The enslaved child – of Lovisa von Burghausen and her travails in 18th century Russia

In November of the year 1700, that gallant warrior king Karl XII of Sweden, hastened to defend the city of Narva (in present day Estonia) from the besieging Russian army. The Great Northern War had kicked off some months earlier when an alliance between Denmark, Russia and Saxony/Poland had initiated an attack on Sweden’s Baltic territories.

Sweden wasn’t having it. Nope. Our bellicose young hero king (he was all of eighteen) was to prove himself a skilled and determined leader, effectively bringing Denmark to its knees before turning his attention due east.  When August II of Poland heard Karl XII was moving towards Riga—presently under siege by August’s troops—he hastily recalled his army and fled. Karl XII could now concentrate on helping the besieged town of Narva.

It is estimated the Russian army consisted of around 35 000 men. Karl XII had around 11 000. He also had the weather on his side, attacking with a blizzard at his back which effectively blinded the Russians who were trapped between the walls of Narva and the advancing Swedish army. At the end of the day, almost 10 000 Russians lay dead. The rest had capitulated and were allowed to march off towards home—and humiliation.

The Battle of Narva was a huge Swedish victory, and Karl may have thought he had taught the Russians so bitter a lesson they would refrain from further attacks. He was wrong. While Karl went about taming August and in general ensuring his enemies knew just how dangerous a foe he was, Peter the Great began rebuilding his army and reviewing his strategies. The Russian Tsar had every intention of expanding his territory due west—at the expense of Sweden. After all, most of the Swedish Baltic territories had been Russian until the mid 17^th century.

In 1703, Peter the Great conquered Nyen, the Swedish outpost located where soon enough a new city, St Petersburg, was to be founded. Methodically, the Russians cleansed present day Estonia of Swedes, regaining one town after the other. And in 1704, Peter the Great was back at Narva.

This time, the Russians had 45 000 men. The Swedish defenders had around 5 000. More importantly, in difference to the Russian siege in 1700, this time the Russians came with artillery. The Swedes refused to give up. The Swedish commander even had the nerve to send the tsar a rude letter in which he reminded the Russians of what had happened last time they’d tried to take Narva. Not a smart move.

Peter the Great lined up his huge army and ordered them to take the town. As his artillery had blown huge holes through the walls, his troops could easily enter, and for the coming hour or so, Narva bathed in blood. The Swedish commander had not given the order of capitulation, so the Swedes fought for their life, but the odds were against them. Close to 3 000 Swedes died, but they sold themselves dearly, with over 10 000 Russians casualties. Still, at the end of the day, Narva was Russian and, as we all know, the spoils go to the victor.

Living in Narva at the time was a certain Gustaf von Burghausen. He was one of the officers commanding Narva’s defences against the Russians, and after the defeat, he and his family were taken prisoners by the Russians.
“Wait, wait!” Gustaf’s wife yelled. “I can’t find Lovisa. Our little girl, Gustaf, I cannot find her!”
You see, in the tumult of invading Russians, Gustaf’s wife, Dorotea Margareta, had herded together all her daughters and run for safety. But somewhere along the way, Lovisa was lost.

Her grieving parents believed she was dead. How could a six-year-old child survive the chaos of a looting army? Except Lovisa wasn’t dead. The little girl had been claimed as booty by a Russian soldier.

At the time, it was common practice among the Russians to take captives and sell them as slaves, generally in Istanbul. The Swedish ambassador to the Ottoman court expended significant amounts of money in purchasing Swedes up for auction, but could not save all of them. Plus, many were simply sold as a private transaction, which was what happened to little Lovisa.

Her new master, Prince Anikita Repnin, took her back to Moscow and bundled her off to an Orthodox convent to have her convert. Lovisa did not speak Russian. She was a small, confused child who was repeatedly beaten because she did not understand what was demanded of her. At some point, her master’s old mother took pity on the child and took her in. Much better than the convent—at least at first.

For some reason, Prince Anikita’s wife took against Lovisa, suspecting her of being the prince’s spy. The poor girl was beaten and threatened, and at one point she was hung upside down from her ankles until she almost died. Yet again, it was the dowager princess who came to her rescue, but not even the old lady could save Lovisa from being forced to marry another of the prince’s Swedish captives, a young boy called Johan who had embraced the Orthodox faith and everything Russian.

Lovisa was twelve or so, her groom was sixteen. A year or so later, Lovisa suffered through a hellish six-day ordeal before birthing a daughter who died some weeks later.  I am thinking Lovisa wasn’t all that prostrated by grief when Johan himself died a year or so later.

After almost a decade as the property of Prince Anikita, Lovisa was suddenly transferred to Prince Dimitrie Cantemir, ruler of Moldovia, in exchange for a diamond. Princess Cantemir had caught sight of her while visiting Moscow and took a liking to the Swedish girl. Unfortunately, the princess died a year later and Lovisa almost died of poison—an ambitious mama wanted her daughter to replace Lovisa in the close circle round the prince’s two daughters.

It seems as if Lovisa was relatively well-treated by the Cantemir family—well, bar the poisoning—but when an Armenian captain requested the prince give him Lovisa as his wife, she panicked. She escaped, and with the help of another Swedish woman, she managed to make contact with an English merchant who had her smuggled to Archangels where she was to learn German and be brought back to the Lutheran faith.

Unfortunately for Lovisa, she was betrayed and returned to her enraged owner who had her put in irons and locked into a stone kitchen so cold ice formed on the floor and walls where she was put to doing laundry. She would have died there had it not been for the kindness of the prince’s daughters who smuggled her into their bedroom at night.

I am thinking that by now Lovisa must have had very few memories of her parents, of her maternal language and faith. She was about sixteen and had lived most of her life as a slave and must have expected to die as one as well—especially after the punishment she received after her attempted escape.

In 1714, Lovisa’s life changed again. Prince Cantemir set off to visit St Petersburg, and in his absence the wife of one of his men saw an opportunity to make some extra money by selling a couple of slaves, Lovisa included. Which is how Lovisa ended up purchased by a Turk who hauled her all the way to Tobolsk in Siberia.

The Turk was a cruel and demanding master and she was repeatedly beaten. There was, however, one benefit to being in Tobolsk. As Peter the Great expanded his territories and defeated the Swedes on multiple occasions—the most significant encounter being the Battle of Poltava in 1709—he took thousands upon thousands of Swedes as prisoners of war. Many of them became enslabved labourers tasked with constructing St Petersburg. Others slaved along the Volga—and died in droves. But the vast majority of the Swedes were sent due east. Tobolsk had the largest colony of Swedish prisoners of war in Siberia.

Somehow, Lovisa managed to give the guard that always accompanied outside her master’s abode the slip and made contact with a certain Lieutenant Magnus Sprengtporten. This gent has been captured at Narva in 1704, escaped, was recaptured at the defeat in Poltava, somehow managed to lead a huge rebellion in Kazan (where Swedish prisoners of war were kept under terrible, terrible conditions), survive 17 months in prison only to be sent off to the back of beyond, i.e. Tobolsk.

A man of action, Sprengtporten did not hesitate: he rushed Lovisa to the house of one of his friends where she weas kept hidden for eleven weeks while the local police searched everywhere for her, motivated by the Turk’s promised reward. She was smuggled from one house to the other, had to hide under tubs in the bathhouse and somehow ended up in the same house as her mother’s relative, Lovisa Patkull.

Maybe we need to stop here to clarify that when the Russians took the defeated Swedes as prisoners, they took everyone, i.e. not only the soldiers but also their wives, daughters, sons. Anyone in proximity to the Swedish army were taken captive, be they a mere kitchen maid or an ordained priest. Accordingly, there were a lot of Swedish women in Russia—like Ms Patkull.

By now, our Lovisa had come to realise her parents were still in Russia, in a town some distance away called Solikamsk. Her Swedish stalwarts managed to smuggle her all the way there, despite having several close calls with their pursuers.

On Christmas day 1718, Lovisa was finally reunited with her parents. Fourteen years of separation had left her scarred and borderline heathen (according to her parents). But there was a priest in Solikamsk who was more than happy to undertake the duty of teaching her the Bible and the tenets of the Lutheran faith. In 1720, Lovisa’s parents arranged for her to marry said priest, Lars Sandmark. She was twenty-two, he was over fifty. One gets the impression she didn’t want to marry him but she didn’t dare to disobey.

I imagine the reunion with Mamma and Pappa had not been all that easy, with them horrified by how un-Swedish (and un-Lutheran) she’d become. For Lovisa, her parents were all she had, so pleasing them was a must.

In 1721, the Great Northern War came to an end, the Swedes obliged to sign a humiliating peace treaty. Gone were the Swedish territories in the Baltics, gone were their footholds along the Gulf of Finland. Their hero king was dead and Sweden was now ruled by a woman. Yup, you heard: a woman! No more warrior kings, no more glory on European battlefields.

As a consequence of the treaty, the Swedish prisoners of war were allowed to return home. In total, Russia had taken about 30 000 prisoners in the years between 1700 and 1709.  It is estimated about a quarter of those originally taken prisoner returned. Many had died due to the harsh conditions, many were denied return because they had converted (whether forcibly or not) to the Orthodox religion, thereby making them Russian citizens in the eyes of the Russians. Those Swedes who were unfortunate enough to be enslaved could not return—they were chattel.

Lovisa was among those who returned, accompanying her husband to his new parish where she was much appreciated for her warmth and kindness. She had no children—I imagine that early pregnancy had left her permanently damaged—and when her husband died, she married his successor, in line with the practice of widow conservation. (The widow married the next priest to ensure her financial support) Lovisa died in 1733, marked by the experiences of her youth. Before she died, she dictated her memoirs to a “man of the cloth” and her story is now conserved in the National Archives of Sweden.

Lovisa was one of many women who were enslaved in the Great Northern War. Some ended up as mistresses of the high and mighty—Peter the Great’s eldest son Alexei had an intense relationship with a Finnish ex-slave called Afrosinya—one impressive lady ended up as a slave in the Dzungar Khanate (quite kick-ass was Birgitta Scherzenfeldt) but the majority simply disappeared into the mists of history, likely worked to the bone until they died.