East Karelia
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East Karelia (
Russian Federation. It consists mainly of the old historical regions of Viena Karjala (English: White Karelia) and Aunus Karjala (English
: Olonets Karelia).
Culture and ideology
19th-century
Slavs. In the sparsely-populated East Karelian backwoods, mainly in White Karelia, Elias Lönnrot (1802–1884) collected the folk tales that ultimately would become Finland's national epic, the Kalevala
(published from 1835 to 1849).
The idea of annexing East Karelia to Finland as part of a "
Finnish forces occupied most of East Karelia from 1941 to 1944. The war meant hardship for the local ethnic-Russian civilians, including forced labour and internment in prison camps as enemy aliens. After the Moscow Armistice
of September 1944, calls for the annexation of East Karelia to Finland virtually disappeared.
History and diplomacy
After Finland and
Soviet Russia divided Karelia between themselves in 1920, the Soviet authorities promised far-reaching cultural rights to the Finnic peoples that made up most of the population of East Karelia. However, within the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic these rights were never realised, and under Stalin (in power c. 1928 to 1953) ethnic Finns were persecuted and an intensive Russification programme began.[citation needed] Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Finnic culture in East Karelia has experienced a revival.[citation needed
]
External links
- Saimaa Canal links two Karelias, thisisFINLAND at the web-site of Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
- Tracing Finland's eastern border-thisisFINLAND at the web-site of Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland