WHO ARE “KARELIANS” ?
We Karelians are a Uralic minority ethnic group, indigenous to the Republic of Karelia in Russia. We’ve existed as our own cultural and linguistic entity, separate from the Finns and Russians, long before they drew their land borders and began claiming ownership over us and our homelands. In fact – the first historical source referring to us dates back to the 10th century, when we inhabited the west bank of lake Ladoga.
Nowadays 25 000 of us remain living in the Republic of Karelia, 6500 elsewhere in Russia, 11 000-30 000 in Finland, as well as some thousands elsewhere in the world. The Second World War, with its battles the Russians and Finns fought over our land, rendered tens of thousands of our ezivahnembat forcibly displaced persons. Prior to the war some thousands of us came to Finland as refugees after the October Revolution. Due to this a large number of us remain scattered around Finland.
CURRENT STATUS
The Karelian language, which has traditionally been the mother tongue of most Karelians, is critically endangered. 45% of speakers are over the age of 65, and only 1% under the age of 15. Speakers have been rapidly declining since the early 1900s. Revitalising action has been and is being taken, but it’s largely coming from inside the Karelian community itself, which lacks funding and reach.
The existence of the Karelian language was recognised officially by the Finnish state in 2009 and it is mentioned in the language policy programme of 2022. This is where Karelians’ legal status in Finland ends. Not only is the endangered language missing its own recovery programme, but Karelian is NOT even mentioned by name in the Finnish constitution. The only concrete thing the state does to keep the language alive is a sum of money given to the Karelian language revitalisation project ran by the University of Eastern Finland, but this sum of money has been cut down in the recent years.
The Karelian language walks hand in hand with Karelian culture, which is why the current situation is so alarming.
We’re talking about the possibility of the disappearance of an entire people.
WHY IS THE SITUATION THIS BAD?
A language doesn’t fade away on its own. The usage of a language, or in this case the lack thereof, is dependent on the society/societies it’s surrounded by. The current situation is just a continuation of the acts of Russian, and Finnish entities, which have continued for hundreds of years. The reason as to why we highlight the Finns in particular is the non-consensual role we Karelians have played in the building of Finnish nationalism.
The marginalisation of the Karelian people has always been a part of the development of the Finnish nation. When nationalism landed on the shores of Finland in the late 18th century, the people living in the area were quite scattered, and lacked a coherent national identity. This meant that one had to be created somewhat artificially. Finnish artists, researchers, activists and the like turned their eyes to the East – to Karelia and its people. It was thought that Karelians represented, in our foreign ways and somewhat familiar speech, an ancient form of Finnishness, instead of our own culture and language. The notion that Karelians were merely a less advanced subset of Finns became accepted as fact, and so the Finnish began to “nurture” our culture on their own terms, in fact using it for their own gain. So Karelianism was born. A certain Elias Lönnrot took special interest in Karelian oral folklore, and compiled the Kalevala for the most part from sacred Karelian poems. The tradition of poem singing died out almost entirely directly because of this, as according to the Karelian folk’s religion words lose their meaning – in other words they die – as they are written down. Kalevala was branded as the opus of Finnish mythology and is to this day regarded as the Finnish national epic. To many Karelians it is a burial ground for our heritage.
Post-Independence and post-Civil War Finland felt another surge of Karelianism, as nationalism came to rise again. By the late 19th century many academic Finns took an interest in the origin of Finns and their sibling nations. At the turn of the 20th century this interest turned into a political ideology known as Pan-Finnicism, which by the 1920’s-30’s developed the irredentist idea of a “Greater Finland”, in the name of which the Finns would come to attempt the annexation of Karelia during the Continuation war. Karelia was regarded as Finnish Lebensraum. During this time, and already after the Winter War, speaking Karelian was often forbidden in schools. Many Karelian refugees were forced to change their names, religion and stop speaking their mother tongue in order to avoid discrimination. The passage of the Karelian language and with it a Karelian identity to younger generations has become rare since then.
Though these things are in the past, they are ever present in the lives of current day Karelians. As Finnish nationalism is largely built upon Karelian culture and the notion that Karelians are Finnish, the simple fact that Karelians are our own separate entity erodes the pillars upon which Finnishness and the Finnish state are built. If we view the current situation through this lense, it is hardly suprising how the Finnish state continues to fail us. Our existence is simply too big of a blow to Finnish national identity.
WHAT’S TO BE DONE ABOUT THIS?
The most significant change could come with the granting of official status to the Karelian language. Alongside it the establishing of its own language law would further help guarantee a future for our people. When looking at the other minority languages spoken in Finland, the successes in their revitalisation are all rooted in their granted legal statuses. Taking into account the current situation of the Karelian language, legal status and a language law are already long overdue! Action should be taken immediately, but this requires a change of perspective. Finnish schools and Finnish academia continue to spread nationalistic propaganda, which is why a great majority of people in this country simply don’t know we even exist.
As our cause is sadly largely unknown, an important part of making a change is raising awareness, and making people understand the severity of the current situation.
Help is needed. This is why we call on you, whoever you are, to LISTEN, LEARN AND SPREAD KNOWLEDGE!
We don’t want to die out in the face of structural oppression!
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