Wednesday, 27 April 2016
Coming this Autumn: Finnish Cavalry in the Swedish Era
Pre-publication announcement for Matti J. Kankaanpää's forthcoming book on Finnish cavalry — the first comprehensive treatment of the subject, covering 1550–1809 in 790 pages.
This book — whose cover draft is shown here — is no fairy tale. The text is complete, the index is still missing, the pages are laid out, the illustrations are maps, samples from sources and a few line drawings. It is a non-fiction book, not a picture book.
Matti J. Kankaanpää
Manuscript: 760 pages; with the index, at most 790. Page size: B5.
The book is the first comprehensive treatment of Finnish cavalry from approximately 1550 to 1809. Cavalry was famous in its day. To put it bluntly, the “red thread” running through the book is: how those damn bunglers became invincible, then were made scapegoats for defeats, and have since been largely wished into oblivion. I would rather not use the word hakkapeliitta, but I suppose it cannot be avoided. But there were also Carolinians and Gustavians.
Brief contents: The book focuses especially on the Thirty Years’ War (1630–1648) and the other 17th-century wars, for which basic research from the Finnish perspective is entirely or partly lacking. If you are expecting entertaining patriotic stories, you will certainly be disappointed. If you want facts, names, places, statistics — they are here. A large number of muster rolls, among other sources, have been examined for this purpose. Extensive literature has been read to provide a framework, with the emphasis firmly on Finnish participation. New information is also included about the 18th-century wars.
For those less familiar with my work:
I have worked for 30 years as a professional genealogist. Now retired, I pursue research more independently. In recent years I have focused on Finnish cavalry. I received a grant from the Finnish Non-fiction Authors’ Association for the project. Three articles on the subject have appeared in the Sotahistoriallinen aikakauskirja (Journal of Military History) and one chapter in the book Suomalainen sotilas II. The main work of my writing career has been the 2001 book on the Great Northern War. I served on the board of the Finnish Genealogical Society for several years and am a research member of the society. Two of my books have been selected as the Finnish Genealogical Society’s Book of the Year; the 2015 winner was co-authored with Jouni Kakkonen.