A Sense of Terijoki: The Discourse of Karelia in the Karelian Borderlands
Abstract Karelia, the borderland between Finland and Russia, has been a “land of quarrels” for centuries. The Swedish kingdom, the Novgorod realm, and the Russian Empire, one after another, have colonized the area. In 1812 the southwest part of Karelia, the Karelian Isthmus, was incorporated into th...
| Published in: | Journal of Finnish Studies |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
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University of Illinois Press
2013
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| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.5406/28315081.16.2.04 https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/jfs/article-pdf/16/2/29/1609820/29lahteenmaki.pdf |
| Summary: | Abstract Karelia, the borderland between Finland and Russia, has been a “land of quarrels” for centuries. The Swedish kingdom, the Novgorod realm, and the Russian Empire, one after another, have colonized the area. In 1812 the southwest part of Karelia, the Karelian Isthmus, was incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Finland. This incorporation was practical: for hundreds of years the area had already been a region of Finnish-speaking people. After Finland's declaration of independence (1917) and civil war (1918) and the birth of Soviet Russia (1917), political tensions sharpened in the Karelian Isthmus. In those days, the borderline between Finnish Terijoki and Russian St. Petersburg became the most important ideological barrier between revolutionary Russia and Finland, where the right-wing Whites had won the civil war and begun an unequalled campaign against the Bolshevist power. In 1939 and again in 1944, Soviet troops occupied the Karelian Isthmus, and the area ever since has been a part of the Soviet Union/Russia. |
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