as the Iron Age, called Finland, Häme and Karelia.
The name 'Finland' only meant the settlements in the southwestern parts of the
country as late as the early Middle Ages.
Turku castle was probably founded in 1280, i.e. at the very time
when an old trading site on the Aurajoki river developed into a town, the
oldest, and for a long time the biggest, in Finland. Its name was Åbo in
Swedish and Turku in Finnish; the latter derives from a Slavonic word meaning
'market square'. The castle was built on an island in the estuary in the form
of a rectangular fortified camp with four gates. The pattern was an ancient
one, and can be traced back ultimately to the citadels built by the Romans in
antiquity. In Turku, the idea was apparently that the camp should be possible
to both fill and evacuate quickly, for instance prior to the third crusade in
1293.
The citadel had probably outlived its usefulness by
the beginning of the 14th century, when three gates were walled shut and it was
converted into a closed keep. Extensions were successively built using granite
from nearby, and by the beginning of the 15th century, it had both a keep and a
bailey. The keep, which had over forty rooms, was subject to a rigid hierarchy
and only select guests were allowed entry to the 'Royal Suite' at the furthest
end of the north wing; this consisted of a vaulted hall and an inner chamber.
The king of the realm naturally resided in Stockholm most of the time, but the
suite in Turku castle still deserved its name, as no other castle in Finland
was so often visited by the monarch. When the first king of the Vasa dynasty
resided in Finland for eleven months in 1555-1556, the entire kingdom of Sweden
was ruled from his hall in Turku castle. The importance of the castle is also
evident in the fact that it was subject to nine sieges before the end of the
16th century, mainly due to internal strife within the kingdom.
Häme castle (or Tavastehus in Swedish), the other great castle of
the realm, was built in the very middle of the Häme wilderness and in the
17th century became surrounded by a town of the same name. Work on building the
castle seems to have started in the 1290s in connection with the organization
of the three major 'castle counties' in Finland under bailiffs subject to the
king in Stockholm. The fight against Novgorod was still going on when work
started on Häme castle. At the time, the castle thus formed part of a
defense line against the east, although a short time later, after the peace
treaty of 1323, it came to be rather far removed from the actual eastern
border. It then became a center for the Swedish administration in the central
parts of Finland.
Apart from the ground floor, Häme castle is built
entirely of brick, and therefore stands apart from the other castles in
Finland, which were built in natural stone until the end of the 15th century.
With its square ground plan and almost cubic mass, the castle is very similar
to the castles built by the German orders in the Baltic countries and Eastern
Prussia during the middle Ages. The German influence is unmistakable and is
likely to extend even to the choice of material, i.e. brick, which was
manufactured on the spot by German craftsmen. The interior hierarchy of the
rooms was organized so that all the finest rooms were on the first floor. The
square castle ward had an external gallery at first-floor level, giving access
to all the rooms through ornate brick portals. The gallery has been
reconstructed and the portals restored.
The third major castle, Viipuri (or Viborg in
Swedish), was built as the easternmost outpost of the kingdom of Sweden. It was
taken by the Russians in 1710, but was back in Finnish hands in 1812. Since the
end of the war in 1944 it has again been on the Russian side of the border.
During the middle Ages it was repeatedly besieged by the Russians, most
famously in 1495, under Ivan III of Moscow. The situation of the defenders
looked hopeless, but they were saved by the 'Viborg blast', a mysterious
explosion which scared off the Russians because they saw a St. Andrew's cross
in the sky.
The three Finnish 'castle counties' were ruled from
the castles of Turku, Häme and Viborg, respectively until the 1360s. In
1366, Albrecht of Mecklenburg was elected king, and according to the German
model he began to divide up the castle counties into smaller provinces. In some
cases, these new, smaller provinces were given separate bailiffs' residences
which have since disappeared; this was the case with the Borgbacken castle
mound in Porvoo and Korsholm in Ostrobothnia, near the city of Vaasa which was
founded later. Only earthworks remain at these sites, but in two places, stone
strongholds were built which still exist, although in ruins. One is Raseborg in
western Uusimaa (west of Helsinki), the other Kastelholm in the Åland
islands.
Kastelholm in the Åland islands, where work
probably began in 1384, also had the double purpose of administration and
defense. Åland was separated from the castle county of Turku and the
Åland islanders were reluctantly subjected to a bailiff who ruled over
them 'at close quarters'. The defense function was more complicated, because it
involved the defense of more than just the Åland islands themselves. A
statement from 1525 describes Kastelholm as "a key to Sweden", evidence
of the importance attributed to Kastelholm as a last maritime outpost in the
defense of Stockholm. Such a view was entirely justified in an era when the
main thoroughfares were the navigation routes across the seas and through the
archipelagos. Kastelholm lost its importance in the 17th century, but the
castle still stands, partly ruined, but also with some intact interiors.
The five castles mentioned so far were all built
before the advent of firearms. They were thus designed to withstand arrows, spears
and siege engines, which were used to fire large rocks. This is evident in
their outward appearance. The battlements on top of the castle walls were
crucial; they were designed to ensure that no-one could enter that way. The
situation changed completely when firearms were introduced; the defenses then
had to be concentrated in special, projecting towers fitted with gun loopholes.
It also had to be possible to ensure that attackers could not breach the walls
with their firepower. The first mention of firearms in Finland relates to
Vyborg castle, in 1429.
The first Finnish castle to be built for use in the
era of firearms was Olavinlinna (Olofsborg in Swedish) in the wilderness of northern
Karelia. The castle lies on an island in a system of lakes and inland
waterways, and building work started in 1475 under the Swedes, mainly as a
demarcation of the frontier. No-goods had been taken by the Muscovites led by
Grand Duke Ivan III and after he openly declared that he intended to invade
Finland next, the Swedes wanted to demonstrate where the border lay in the
uninhabited wilderness according to the peace treaty of 1323. The building
process was dramatic, as the Russians felt that the castle was being built on
the wrong side of the border and therefore did everything in their power to
disrupt the work. The barges which brought sand, stone and lime to the building
site were, for instance, attacked on numerous occasions. Research in our own
time has proved the Russians right, as the castle was built about five
kilometers into what was then Russian territory.
The castle, with its round projecting towers, clearly
shows that it was built after firearms began to be used. At the end of the 15th
century, there was no master builder in Finland who was equal to such a task,
and the governor, Erik Axelsson Tott, says in a letter dated 1477 that he had
"16 good foreign master bricklayers" on the castle island. The
building technique used would indicate that they came from Revel (Tallinn),
where the town wall was extended in the same style at about the same period .
Olavinlinna was not built in vain. Ivan III put his threat into practice and
the castle was besieged in both 1495 and 1496, but withstood the siege both
times. More sieges followed during King Gustavus Vasa's Russian campaign in
1555-1557, when the castle had a garrison of about 200 men.
All the castles mentioned so far were erected by the
Swedish Crown in order both to defend Finland as part of the Kingdom, and to
organize administration and taxation through the bailiffs. However, there was
one more fairly big castle which played an important part in the history of the
Finnish part of the kingdom of Sweden throughout the Middle Ages. This castle,
called Kuusisto (or Kustö in Swedish), lay just northeast of Turku,
where building work commissioned by the Bishop in Turku had started in 1317.
This bishop was one of a total of seven in the kingdom of Sweden and his
bishopric was the second largest, stretching all the way from Viborg in the
east to Finnish Lapland in the north. Since the bishop was also a member of the
council of the realm, he was not just an ecclesiastic but a political figure as
well, and this was one reason why he needed a fortress: he also kept a private
army. When the Muscovites besieged Viborg in 1495, Bishop Magnus III was able
to contribute one hundred armed knights to its defense.
Kuusisto today is a ruin, because Gustavus Vasa
ordered its destruction in 1528 as part of his battle against the Catholic
Church after the Reformation. However, it is still possible to see that the
castle comprised a keep and three baileys. There are the remains of gun towers,
probably built in the 1480s, at the corners. Cannons were necessary to protect
the Bishop in his stronghold.