Karjala: basic info/links

Andrew Andersen, Jan Oskar Engene & Andrew Heininen

Situating East Karelia

By Andrew Andersen

East Karelia is the area between Finland and Russia. It includes the Republic of Karelia which nowadays is a small part of Russian Federation. East Karelia consists of what is known as White Sea Karelia, or in other words, the area between the White Sea and the Finnish border. The area to the south of White Sea Karelia, between lakes Onega and Lagoda, is known as Aunus Karelia named after the town with the Finnish name Aunus (in Russian: Olonets). Far into Russia itself, there is one more area inhabited by the Karelians. This is Tver Karelia, named after the Russian city of Tver.

A little bit of early history:

Raid on Sigtuna
in 1187

By Andrew Heninen

By XI-XII centuries Karelian and Estonian tribes reach early feudal state and have all preconditions for fulfillment of near and far see forays. According to historic data, Estonian navigation technique was not at all inferior to Swedish. Karelian have been in quite a different situation and could not foray in Baltic Sea. The peculiarity of Karelian situation was that they could expanse from their historical motherland - Karelian Isthmus - only in three out of four directions. Movement to the Northwest lead to serious clashes with kindred Finnish tribes. Even the first mention about Korela (Karelian) is a report about their failure in raid against Emi tribe in 1143-1144. Expansion to the North and East does not meet any serious resistance. And only the fourth - Southwest direction was deadly blocked by The Great Novgorod.

Quite soon Sweden and Novgorod intervened into intestine Finnish-Karelian wars. Novgorod spread its influence on Karelia, formally not a part of the feudal state. Sweden in 1155 organized first Crusade to Finland in 1155 and by the end of XII century settled on the Southeast shores of the Gulf of Bothnia.

After 1170 Swedish troops in their march to the East reached the lands, protected by The Great Novgorod. In 1178 Novgorod organized the raid of its new ally - Karelian - into the Swedish possessions in Finland. During this raid Swedish bishop Rudolf was captured and later killed.

In the summer 1187 Eastern Vikings - Karelian - with the help of other Novgorod allies - Estonian islanders - stoke a lightning raid on one of the few towns of the medieval Sweden - Sigtuna.

Sigtuna, trade and political center of Uppland province, situated on Mälaren Lake, was a bishop residence. Well-equipped wooden walls surrounded the town. From the North the town was protected by mashes and to the South, from the seaside, there were a harbor, protected by chains.

Erik chronicle says about Karelian foray:

They went on a and calm one that in the storm to Mälaren and they stayed quite secretly in the archipelago of Svea usually with the secret army. Once they got such a notion that they burned Sigtuna, burned it along the bottoms and the town did not get help anywhere. The archbishop Jon was killed there and many heathens were happy from it that the Christians were so unlucky. And the whole of Karelia and Russia were happy about it.

Massive copper city gates of Sigtuna were delivered to Novgorod as present or kind of tribute and are still decorating the Western entrance of The Great Novgorod St. Sofia Cathedral.

To make Karelian more dependant of the Great Novgorod the Novgorod Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovitch organized the mass christening of them to the Orthodox Church in 1227-1228. The intestine clashes between Karelians and Finns, that were becoming more and more dependant on Swedes, were intensified by religious contradictions.

On the Way to Liberation & Unification with Finland (1918-1922)

By Jan Oskar Engene

In the aftermath of the Russian revolution and Finnish independence (December 1917), things started to happen in East Karelia too. On 17 March 1918 a meeting was convened in the village of Uhtua. The meeting expressed the wish to separate from Russia and called for union with Finland. Later in 1918 the Uhtua community used a flag consisting of a blue field with seven white five-pointed stars in the canton (representing the Ursa Major constellation). According to Paskov [pas94], the designer of this flag was J. Heiska.

If you try to find Uhtua on a modern map, you will probably not find it. In 1935 the village was renamed Kalevala for the century of the publication of this work by Lönnrot. Much of the material for the Kalevala was collected in East Karelia.

The East Karelians were quickly caught in the middle of the struggles between red and white Russian forces, the intervention forces under the British and Finnish volunteer expeditions. The military situation changed quickly. However, the East Karelians worked to set up a government of their own.

In July 1919 a conference of delegates from White Sea Karelian parishes met in Uhtua and appointed an East Karelian Committee that acted as a provisional government of East Karelia. This provisional government organized the first East Karelian Diet, elected by universal suffrage and consisting of representatives from twelve municipalities (or parishes). The Diet sat from 21 March to 1 April 1920 in Uhtua and appointed a regular six-member government. On 22 March the diet called for independence from Russia and adopted arms and a flag. The flag and arms were designed by Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela.

Aunus Karelia

A short-lived government existed also for Aunus Karelia. The provisional government of Aunus was set up when Finnish volunteer forces advanced into the area in April 1919. An assembly was called and met in Rajakontu 5-6 June 1919. However, the Russian Bolsheviks quickly struck back and by 10 June the provisional government and the Finnish forces were back in Finland. That was the end of the Aunus government.

Tver Karelia

After the peace between Russia and Sweden in 1617 gave much of the Kexholm/Käkisalmi province to Sweden, several thousands Orthodox Karelians left to be resettled in the Tver province northwest of Moscow. The 1926 census put the number of Tver Karelians to 140,000. In the 1930s a separate Tver Karelian language was established. A national area was set up in July 1937, but as the Soviet authorities changed their mind about the Tver Karelians, the national area was abolished in early 1939. A dramatic reduction in the population followed, and in the 1989 there were only 23,000 Tver Karelians left.

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