Deportations of the Ingrian Finns

East-Karelia at half-mast as a protest against deportations at the Old Student House, Helsinki

in 1934.

Deportations of the Ingrian Finns were a series of mass deportations of the

Ingrian Finnish population by Soviet authorities. Deportations took place from the late 1920s to the end of World War II. They were part of the genocide of the Ingrian Finns. Approximately over 100 000 Ingrian Finns were deported in the 1930s and 1940s.^[1]

Background

Lutheran Finns had lived in

Finnish-Soviet peace treaty of 1920 had granted Ingrian Finns a degree of national autonomy. A national district was formed in 1928 and Finnish was used in schools, radio and administration.^[4]

Deportations

Soviet repression of the Ingrian Finns started at the same time as the forced collectivization in the Soviet Union in 1928. Between 1929 and 1931 Soviet authorities deported 18,000 people from areas near the Finnish border, consisting of up to 16% of the total Ingrian Finnic population. All remaining Finns in four border parishes were deported in 1936 and replaced with Russians. In 1937 all Finnish-language schools, publications, broadcasts, and Ingrian Lutheran churches were closed down.^[4] During the 1937–1938 Finnish Operation of the NKVD, 4,000 Ingrian Finns were shot and over 10,000 deported to prison camps.^[5] By 1939 the Ingrian Finnish population had decreased to about 115,000,^[6] which was about 10% reduction compared to the 1926 population figures^[7] and the Ingrian Finn national district was abolished.^[2]

Following the

Leningrad Blockade, in early 1942 all 20,000 Ingrian Finns remaining in Soviet-controlled territory were deported to Siberia. Most of the Ingrian Finns living in German-occupied territory were evacuated to Finland in 1943–1944. After Finland sued for peace, it was forced to return the evacuees.^[4] Soviet authorities did not allow the 55,733 people who had been handed over to settle back in Ingria, and instead deported them to central regions of Russia.^[4]^[8] The main regions of Ingrian Finns forced settlement were the interior areas of Siberia, Central Russia, and Tajikistan.^[9]

Aftermath

The deportations led to the rapid ethnic assimilation of Ingrian Finns. After 1956, return to Ingria was officially allowed but made unfeasible in practice; as a result, many settled in the nearby Finnic regions of

official census. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, attempts began to revive Ingrian Finnish cultural life in Ingria, but at the same time, many of them moved to Finland.^[4]