"I detta sibiriska Babel" : – Coping och religiös föreställningsvärld hos svenska soldater i kriget mot Ryssland 1707-1721

Sammanfattning: The aim of this essay is to study diaries and letters from Swedish soldiers during the Great Nordic War, more specifically those written during the campaign 1707-1721 against Russia, in search of religious coping and religious parables. The theoretic framework is evolved around Kenneth Pargament’s theory about religious coping, and Ana-Maria Rizzuto’s theory about object relations. The method used can be described as hermeneutic. The questions at hand were: - How did Swedish soldiers during the war against Russia relate to God, and express image of God and religious concepts? - Did the soldiers express themselves in terms of spiritual coping and in that case to what extent? The conclusions were that the soldiers used religious coping as a method of survival. They used all methods as stated by Pargament, except the method that involves cooperation with God, unless you count being God’s humble servant as a way of cooperation.Several diaries features songs and poems and many expresses prayers and faith in God. The soldiers express themselves with parables to the Old Testament, for ex-ample to the Babylonian captivity. The language of the diaries changes after the defeat of Poltava 1709, to a richer one full of religious parables. Keywords: Spiritual coping, soldiers, Great Nordic War, Charles the XII, Kenneth Pargament.