Summary: | This chapter tells the story of the revival of interest in Karelian music in the Finnish-Russian border region of Karelia after the Cold War. During this tense time, Karelians had been subjected to territorial divisions and harsh assimilation policies. With Perestroika came new stores of Karelian culture under the influence of developments taking place across the Nordic and Baltic regions. This was a scenario for Karelians in both countries to express their sense of belonging in new ways, and music once again became a medium for this. The author draws on fieldwork in the Karelian town of Petrozavodsk since 1992 and uses two bands from there as focal points for exploring consciousness in the region and beyond in wider international trajectories in Central Europe, Scandinavia, and the United States.
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