This project investigates how different actors in early modern Finland sought to and managed (or failed) to prevent the escalation of rumous of witchcraft into trials and trials into hunts and persecution. The results are then compared to previous research on both persecution and any efforts to avoid persecution elsewhere in Lutheran Europe. The project uses court records as its main material, with both statistical and qualitative (narratological) mehtods. The scientific impact of the project is in the new knowledge conserning witch-hunts and the history of persecution in Finland and Europe, and in the new approach in persecution history in general. The societal impact comes from the applicability of the new knowledge in the challenges that social enmity and religious or political, ethnic and language related persecution poses to societies today.

2023

2027