No statute of limitations: historians will help the UK solve the 16th century massacre | Articles

by time news

The remains of more than 200 people, including babies, were recovered from a mass grave near the Karelian city of Lakhdenpohja. The massacre could have been committed in the era of Ivan the Terrible or in the Time of Troubles, experts say. Among the “suspects” are Swedes, Poles and even Zaporozhye Cossacks. The crime of 400 years ago is already being investigated by the Republican Investigative Committee with the help of local historians. Exclusive details of this unique case can be found in Izvestia’s material.

228 victims

At the end of June, while working in the Lahdenpohja area, an excavator bucket came across human bones. “Skeletonized remains and three skulls were found in the ground,” the Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Republic of Karelia told Izvestia. – Construction work was immediately stopped. A group of investigators and criminologists left for the scene. “

The UK specified that, according to expert estimates, “the time of death corresponds to a prescription of more than 100 years.”

Further excavations were carried out under the supervision of investigators and in close cooperation with the “Union of Search Detachments of Karelia” – members of the organization came from Petrozavodsk, Sortavala and other cities of the region.

“During the first day of work, the remains of 58 people were raised,” Sergei Chernobay, head of the Museum of Military Glory in Sortavala, told Izvestia. – This is an unprecedented case. When they find, for example, a sanitary burial of the times of the Great Patriotic War, there are no more than two dozen remains.

According to Sergei Chernobay, in total, fragments of the bodies of 228 people, including children, were recovered from the ground. The massacre of the inhabitants of the settlement, which apparently was located here, was ruthless. According to the director of the museum, boards are nailed to the spine of some people, and some of the skulls are pierced with the likeness of metal nails.

“There are a lot of such finds,” the museum worker confirmed. – I personally found several broken skulls. Apparently, the heads of the people were cut off, since some of them were lying separately from the body.

In the mass grave, the search engines found about a dozen Orthodox pectoral crosses, five icons, as well as a large cross about 8 cm long. Sergei Chernobay suggested that the cross could belong to a clergyman.

Against the Orthodox

To what time the burial belongs is still not completely clear to historians, noted the candidate of historical sciences Andrei Marchukov. According to his version, these may be the remains of Russian residents or Orthodox Karelians who died during the Russian-Swedish war that began in 1570.

– The Karelians were part of Rus for a thousand years, they are very deeply integrated into the fabric of the Russian state. When at the end of the 16th century their lands temporarily ceded to Sweden, most of the Karelian population did not want to live under the Swedish Lutherans and left with the Russians, – the historian told Izvestia.

“Constant wars and tough domestic policy of Tsar Ivan the Terrible weakened our country, and our neighbors felt it,” Alexander Pashkov, a historian and professor at Petrozavodsk State University, explained to Izvestia. – The Swedes began to constantly invade the territory of the Russian lands since 1570.

According to Alexander Pashkov, a religious factor was mingled with the war between the Russians and the Swedes – the confrontation between Orthodox and Lutherans.

“The Swedes destroyed Orthodox monasteries with particular fury,” the expert told Izvestia. – For example, they destroyed the Valaam monastery, and killed many monks. The Swedes made a hike over a distance of 1.5 thousand kilometers along the tundra from Northern Finland to the Barents Sea and ravaged the Pechenga Monastery in the area of ​​modern Murmansk, plundered the Svir Monastery, even tried to seize Solovetsky, but failed.

In 1583, the parties concluded an armistice, and the Swedes decided to conduct a population census of the occupied territories of Ladoga. In four settlements from Salmi to Kurkiyoki, only 322 residential buildings were found – and about 3 thousand empty. Residents either died or fled deep into the Russian lands, the historian said.

– The local population resisted the invasion, and the Swedes had to keep large forces there. Of course, the partisans and their sympathizers were mercilessly destroyed. Perhaps the found burial ground was the result of this struggle, – suggested Alexander Pashkov.

The interlocutor of Izvestia recalled that in 1595 a peace treaty was concluded between the Russian kingdom and Sweden and this territory was ceded to our state. But not for long.

– At the beginning of the 17th century, the Time of Troubles began in Russia, the Swedes took advantage of this and again occupied the Northern Ladoga area. Russia was so weak that in 1617 these lands were recognized as Swedish. And only 90 years later they were won back by Peter I, – Alexander Pashkov recalled.

The scientist suggested that the burial ground may belong to the period of the Time of Troubles, that is, to the beginning of the 17th century.

Troubled times

The historian from Petrozavodsk Alexander Shirokorad agreed with his colleague. At the same time, he added that the massacre could not have been committed by the Swedes, but by the Poles.

– In the Time of Troubles, most of the troops of the king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth operated near Smolensk and went to Moscow. But the private armies of the governors Jerzy Mnishek, Lev Sapieha, Alexander Lisovsky hunted in other territories, – the specialist told Izvestia. – Lisovsky walked across the Russian North. Local residents testified that his troops destroyed entire villages, massacred people.

Alexander Shirokorad also did not rule out that the Orthodox Karelians could have been destroyed by the Zaporozhye Cossacks. According to the scientist, their detachments, at the direction of the Polish governors or on their own initiative, carried out raids in the North of Russia.

An unexpected version was put forward by Andrey Marchukov. The historian admitted that the tragedy may have occurred not 400 years ago, but 100 years ago. In 1918, the Finnish troops “staged a genocide of the Russian population in Karelia,” the scientist claims. He recalled that in April-June 1918, detachments of the White Finns killed more than 5 thousand Russians, and expelled 20 thousand.

Sergei Chernobay, this hypothesis seems unconvincing.

“The burial does not belong to the period of the Civil War or the Great Patriotic War, since no clothes, straps or other leather products have survived,” objected the head of the Sortavala Museum of Military Glory. – No cartridges and bullets were found, which means that people were not shot, and after all, executions were characteristic of mass executions in the 20th century.

All remains and objects found near Lahdenpohja were transferred to the UK. In order to obtain historical information on the possible causes of the mass burial within the framework of the pre-investigation check, the investigators of the department will engage historians and archaeologists for interaction, the Investigative Committee told Izvestia.

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