Karelia: A Place of Memories and Utopias

Karelia is a vast inhabited area in northern Europe of historical significance to Finland,¹ Russia, and Sweden. In Finnish historiography, Karelia has often been described as a borderland or battlefield lying between East and West, and as a focal point. These labels date back to medieval times, when the East and the West, that is, Novgorod and Sweden, struggled for commercial and political power over the tribes that lived in the geographical area of Karelia. At the same time, this area was also the arena for a struggle that resulted in the coexistence there of two distinct religious traditions of Eastern and Western Europe until the Second World War.²

Map 1.

Since the fourteenth century, the border in Karelia has been re-drawn about ten times. © The Finnish Karelian League

Karelia is currently divided between the Russian Republic of Karelia, the Russian Leningrad Oblast, and two regions of Finland: South Karelia and North Karelia. There is also a Russian population living in many parts of the area. Some western parts of Karelia have never been on the Russian side of the border, whereas others have never been a part of Finland. Therefore, Karelia should be considered a heterogeneous area, parts of which are culturally connected to either Finland or Russia. This fact is also evident in the assigned names of Finnish and Russian Karelia. Both Karelias are further divided into several parts depending on the definition. The most commonly mentioned areas are the Karelian Isthmus (South Karelia), North Karelia, Ladoga Karelia (Border Karelia), Olonets Karelia, Dvina Karelia, and Tver Karelia (see Map 2). In total, Karelia has been given over forty definitions in different periods. The central defining feature of all these definitions has always been the border.³

Map 2.

(1) The Karelian Isthmus (South Karelia); (2) North Karelia; (3) Ladoga Karelia (Border Karelia); (4) Olonets Karelia; (5) Dvina Karelia. © Outi Fingerroos

The historian Jason Lavery has mentioned that during the years 1939–45, Finland’s place between East and West was never more visible or dangerous; indeed many other small countries in that position lost their independence during these years (2006:113). The Winter War of 1939–40 and the so-called Continuation War (1941–44) were both followed by the loss of large areas of borderland territory that were ceded to the Soviet Union in 1944. The surrendered areas (see Map 3) included the Karelian Isthmus, Ladoga Karelia, and Border Karelia, and in the north the areas of Kuolajärvi and Petsamo (Russian Pechenga). After the loss, a total of 430,000 evacuees, of whom 407,000 were Karelians, were resettled in different parts of Finland (Lavery 2006:130; Nevalainen 2001).

Map 3.

Finnish areas ceded to Russia in 1944

The loss of Karelia to the Soviet Union marked the end of over a thousand years of Finnish settlement in the area. The resettlement and compensation of the Karelian evacuees placed a heavy burden on the country. The events of the war years also gave birth to the concepts of a “lost Karelia” and “Karelian evacuees” (the Karelian exiles) (Nevalainen 2001). In this article I shall concentrate on the lost areas of Karelia, that is, Lagoda Karelia and the Isthmus, from 1917 onwards.

Different Utopias of Karelia

Karelianism has been seen as an idealistic interest in both science and art in Karelia, and particularly in Dvina Karelia and Olonets Karelia, that is to say in areas that lie completely on the Russian side (see further Sihvo 2003:11). This interest has its origins in the national epic poem of Finland, the Kalevala, compiled by Elias Lönnrot on the basis of Finnish and Karelian folk poems. Political Karelianism was born in an era when Finland was an autonomous grand duchy in the Russian Empire. The origins of Karelianism proper are usually dated to the 1880s, and it flourished particularly during the so-called “years of oppression” from 1899 onward. This movement had several political goals. In the earlier period (before 1910), it was more...