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there, and very lightly shaded everywhere else. After
the present Russian frontier-line had been definitely
settled by Gustavus Adolphus at the peace of Stolbova
in 1617 (it was drawn across the watershed in the
deserted eastern forests), war continued to decimate
the population, first because they sent contingents to
the victorious armies of Sweden, and later when they
were defeated and their country devastated by Russia.
After the “Great War” with Peter the Great, which
was concluded in 1721, the population had been
reduced by one-half and now numbered only between
200,000 and 250,000. In the middle of the century,
at the end of the “Little War” with Russia, it was
not much more than 400,000; or, including the part
of Finland then ceded to Russia as a result of the war,
at all events under 500,000; which is one-fifth of the
present population. After these wars, thousands of
villages were deserted; sometimes, as in 1721, only
old men, women, and children being left. After such
periods, it is true, marriages and births increased
considerably. In 1790, at the conclusion of another war,
the country had a population not exceeding 800,000,
or a third of its present number.
It was not war only which reduced the population.
The country suffered periodically from famine and its
consequent diseases, as well as from the Great Plague
common to other parts of Europe. In 1509, there
was an appalling famine, another extending over two
years occurred in the middle of the seventeenth century,
and others towards the end of the seventeenth century,
in 1693 and in 1695-7. In three years a third of the
population died. In 1710 the plague destroyed whole
villages. In 1723, 1726, 1727, and 1731, after the
Great War, there were again terrible famines. During
the twelve months between September 1796 and
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