 During much of his time in Torpa, the rest of Europe was enveloped in war.Though Sweden tried to maintain a neutral stance nationally, many men from his parish went, both during the 1939–40 Winter War and later in formal alliance with Germany during the so-called Continuation War to fight the Soviets in Finland.Prior to 1809 that country had belonged to Sweden, and it had then for 108 years been a vassal state of the Russian Empire as the Grand Duchy of Finland.