Forest Society: Use, Control and Ecology of Forest Resources in Finland, 1700–1850

Docent, PhD Ella Viitaniemi, Project Director

Ella Viitaniemi has conducted wide-ranging research on the social history of the 18th century. Among other things, she previously led the Long History of Short-term Labour project which was funded by the Kone Foundation. As early as in her doctoral dissertation in 2016, she delved into the increasing control of forest use exercised by central government while examining the development of state building administration and legislation that prioritised the construction of stone churches. Viitaniemi found that the central government regarded the wooden church projects – to which Finns were stubbornly committed – as a waste of forest resources. Since then, she has been interested in the study of the diverse uses of forests in pre-industrial society.

Docent, PhD Sofia Gustafsson

Sofia Gustafsson has previously studied the economic impact of the construction of the Suomenlinna Sea Fortress on different geographical regions and social groups. She has also conducted extensive research on the economic and social history of the city of Helsinki in the 18th century. In the Short-term Labour project, she examined the livelihoods of enlisted soldiers and their families dwelling in the city. She has also researched the livelihoods of military families in rural western Finland. Forests have been included in one way or another in all of these projects since timber was an essential commodity both for the army and for individual soldiers. It was constantly needed for construction, heating, cooking, and animal husbandry.

PhD Hilja Solala

Solala’s area of expertise is the history of agriculture and native domestic animal breeds. Her doctoral dissertation in 2021 was the first dissertation in the field of history that investigated Finnhorse, and nearly all of her (81) publications focus on domestic animals. She has also studied the pre-industrial period especially in the Research Council of Finland-funded Borrowing from the Neighbour: Animal Husbandry Methods and Cultural Contacts in Northern Baltic Sea Region during Prehistoric and Historical Periods (PI Docent Auli Bläuer, Natural Resources Institute Finland). Solala’s contribution to the Forest Society project is her extensive multidisciplinary collaboration network in the field of native breed conservation.

Docent, PhD Petri Talvitie

Talvitie specialises in the history of land tenure and agriculture in the 18th and 19th centuries. The utilisation and control of forest resources have also featured prominently in his previous research. His work has focused, among other things, on common lands, the agricultural land reforms and the rural landless workforce, for whom common forests were an important source of livelihood in the pre-industrial era. He also has extensive experience of using court records as historical source material.

PhD Antti Härkönen

Härkönen is an expert in the use of geographical methods in historical research. In his dissertation, he applied geospatial analysis to investigate the spatial segregation of Russian residents in the city of Vyborg. Härkönen has used a range of research materials, including court records and quantitative taxation data, but historical maps in particular.

M.A., doctoral researcher, research assistant Janne Pääkkö

In his master's thesis, Pääkkö examined the implementation of lake-drainage projects in a rural community in Eastern Finland. He is preparing his doctoral dissertation at the University of Eastern Finland on the settlement and development of crown tenant farms established in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the Forest Society project, Pääkkö’s area of expertise is the development of the built environment of crown estates and their relation to regulations on forest resources use.