Permanence of the Family Farm Questioned: Rural Mobility in the Nineteenth-Century Estonia and Sweden

Abstract

The family farm has symbolic significance in many parts of the world. In this paper we argue that the “rooted” identity of the farmer emerged as a reaction to rapid modernization in society and that, in actual fact, the nineteenth century rural communities were both geographically and socially mobile. We examine how kinship ties were expressed in spatial terms with the help of two examples from Harjumaa in north Estonia and Västergötland in south Sweden. These micro-histories are taken both to illuminate and subvert some of the key ideas about identity, belonging, and mobility of the nineteenth-century farmer.

Keywords:

• family and farm history
• mobility
• modernization
• the nineteenth century
• Harjumaa
• Västergötland

Acknowledgements

Material collection for this paper was supported by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research target funded research program No SF0130033s07 and by the European Union European Regional Development Fund. We would also like to thank Gunhild Setten for her comments on an earlier draft of the paper, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their insight and suggestions.

Notes

1. Unmarried persons constituted a small minority of all people in these parishes. Their movement patterns did not differ significantly from that of their married siblings. Gender differences are an interesting topic that deserves deeper analysis but in the examined cases the numbers in each generation are too small to show significant deviation from the general patterns and therefore we have focused on mobility at marriage alone.

2. The territory of the town of Paldiski today includes parts of the historical villages of Laoküla (Meremõisa estate), Kersalu (Keila) and Lahepera (Põllküla); these have not been included in the analysis.

3. Mixed-religion (Orthodox–Lutheran, a few cases of converting to Catholic) couples (soldiers marrying girls from the villages) constituted about 2% of all registered marriages in Paldiski in the nineteenth century. Free townspeople (German, Russian, Swedish) were excluded from the analysis but the data on the town dwellers of peasant origin – about 20 to 25% (increasing as the century progressed) of the town’s population – were included.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tiina Peil

Tiina Peil, PhD, works as a senior researcher at Tallinn University having completed her post-doctorate in Trondheim in 2005 and her doctorate at Stockholm University in 1999. Her main research interests include analyzing the relationships between human beings and the environment, as well as examining the practices (such as fieldwork and mapping) and history of human geography.

Madeleine Bonow

Madeleine Bonow, PhD, completed her doctoral thesis at Stockholm University in 2005 and works at Södertörn University as a senior researcher. Her research focuses on rural development, the local community, and its landscapes in the past and present.