Lovisa von Burghausen - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Lovisa von Burghausen (1698, Narva

Narva

Narva is the third largest city in Estonia. It is located at the eastern extreme point of Estonia, by the Russian border, on the Narva River which drains Lake Peipus.-Early history:...

, Swedish Estonia

Swedish Estonia

The Duchy of Estonia , also known as Swedish Estonia, was a dominion of the Swedish Empire from 1561 until 1721, when it was ceded to Russia in the Treaty of Nystad, following its capitulation in the Great Northern War. The dominion arose when the northern parts of present-day Estonia were united...

– 20 January 1733 Njurunda

Njurunda

Njurunda is a small village in Sundsvall Municipality, located in Västernorrland County, Sweden. The village is situated at the mouth of the Ljungan river and located about 17 kilometers south of Sundsvall. It is primarily a sleeper town to Sundsvall with a residential population of about 5,000...

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

) was a Swedish

Sweden

memoir

Memoir

A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...

ist who became famous for her story about her time in captivity as a slave in Russia after being taken prisoner by the Russians during the Great Northern War

Great Northern War

The Great Northern War was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in northern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedish alliance were Peter I the Great of Russia, Frederick IV of...

. She was sold as a slave several times before she eventually recovered her freedom, and her story became perhaps the most famous of the many stories of Carolinian fates of this period.

Kidnapped

Lovisa was born in the city of Narva

Narva

Narva is the third largest city in Estonia. It is located at the eastern extreme point of Estonia, by the Russian border, on the Narva River which drains Lake Peipus.-Early history:...

in Swedish Estonia

Swedish Estonia

, one of five daughters to the noble Swedish major Gustaf von Burghausen and Margareta von Brundert. Her father had been taking part in the defence of the city when it was taken by the Russians in 1704. During the chaotic plundering of the city, Lovisa was separated from her family and taken captive by a Russian soldier; it was a common practice for individual soldiers and militaries to take civilians captive, whom they sold as slaves, and many of the citizens of Narva, both Swedes and Estonians, were to be sold at the slave markets in Russia and Turkey. The perhaps most famous of all the civilian people taken captive was the future Empress Catherine I of Russia

Catherine I of Russia

Catherine I , the second wife of Peter the Great, reigned as Empress of Russia from 1725 until her death.-Life as a peasant woman:The life of Catherine I was said by Voltaire to be nearly as extraordinary as that of Peter the Great himself. There are no documents that confirm her origins. Born on...

: another Swedish citizen taken captive as a slave during the Great Northern War possibly was Yefrosinya Fedorov. Lovisa's parents and sisters were taken captive as prisoners of war and deported to Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

.

On the way to the Russian camp, another soldier demanded to have her, and when the first one claimed that he intended to give her as a present to his captain, the second one wounded her on the chest by piercing one of her breasts with his sabre

Sabre

The sabre or saber is a kind of backsword that usually has a curved, single-edged blade and a rather large hand guard, covering the knuckles of the hand as well as the thumb and forefinger...

. She fainted and woke up in a tent, where she cried for her mother until her throat was so swollen up she lost her voice and lost consciousness.

The first master

She was taken to Moscow and given as present to the Russian general Prince Anikita Repnin

Anikita Repnin

Prince Anikita Ivanovich Repnin was a prominent Russian general during the Great Northern War who superintended the taking of Riga in 1710 and served as the Governor of Livland from 1719 until his death....

. He sent her to a nun

Nun

A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...

nery for her to be converted to the Russian Orthodox faith, but unable to understand Russian, she was beaten as a pagan unwilling to convert. After three months, she was released from the convent by the intervention of the Prince's mother, the dowager princess, who showed her "all the tenderness of a mother". However, the prince's wife, Princess Prascovia Narischkyn, suspected her to be the spy of her husband on her private affairs and often abused her; at one occasion, she had Lovisa hung upside down in the garden, which would have killed her had the old dowager princess not once again intervened.

She was to accompany the princely family to Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

in 1709 and witness the Swedish army and prisoners march in under Russian captivity in the triumph of the czar Peter the Great in Moscow. In 1710, she was married to the chamberlain of the Prince, a sixteen-year old Swedish son of an ensign, Johan, himself a captive and fostered in the Orthodox faith, and had a daughter which were born after six days and died six weeks later.

In 1713, Johan died from being shot in the leg during battle for the prince. The same year, Prince Dimitrie Cantemir

Dimitrie Cantemir

Dimitrie Cantemir was twice Prince of Moldavia . He was also a prolific man of letters – philosopher, historian, composer, musicologist, linguist, ethnographer, and geographer....

, hospodar

Hospodar

Hospodar or gospodar is a term of Slavonic origin, meaning "lord" or "master".The rulers of Wallachia and Moldavia were styled hospodars in Slavic writings from the 15th century to 1866. Hospodar was used in addition to the title voivod...

of Moldavia

Moldavia

Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

, a Russian ally at the time, visited Moscow with his family. During a visit to the Repnins, his wife. Kassandra Cantacuzene, gave Princess Prascovia a diamond as a gift; she noticed Lovisa among the court of the princess, and Princess Prascovia then gave Lovisa to Princess Cantemir as thanks for the diamond.

Second master

Princess Cantemir died the same year, and Lovisa was poisoned by the wife of the baker of the Castemir court, who wanted Lovisa's place for her daughter, and only with good medical help was she saved. When an Armenian Captain asked the Prince to give Lovisa to him as a wife, she escaped and, on the advice of a fellow Swedish woman employed at the court, sought refuge at the home of an English merchant in the German Quarter

German Quarter

German Quarter, also known as the Kukuy Quarter was a neighborhood in the northeast of Moscow, located on the right bank of the Yauza River east of Kukuy Creek , within present-day Basmanny District of Moscow....

of Moscow.

The English merchant sent her to Archangelsk to be educated in the Protestant religion and to learn German. After seven weeks, she was reported by a German tailor, arrested by the Russian police and taken back to prince Castemir. She was chained to her hands and feet and nails were hammered through her shoes to make it difficult for her to walk, which made her feet and legs swollen. She was put to wash clothes in a stone-kitchen so cold that her arms were covered with ice. She would have frozen to death if it were not for the daughters of the prince, Maria Cantemir

Maria Cantemir

Maria Cantemir was a Romanian noble, a lady in waiting and salonist and the royal mistress of Peter the Great.Maria was born in Istanbul as the daughter of prince Dimitrie Cantemir. She was very well educated. From 1711, she lived in Russia, and in 1720, she became involved in a relationship with...

and Smaragda; they bribed the guard to fold her chains in cloth, to prevent it from giving any sound, and take her up to their bedchamber at night.

Third master

In 1714, prince Cantemir traveled to Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

and left his household under the supervision of a captain Iwanof and his wife. The wife of Iwanof took Lovisa, together with two other female slaves, one from Finland and one from Narva, to the Russian slave market in Moscow and sold them all. The Finnish woman was sold to an Armenian, the woman from Narva to a Russian clerk, and Lovisa to a Turkish merchant. She was sold for a bit of damask, a fan and a smaller sum of money. She was put among the merchandise in the sleigh of the merchant, mostly consisted of carpets, threatened with beating it she screamed, and was taken towards Tobolsk

Tobolsk

Tobolsk is a town in Tyumen Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Tobol and Irtysh Rivers. It is a historic capital of Siberia. Population: -History:...

in Siberia.

During the journey, a Russian clerk saw Lovisa crying in an inn, and asked her what had happened. She told him her story, and he reported it to the voivod of Solikamsk

Solikamsk

Solikamsk is a town in Perm Krai, Russia. It is the third-largest town in Perm Krai, with a population of It was founded in 1430. The name of the town is derived from the Russian words "" and "" .It is famous for its production of salt, in particular, potassium chloride, which is used as a...

. In Solikamsk, the voivod questioned the Turk, but let them go when the Turk told him that the person in his sleigh was an old Russian woman. They then left Solikamsk without knowing, that this was the city where the parents of Lovisa lived as prisoners of war.

At the home of the Turk in Tobolsk, Lovisa was put to hard labour and badly beaten every time she made a mistake of sheer exhaustion. Tobolsk was, however, the city in Siberia containing the largest colony of Swedish prisoners of war, who were allowed to live there quite freely. Lovisa took contact with a Swedish woman, who advised her to contact the Swedish lieutenant Magnus Vilhelm Sprengtporten; Sprengtporten had been taken prisoner at Narva the same time as Lovisa, escaped, been taken prisoner at the Battle of Poltava

Battle of Poltava

The Battle of Poltava on 27 June 1709 was the decisive victory of Peter I of Russia over the Swedish forces under Field Marshal Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld in one of the battles of the Great Northern War. It is widely believed to have been the beginning of Sweden's decline as a Great Power; the...

, lead a rebellion at Kazan

Kazan

Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. With a population of 1,143,546 , it is the eighth most populous city in Russia. Kazan lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. In April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the...

and been imprisoned for seventeen months. Lovisa was later to say about him that he was her "greatest saviour next to God".

Runaway slave

One day, she left the house of the Turk to buy silk at the market, accompanied by a guard. The guard was distracted by a game of sports, and Lovisa mixed with the crowd and made contact with Sprengtporten, who took her to his friend Mattias Johan Reutercrona, where she remained hidden for eleven weeks. The Turk issued a reward of §100 and the police put a guard round the house, but Sprengporten helped her pass the guards by giving her a pack of clothes and saying that she was his maid on her way to the tailor's.

She was taken to the house of Christoffer Laudau, which were searched after a tip from a servant who wanted the reward, during which she had to hide three days in water under a tub in the basement. She was then hidden in a number of houses. Once in the house of her mothers relative, Lovisa Patkull, who lived in a house belonging to the vice governor; during a visit from the vice governor, Patkull put her in bed claiming her to be her sick niece.

Reutercrona and Sprengtporten were put in arrest suspected of aiding her to escape, and she was arranged to be taken from the city to Japantskin on her way to her parents in Solikamsk by a Russian farmer; the son of the farmer, Stefan, was kept as security, and Lovisa was dressed as a boy and left with the farmer by sleigh. In a village, the villagers suspected her to be the disguised son of a noble, and planned to kill her in her sleep. A maid warned her and Lovisa jumped out of the cottage to the farmer, who was feeding the horse, and up to the sleigh, and they quickly fled form the village. During the night, they rested on the side of the road, and soon after, they heard noise and then saw the villagers hunting after them with dogs. Luckily, it was snowing, and their traces were concealed.

In Japantskin, Lovisa was taken care of by the Swedish priest Anders Bergner; the Swedish noblewoman Anna von Knorring, who was visiting her daughters in Klinov, obtained a pass for Lovisa as her niece, and they then traveled together to Solikamsk, where Lovisa where directed to her parents in the Swedish colony by the Swedish army priest Christoffer von der Heide on Christmas morning 1718.

Later life

Lovisa was now alone with her parents after all of her sisters had been married to officers. Her parents arranged for her to be instructed in Lutheranism

Lutheranism

Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...

by the priest of the Swedish colony, Lars Sandmark. In 1720, her parents forced her to marry the thirty years older priest, which she did "with childlike obedience". When the Swedish prisoners were released after the war in 1721, she followed her husband to Sweden, where he was appointed vicar in Njurunda

Njurunda

in Medelpad

Medelpad

' is a historical province or landskap in the north of Sweden. It borders to Hälsingland, Härjedalen, Jämtland, Ångermanland and the Gulf of Bothnia....

. Contemporary accounts say that she made the home bright with her kindness towards others. In 1729, she became a widow, and in 1731, she married her husband's successor, Petrus Sundberg. She died childless in 1733 after the bad health she had after her time as a slave.

The story of Lovisa von Burghausen was written down by "an honest man of the priest cloth" after her words and was read at her funeral. It is now kept at Biografica in Riksarkivet

Riksarkivet

Riksarkivet is one of the oldest public agencies in Sweden, with a history leading back to the Middle Ages. The chief of Riksarkivet is called the Riksarkivarie....

(the national archives) in Sweden.

Context

Many Swedish, Finnish and Baltic people, especially women and children, had been sold as slaves in Russia and Turkey during the Great Northern War after having been taken captive by Russian soldiers, particularly after the fall of Narva in 1704. Many were then sold in the slave market in Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

; from June 1710, the Swedish ambassador Thomas Funck regularly visited the slave auctions in Istanbul to buy Swedish citizens, and Sven Agrell noted that they, among others, had bought a "carpenter's daughter" from Narva for §82, a "Captain's wife" for §240, Catharina Pereswetoff-Morath, eighteen years old, for §275 and a whole family, Anders Jonsson and his wife and children, though the funds were not always enough to buy all. The people bought free where probably taken to the camp of the king Charles XII of Sweden

Charles XII of Sweden

Charles XII also Carl of Sweden, , Latinized to Carolus Rex, Turkish: Demirbaş Şarl, also known as Charles the Habitué was the King of the Swedish Empire from 1697 to 1718...

in Moldavia and returned to Sweden with him. In the peace treaty of 1721, the Russian czar allowed all prisoners in Russia to return home, except those who had converted to the Russian religion, as this was considered to make them Russian citizens; but as the Swedish slaves had been forced to convert to the orthodox faith by their masters, they were kept in Russia. If it could be proven that they had been forced to convert, they would sometimes be let free, but forced to stay as free Russian citizens instead; the forced conversions could generally not be proven. The story of Lovisa von Burghausen is the perhaps best known of the many women being taken as slaves during this war.