POPULAR ORTHODOXY, OFFICIAL CHURCH AND STATE IN FINNISH BORDER KARELIA BEFORE WORLD WAR II

• Main Author: Teuvo Laitila
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Häme; Huovila; karelian; karelians
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.526.6695; http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol14/pdf/karelia.pdf

The culture generally known as Karelian emerged at the end of the first millennium AD on the western and the north-western coast of Lake Ladoga and was at its peak at the time of the crusades in 1100–1300. The Karelians had to defend their territory against the attacks of the inhabitants of Häme, later also against the Swedes and the predominantly Slavonic population of Novgorod. The nu-merous stongholds found in the region, which were used as resi-dences, shelters and refuges, attest to the instability of the period of cultural prosperity (Huovila 1995: 10, 12, 14, 19–20). The relatively highly civilised culture of the period of prosperity suggests that the social structure of the Karelian community used to be complex. Such societies often included experts of religion, giving us reason to believe that the Karelians had their own, rela-tively developed religious system, which helped to reinforce and preserve the social structure. The spread of Christianity to this region at the end of the first mil-lennium AD was a challenge for both the Karelian culture in a wider sense, and religion in particular. The earliest reliable information about the arrival of Christianity comes from the grave findings, including among other things Byzantine coins and crosses dating back to the end of the first and the beginning of the second millen-nium. These objects must have reached Karelia through direct trade contacts or via Novgorod, which converted to Christianity between the 10th and the 11th century.