The Karelian question in the national policy of the Finnish during the Second World War

Abstract

The article is devoted to the research of an understudied subject in Russian historiography: the socalled “Karelian question” in the national policy of the Finnish occupational authorities on the occupied territory of Karelia from 1941 to 1944. The author shows the policy had deep roots running from 1918 to the beginning of the 1920s during the civil war and foreign military intervention on the territory of Karelia. Members of Karelian academic society were its instigators. The main idea of the occupational policy of the Finnish authorities in 1941–1944 was that only Karelians and other Finno-Ugrian peoples were Karelian indigenous people, and the Russians living on that territory were settled there there forcibly. Therefore, they must be expelled from Karelia to other regions of the Soviet Union that had been captured by the Germans. Based on an analysis of concrete historical facts, the article reveals forms and methods of the Finnish occupational administration’s work on education of Karelians and Veps of Soviet Karelia during the period of the republic’s occupation in the spirit of “the union with Great Finland”. Newspapers, radio and Finnish national holidays played a major role in that process. A special part of the article is also devoted to an illustration of the works of the Finnish national schools, created for the pupils of the Finno-Ugrian nationalities of Karelia in 1941–1944. The main aim of pupils’ education was an advocacy of the idea of “Great Finland” including the territory of Eastern Karelia. The article notes that the national policy of the Finnish occupational regime in Karelia from 1941 to 1944 which aimed at solving “the Karelian question” by connection of Karelia to Finland didn’t bring the desired results. The Finnish authorities didn’t manage to force a wedge between Russian and Finno-Ugrian peoples and carry over Soviet Karelians, Veps and Finns. Moreover, those who were supposed to be released from Russian captivity“, upheld independence of their country along with Russian and other peoples of the Soviet Union with the force of arms. Refs 25.