FATES OF BOOKS AND ARCHIVES DURING THE WAR BETWEEN FINLAND AND THE SOVIET UNION, 1939–1940 AND 1941–1944

• Published in: Knygotyra
• Main Author: MÄKINEN, ILKKA
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Vilniaus universiteto leidykla / Vilnius University Press 2015
• Subjects: karelia*; karelian
• Online Access: https://www.journals.vu.lt/knygotyra/article/view/8136; https://doi.org/10.15388/kn.v48i0.8136

The article describes the fates of books and archives during the Second World War in the hostilities between Finland and the Soviet Union, especially during the second phase of hostilities, 1941–1944. During the Winter War (1939–1940) the Soviet troops invaded the Finnish Karelia a great quantity of Finnish books was left in the hands of the Soviet authorities. The most important libraries in the region, the Viipuri City Library with its architectonically outstanding building designed by Alvar Aalto and the city library of Sortavala remained on the Soviet side of the border. After Winter War the border was drawn as it is now, west of the city of Vyborg (Viipuri). During the second phase of the hostilities, 1941–1944 (which the Finns call the “Continuation War”), when Finland was fighting side by side with the Germans against the Soviet Union, Finnish troops took back the parts of the Finnish Karelia invaded by the Soviets during the Winter War, but after that they continued into the Soviet Karelia and took hold of large parts of the Soviet (or East) Karelia that had never been part of Finland. The biggest city captured was Petrozavodsk (or Petroskoi in Finnish). When the Finnish troops had taken control of East Karelia, they started to gather all material and information important for the conduct of war. Books and archives of the Soviet authorities but also individual people who had fled were collected in Petrozavodsk to be sorted and researched. A big library and archive was created, about one million books and over one kilometre of archival material. They were used for military intelligence, but there also was a great interest in the Finnish libraries, archives and other institutions to get books printed in the Soviet Karelia (and the Soviet Union in general) and important parts of the archives. There also was a plan to create a “Karelian Central Library and Archive” in Petrozavodsk that would operate still after the war. Among the archives that fell into the Finnish hands were, e.g., the personal files of the ...