After wars, borders tend to shift. With changing borders, many towns have moved from one state to another. This may happen to one town several times during its history. These historical layers can still be seen in the urban space. Vyborg, a town in present-day Russia near the Finnish-Russian border, has just such a complex history. It has belonged to the Swedish realm, Russian Empire, Finland, the Soviet Union and now, again, to Russia. Traces of this multifaceted past are still visible in the town today. In this book, we study the processes that shaped the urban space of Vyborg and how its...

This book highlights new historical research from Europe’s northern frontier, bringing ‘the people’ back into the discussion of state politics, presenting alternative views of political and social relations in the Nordic countries before industrialization.