It’s a sobering thought, but the roots of judicial corporal punishment in Finland run surprisingly deep in the country’s natural landscapes. Though the specifics can be unsettling, understanding how the elements of nature intertwined with crime and punishment reveals a fascinating, if grim, aspect of Finnish history. While capital punishment was only practiced for a few centuries, corporal punishment remained closely linked to Finland’s relationship with its environment.
Crime and Corporal Punishment in Historical Finland
In Finland’s earlier days, crime was viewed through a societal lens. The act of committing a crime was seen as a transgression that disrupted the balance within the community. Public punishments served not just as retribution but also as profound deterrents, with everyone from children to the elderly often gathered to witness the consequences of wrongdoing. At times, these events morphed into a kind of spectator sport, where communal shame was heaped upon the offender. The aim was to signal to the community that shaming was as vital for the perpetrator as it was for the collective. Stocks, the infamous devices for non-lethal shaming, were deployed prominently, locking offenders in place for public scorn (see main image; image credits).
By the 16th century, a shift occurred that saw punishments intensify. Swedish King Eric XIV issued a decree in 1563 equating crime with sin, positing that the Judeo-Christian God was the ultimate victim of immoral acts. Thus, to be unpunished was not merely a personal failing; it was viewed as a direct affront to God, threatening the stability of the entire realm.1 In 1608, King Charles IX incorporated the Books of Moses into established Finnish law, further intertwining justice with biblical dictates.
Punishments and Nature in Finland
In many rural areas, distinct whipping trees stood near village meeting halls, places where local governance known as assize convened. Execution sites, often located just outside town limits but still accessible to the public, bore witness to grim spectacles of hanging and decapitation. Although such courts frequently issued severe penalties, the Turku Court of Appeal often mitigated death sentences to whipping instead.2
Whipping Trees
Public whippings, or floggings (flogging in Finnish), remain one of history’s most brutal forms of punishment, inflicting agony that could stretch for hours. In Finland, this practice found its basis in the 1734 edition of Sveriges Rikes Lag (Finland was still under Swedish rule at the time), which prescribed lashings informed by religious texts. According to these laws, women could receive up to 30 lashes, while men could be punished with 40.3 Each set of lashes differed; women faced strikes with a wooden switch, while men faced a harsher leather whip.4
Whippings largely targeted the impoverished, as those unable to pay fines bore the brunt of this punishment. Despite a gradual decline in frequency, whippings persisted into the late 19th century before being altogether abolished in the 1889 legal reform.5
Among the notorious offenders were knife-fighters Antti Rannanjärvi and Antti Isotalo, who wreaked havoc across Southern Ostrobothnia in the mid-1800s. Their reign of terror included wedding disruptions, stabbings, and horse thefts. Captured and sentenced to whipping, fines, public shaming, and imprisonment, Rannanjärvi evaded the latter by paying an unexpectedly hefty fine.
One of the notable whipping trees, Piiskoomänty, still stands in Kuortane, in the village of Salmi, Southern Ostrobothnia. For further insight into the history of this Scots pine, you can delve deeper here.
Hanging and Beheading Hills
Hanging (hanging in Finnish) was a favored punishment for thieves, initially sparing women from the gallows for moral reasons. Over time, though, women too met this fate.6 Beheadings (decapitation in Finnish) depended on one’s social standing, with noble individuals executed by sword and lower-class offenders facing the executioner’s axe.
In urban areas, remnants of these historical execution sites are sparse. Yet, stand near the Tennispalatsi movie theater in Helsinki and you tread on the ground where the city’s last peacetime execution occurred in 1819, when a maid was beheaded for murdering her employer, stealing her possessions, and setting her house ablaze.
Another notorious execution site was Lestimäki in Suutarila, where a commemorative stone serves as a chilling reminder of the grim past. Nearby, Töyrynummi is another notable hanging hill. In Turku, executions were typically carried out at the city hall for serious offenses.7
Death at the Stake
Until the close of the 1800s, Finnish law was deeply rooted in Old Testament traditions, which included the harrowing punishment of death by burning. Reserved for severe transgressions like bestiality8 and adultery (only applicable when both parties were wed), individuals accused of witchcraft often faced similar fates. Curiously, many of the first accused witches in Finland were men, like Antti Lieroinen, who was burned at the stake in Ruovesi in 1643.10
Due to prevailing laws, same-sex relations were seen as heinous acts. In 1665, two male church farmhands were condemned to death by decapitation and burning at the stake in Taivassalo.11 For further details on their tragic story, you can read Jenni’s blog post.
Forest Burials
While most individuals were typically buried in churchyards, those deemed guilty of grave sins faced a different fate. Until 1734, it was mandated that the remains of suicide victims be cremated and their ashes interred in forests.12 From 1734 to 1869, the executioner was responsible for burying such victims in remote locations, often without markers.
Commemorations for the Dead
A unique Finnish tradition known as Pruned Forests (cutie in Finnish) offers a means of remembering the deceased. In this practice, loved ones would carve initials and names into the bark of trees as a way to honor their memories.
One such pruned forest is Pyhäkanka’s karsikko, featuring over 200 initialed trees. A dedicated path, referred to as the corpse way in Finnish, connects this site to nearby cemeteries. To learn about the rich history of this sacred space, read more about pruned forests at Pyhäkangas.
Gravestones have been established in nature to commemorate murder victims and others who met untimely ends. Explore the story of Mariana, a murder victim, and her headstone at Vaskio here.
Individuals deemed poor or criminally punished were often buried in special graveyards, such as Kerttuli cemetery near Turku Cathedral.13 Disturbingly, body parts of executed criminals were seen as powerful magical objects, compelling their burial in secret locations to prevent them from being exploited.
14
A Shift from Corporal Punishments to Humanism
The advent of humanist ideals marked a significant transformation in Finnish penal policy, ushering in a modern prison system and a movement away from corporal punishments toward community service or exile to remote Siberia—a fate many faced after Finland became part of Russia in 1809.
Following Finland’s emergence as an Autonomous Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire, the vestiges of the old Swedish penal system remained intact. However, under the relatively progressive Czar Alexander II, the legal framework underwent renewal, culminating in the adoption of a new Penal Code in 1889.15
The last peacetime execution in Finland occurred in Pieksämäki in 1825. By the mid-1800s, imprisonment had emerged as the dominant form of punishment, marking a significant decline in the use of death penalties.16 Juhani Aataminpoika, who notoriously murdered 12 people in 1849, saw his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
Sources