Puukkojunkkari

In the 19th century, the living standards in Ostrobothnia rose, and because of this, weddings became grandiose events with plenty of alcohol being consumed.

He sees the violent behaviour of Ostrobothnia's youth as a protest-like rebellion against the pressure exercised by the power structures of its society; particularly against local laws and strict parish discipline on behalf of the church.

The resistance that started as little more than mild mischief, became branded as a phenomenon, and this stigmatisation of the youth as troublemakers led to a path towards more serious crimes.

[4] The fundamentalist church and the religious revivalist movements of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as pietism, also took a negative view of young people's leisure activities, due to "moral reasons".

Because the young age groups usually took care of the heaviest physical work, fines were introduced in the 19th century to prevent days off.

All in all, the phenomenon took place against the background of a long-term crisis caused by radical socio-economic changes, which triggered youth violence due to the parish discipline managed and maintained by the authorities.

During the last three decades of Swedish reign (which ended in 1721), hundreds of them were fined for violations against parish discipline, thus making the puukkojunkkari phenomenon the first known large-scale youth problem in Finnish history.

On the local level, order was maintained by the masters of the greatest houses and, as their trustees, mainly village aldermen and lay members of the courts.

In the worst cases of public disorder, rural police chiefs had to call upon the Russian armed forces, i.e. Cossacks, for help – one of them was killed at a wedding in Lapua in 1862.

As a result, some of them considered themselves criminals, acted accordingly and even boasted of their "heroic deeds", which sometimes targeted rural police chiefs, priests and trustees.