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SORROW – wars and graves
T
he theme of sorrow encompasses wars from the Greater Wrath in the early 1700s to the end of World War II. In addition to wars, suffering has been caused by crime, punishment, hunger and accidents. Unfortunately these phenomena have often accumulated on the same social, communal and individual destinies. During the Greater Wrath, the population of Central Ostrobothnia was the target of plundering and violence by Russian soldiers. Virrankoski estimates in his work that during those years, the population of more than 16,000 was reduced by over one third – and most of the deceased and missing were civilians. In the Finnish War between Sweden and Russia (1808–09), which resulted in Finland being annexed to the Russian Empire, numerous Central Ostrobothnian tenement soldiers were killed either in battles or in epidemics. On the wall of the parsonage of Lohtaja, there is a plaque commemorating the truce produced there in autumn 1808. In Perho, you can still find the Kokkoneva