Topic: Navy
The collection "Meritförteckningar Flottan" in Krigsarkivet contains a substantial number of "CVs" from the years just after the GNW. Some of them are quite detailed and almost like short memoirs. One example is the one for Emanuel Werner, who joined the Swedish navy as an apprentice mate on 1 May 1700. In the summer he participated in the operations against Denmark and the landing at Humlebaek. The following year Werner was sent to Ladoga, where he served on the Astrild. In April of 1703 he was again on the same ship, which at the beginning of May was ordered to enter the Neva river together with Gieddan to investigate the situation at Nyen. During this expedition a superior Russian force was encountered and the small Swedish ships were overpowered. Most of the crew of the Astrild was either killed or wounded, Werner writes. The ship's commanding officer, Lieutenant Kilian Wilhelms, then gave instructions that the Astrild was to be blown up. His last words were, Werner writes, "Låt springa i Jesu nampn" (In the name of Jesus let her explode). Werner says that he did as Wilhelms requested, but survived and was taken to Czar Peter. The Czar treated him kindly and ordered that Werner be sent to Moscow.
In January 1704 Werner's wounds had healed. He was then put in prison and tortured in attempt to persuade him to convert and join the Russian navy. When this failed Werner was sent to Kolomna and put in a tower together with "robbers, thieves and scoundrels" for a year. In January 1705 Werner was sent back to Moscow and put in solitary confinement. He was then again asked to convert and enter Russian servic, but still refused. Werner was then sent away again, this time to a town 300 km from Moscow. There he was put in another tower until August, when he again was sent back to Moscow. Werner was then released and given to a boyar he calls "Michael Iwanowitz Chaputoff", with whom he stayed until the summer of 1707. Werner was then sent to the "house of the prisoners", where Major General Henning Rudolf Horn was kept and placed together with the cavalry captain Fabian Schütz. The Swedish prisoners were shortly thereafter sent away from Moscow and Werner came to a town he calls "Sabacksahr" (probably Cheboksary). On 31 May 1710 he and the other non-commissioned officers and soldiers were sent to Kazan to work on fortifications. On 29 March 1711 all the prisoners were put in jail and the following day "deported to Siberia" (or rather to the town of Khlynov). Werner spent the next decade there, returning to Sweden in July 1722
Source: Meritförteckningar Flottan, Krigsarkivet
