ABSTRACT
One of the central and most interesting problems of Finland's population history in the eighteenth century is the cause of this rise in mortality which in 1737 reached the high level of 35•2 per thousand. A sudden increase in deaths had been observed in Sweden and in the westernmost parts of Finland. The sources for Finland's population history, and their reliability, may be of interest in international demographic research, as may also be the methods by which information of demographic history can be deduced from these sources. It is true that grain prices rose slightly in 1736, but the following autumn the rise was arrested in one part of the country and turned into a fall in another. The most reliable estimates suggest that approximately 60,000 men were levied from Finland for the Great Northern War. The Finnish army was practically annihilated: at the end of the war only a couple of thousand men were on the army rolls.
