PSCRP-BESA Reports No 112 (Jan 30, 2025)
Karelia is the only republic within the Russian Federation where Russian is the only state language, while the local language is deprived of any status, whether formal or not. The reason for this is the federal law adopted by the State Duma in 2002, which prohibits the use of any alphabet other than the Cyrillic alphabet for the state languages of the constituent republics of the Russian Federation. The authorities of the Republic of Tatarstan, who intended to convert the Tatar language to the Latin alphabet, tried to fight against this discriminatory law, but in 2004 the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation ruled that republics cannot change the script of local state languages without the consent of the federal government.
The language situation in Karelia has its origins in history. As a single administrative-territorial unit, this subject of the Russian Federation emerged in 1920 under the name of the Karelian Labor Kommune. Along with Russian, the Finnish language, which traditionally uses Latin script, was declared the state language in the Kommune. The choice of the Finnish language was motivated by the fact that the Karelian language had no written tradition of its own. At the same time, it, like the Vepsian language spoken in the south-east of Karelia, is closely related to the Finnish language, which had a developed literary norm by the beginning of the twentieth century. The leading role in the formation of Soviet Karelian territorial autonomy was played by the Finnish Red Guards, who fled to the RSFSR after the defeat in the Finnish Civil War. They generally regarded the Karelian language as a dialect of the Finnish language. The status of the state language was retained for Finnish in Karelia even in 1923–1936, when it was called the Autonomous Karelian Socialist Soviet Republic (AKSSR). At the same time, the unscientific term “Karelian-Finnish language” was introduced into the official use.
In 1937, a wave of repressions against the “Red Finns” ensued. Karelia became known as the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Karelian language with Cyrillic script was recognized there as the state language along with Russian and Finnish. However, as early as 1940, the Soviet authorities needed “Red Finns” again. Karelia was declared the Karelian-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Karelian language was deprived of its official status. The purpose of elevating the status of Karelia to the level of a union republic was to turn it into an “alternative Bolshevik Finland” in order to create a pretext for the takeover of the Republic of Finland under the pretense of “reunification” (by analogy with the reunification of Western Ukraine with the Ukrainian SSR, Western Belarus with the Belorussian SSR, and Bessarabia with the Moldavian ASSR). However, the heroic resistance of the Finnish army thwarted the USSR’s plans, although as a result of the war considerable areas were ceded from Finland and became part of the Soviet Union.
In the post-war period, thousands of Ingrian Finns, who had been deported from the Leningrad Oblast during the war, moved to the Karelian-Finnish SSR. They were not allowed to return to their native lands, and Karelia, located relatively close to them, stood as their ethnic homeland. The 1959 census recorded the maximum number of Finns in Karelia — 28 thousand (4.2% of the total population).
After the relations between the USSR and Finland were established, Karelia was returned to the status of ASSR, but the Finnish language retained its status of the state language. In the 1990s, attempts were made to raise the status of the Karelian and Vepsian languages (on a Latin script basis) without revoking the status of Finnish. However, in the early 2000s, after Vladimir Putin came to power, Moscow’s policy changed.
Currently, the Republic of Karelia is almost completely Russified. According to the 2021 census, Karelians make up only 5.5% of the population (in 1989 — 10%). Finns comprise 0.72% (2.3% in 1989) and Veps 0.5% (0.8% in 1989). According to official data, 86.4% of the republic’s population are Russians (in 1989 — 73.6%). This situation has developed as a result of decades of assimilation of Karels and Veps, as well as mass departure of Finns (and to some extent Karels as well) to the Republic of Finland after the collapse of the USSR. The absolute numbers of indigenous peoples of Karelia are also decreasing. While in 1939 there were 108.5 thousand Karelians (23.2% of the total population) and 9.5 thousand Veps (2% of the total population), in 2021 there were only 26 thousand and 2.5 thousand respectively. Only three districts of the Republic continue to have a significant share of indigenous peoples: Olonetskiy (39.81% Karelians + 0.57% Finns), Kalevalskiy (27.96% Karelians + 0.36% Finns) and Pryazhinsky (20.89% Karelians + 2.01% Finns + 0.41% Veps).
Active contacts with Finland after the collapse of the USSR gave the people of Karelia a clear picture of what life in the republic might have been like if it had not remained under Russian rule. Against this background, during the last 30 years a number of public organizations have been established in Karelia advocating real autonomy of the republic or its independence in some form of union with Finland.
A very moderate cultural organization, the Union of the Karelian People, has been active since 1989. In the same year the Karelian society of Ingrian Finns, “Karjalan Inkerin Liitto”, was established, which by now has almost completely ceased its activity. In 1993, the Karelian Congress was registered, which put forward a number of political demands, in particular, the introduction of clauses guaranteeing the national rights of Karelians, Veps and Finns into the Constitution of the Republic of Karelia. The Congress did not succeed in this field.
The youth organization “Nuori Karjala” (“Young Karelia”) was registered in 1994 and soon became a collective member of the Youth Association of the Finno-Ugric Peoples, MAFUN, which has branches in Finland and Estonia in addition to the Russian Federation. In 2015, the Russian Ministry of Justice included “Nuori Karjala” in the register of foreign agents. After several months of struggle, the organization changed its leadership and re-registered in a new, more “pro-Russian” format.
In 2012, the Stop the Occupation of Karelia movement was founded, which advocated for the independence of the Republic of Karelia and union relations with Finland. The activists of the movement saw themselves as the successors of the Karelian rebels of 1921–1922, who created the so-called Ukhta Republic. From the very beginning, the movement has been in open confrontation with the Russian authorities. In 2015, Russian regulator Roskomnadzor blocked its website. In 2014, the regionalist Republican Movement of Karelia was created and unsuccessfully tried to elect representatives to the Petrozavodsk City Council. The Republican Movement distanced itself from ethnic Karelian nationalists. However, a year later, it too was persecuted by the authorities and ceased its activities.
In 2022, after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Stop the Occupation of Karelia activists outside the Russian Federation created the Karelian National Movement (KKL), which joined the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum. In 2023, a Karelian division was created within the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the initiative of KKL. In 2024, the Karelian National Movement was added to the list of banned organizations by the Russian authorities.
“The Karelian question” is not limited to the republic itself: in Finland, the Russian Republic of Karelia is seen as part of the larger historical region of Karelia. Within modern Finland there are the provinces of South Karelia and North Karelia. These are a small part of historical Finnish Karelia, most of which became part of the USSR (and later the Russian Federation) in 1940 as a result of territorial cessions. Despite the fact that the official authorities of Finland do not make territorial claims to the Russian Federation, there are political forces in the country fighting for the return of these lands. The most influential of them is the Karelian Association, which unites deportees from the territories ceded to the Soviet Union and their descendants.
These are the Vyborgskiy and Priozersky districts of the Leningrad Oblast (Karelian Isthmus), as well as the Suoyarvskiy, Sartavalskiy, Pitkaryantskiy and Landepokhskiy districts of the Republic of Karelia (Northern Ladoga). These territories were ceded by Finland to the USSR as a result of the Winter War of 1939–1940. Local Finnish and Karelian population left their native lands alongside the Finnish troops. Already in 1941 the Finns recaptured these territories, but in 1944 Finland was forced to stop fighting and leave these territories again. In the territories included in the Leningrad Oblast, the Finnish place names were changed to Russian; in the territories included in the Karelian-Finnish SSR, the original names have been preserved to this day.
At present, in all six above-mentioned areas, Russians constitute the overwhelming majority, while the Baltic-Finnish peoples — Karelians, Finns, Veps, Estonians and Izhorians — together constitute from 0.05 to a maximum of 7% of the population.
In Finland, the Karelian question has never left the agenda. When Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Finland in 2001, he was met everywhere by protesters demanding the return of the territories that had been ceded to the USSR. Despite this, on an official level, the Russian president’s visit was a success. Since then, however, Russian-Finnish relations have deteriorated considerably. After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Finland joined NATO in the spring of 2023, and already in the summer of 2023, Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Russian Security Council, said, speaking in Petrozavodsk, the capital of the Republic of Karelia, that Finland’s territorial claims against Russia are a reality that must be reckoned with. According to him, “In order to destabilize the socio-political situation in the Republic of Karelia and provoke unrest, foreign special services have intensified their work to stimulate separatist sentiments […]. Extremist messages and information about plans to create a nationalist battalion “Karelia”, formed, among others, from citizens of Finland, are being disseminated in Karelia through social media.”
Now it is impossible to predict how the conflict between Russia and NATO countries and Finland in particular will evolve. It is only obvious that in case of Russia’s disintegration in its current form Finland would have an opportunity to regain the territories that were taken away from it — not only the 6 districts mentioned above, but also two more areas that were ceded to the USSR. These are Salla — Kuusamo (5 thousand square kilometers), originally part of the Karelian-Finnish USSR, and since the 50s — part of the Murmansk Oblast. And Petsamo (about about 10,500 square kilometers), now part of Murmansk Oblast, which once had provided Finland with access to the Barents Sea. (The indigenous inhabitants of this territory, the Sámi, left with the retreating Finnish troops.)
In Finland, the history of these and other territories that are now part of the Russian Federation is well remembered. Hundreds of thousands of Finnish citizens, descendants of exiles who used to live in the territories handed over to the USSR, have kept it fresh in memory. But the history goes back even deeper, to the times of the Russian Empire’s exploration of the region. Not only the Karelian Isthmus, but also the entire Leningrad Oblast of the Russian Federation in the relatively recent past was inhabited by Baltic-Finnish peoples. Russia acquired the historical region of Ingria in 1704, and according to the data of 1732, Russians accounted for 26.6% of the population of St. Petersburg province (the Baltic-Finnish peoples — more than 60%). In 1920, two centuries later, the latter made up less than 20% of the population of this region. The Russian census of 2020 recorded only 3,559 representatives of the Baltic-Finnish peoples in the present-day Leningrad Oblast, or 0.15% of the total population. Their share in the population of St. Petersburg is approximately the same.
The likelihood of returning the territories that were once part of historical Finland, with the remnants of the “Finnish-speaking” population, at this stage looks rather vague. Finland itself is not necessarily interested in this either. Judging by public opinion polls, many Finns fear that the reintegration of such territories would be a heavy burden for Finland. Apart from purely economic costs, the most serious problem could be the Russian and Russian-speaking population living in these territories. They number about 300 thousand people, while the entire population of Finland is 5 million 608 thousand people. In this regard, many supporters of the return of the ceded territories openly discuss the possibility of forcibly displacing the “alien” population living there, as the Finnish troops tried to do when they occupied most of the territory of the Karelian-Finnish SSR in 1941–1944.
However, things may change. Not so long ago, it seemed that the horrors of World War II would never be repeated in modern Europe. However, the events of the past three years have shown that this assumption was wrong. By making a large-scale attempt to redraw the existing borders with Ukraine, the Russian Federation has also called into question the inviolability of its borders with other states, including Finland.