Stories

Johan Blåman, a peasant born in Munsala in 1773, wrote in his diary about the arrival of Russian troops on a September evening of 1808. According to the diary, the Russians spent the night on the church hill and a nearby field, using the wooden fence for their campfire. They used sheaves of rye for their tents, ripped doors open in the village and plundered belongings. They took hay from barns while herds of cattle were slaughtered or taken with them. (Mellan Lojlax och Åkvarn 1997)

The story goes that Russian soldiers stole a peasant’s only horse in Sandås. He swore that he would also steal one horse from the Russians. He set an ambush with his farmhand in Sandbacken, where the road was narrow and bordered by protective rocks. Two Russian soldiers came riding on the road, and the peasant shot one of them while the farmhand took his horse. The other soldier rode back to the army camp in the village of Munsala and reported the event. Commander Nikolay Kamenski contacted the priest and announced that if the murderers and horse thieves were not found, the church and whole village would be burned. The priest was forced to send people after the men, who were also found. They were sentenced to death by shooting. The priest was asked to come to the burial, but he refused to bury anyone alive. Kamenski is told to have given the order to shoot both men in their graves. (Mellan Lojlax och Åkvarn 1997)