Irredentist and nationalist idea that emphasized territorial expansion of Finland
Greater Finland
(
Finnish
:
Suur-Suomi
;
Estonian
:
Suur-Soome
;
Swedish
:
Storfinland
), was an
irredentist
and
nationalist
idea that was a subset of
Pan-Finnicism
which emphasized the territorial expansion of
Finland
. The most common concept of Greater Finland saw the country as defined by
natural borders
encompassing the territories inhabited by
Finns
and
Karelians
, ranging from the
White Sea
to
Lake Onega
and along the
Svir River
and
Neva River
?or, more modestly, the
Sestra River
?to the
Gulf of Finland
. Some proponents also included the
Torne Valley
(in
Sweden
),
Ingria
, and
Estonia
.
The idea of a Greater Finland rapidly gained popularity after
Finland became independent
in December 1917. The idea has lost support after
World War II
(1939?1945).
History
[
edit
]
Natural borders
[
edit
]
The idea of the so-called three-isthmus border?defined by the White Isthmus, the
Olonets Isthmus
, and the
Karelian Isthmus
?is hundreds of years old, dating back to the period when Finland was part of Sweden. There was a disagreement between Sweden and Russia as to where the border between the two countries should be. The Swedish government considered a three-isthmus border to be the easiest to defend.
Although the term "Greater Finland" was not used in the early 19th century, the idea of Finland's natural geographical boundaries dates back to then. In 1837, the botanist Johan Ernst Adhemar Wirzen defined Finland's wild plant distribution area as the eastern border lines of the
White Sea
,
Lake Onega
, and the
River Svir
. The geologist
Wilhelm Ramsay
defined the bedrock concept of
Fenno-Scandinavia
at the beginning of the 19th century.
Karelianism
[
edit
]
Karelianism was a
national romantic
hobby for artists, writers, and composers in which
Karelian
and Karelian-Finnish culture was used as a source of inspiration. Karelianism was most popular in the 1890s. For example, the author
Ilmari Kianto
, known as the "White friend", wrote about his travels to
White Karelia
in the 1918 book
Finland at Its Largest: For the Liberation of White Karelia
.
Other Nordic countries
[
edit
]
The
Kvens
, a minority in
Northern Norway
, helped Finnish settlements spread, especially in the 1860s. The
Academic Karelia Society
and the Finnish Heritage Association worked actively with the Kvens from 1927 to 1934, and the Finnish media spread
pan-Fennicist
propaganda through various channels. Activity slowed down from 1931 to 1934.
In the early days of its independence, Finland wanted
Finnish-speaking areas
in
Norrbotten
, Sweden, to join Finland. This was a reaction to the effort by Finland's own
Aland
to join Sweden. The Finnish government set up a committee to expand Finnish national movements. Sweden, for its part, pushed for instruction in the
Swedish language
in its northern Finnish regions. Until the 1950s, many schoolchildren in Norrbotten were banned from using the
Finnish language
during breaks at school.
Heimosodat
[
edit
]
The Greater Finland ideology gained strength from 1918 to 1920, during the Heimosodat, with the goal of combining all
Finnic peoples
into a single state. Similar ideas also spread in western
East Karelia
. Two
Russian
municipalities,
Repola
and
Porajarvi
, wanted to become part of Finland but could not under the strict conditions of the
Treaty of Tartu
. They declared themselves independent in 1919, but the border change was never officially confirmed, mainly because of the treaty, which was negotiated the following year. In the Treaty of Tartu negotiations in 1920, Finland demanded more of Eastern Karelia. Russia agreed to this but kept Repola and Porajarvi for itself, offering Finland
Petsamo
instead. President
Kaarlo Juho Stahlberg
of Finland agreed to the exchange.
Karelians in Uhtua (now
Kalevala, Russia
) wanted their own state, so they created the
Republic of Uhtua
.
Ingrian Finns
also created their own state,
North Ingria
, but with the intention of being incorporated into Finland. Both states ceased to exist in 1920.
The Greater Finland ideology inspired the
Academic Karelia Society
, the
Lapua movement
, and that movement's successor, the
Patriotic People's Movement
. The
Mannerheim
Sword Scabbard Declarations
in 1918 and 1941 increased enthusiasm for the idea.
1920s and 1930s
[
edit
]
Under the
Treaty of Tartu
, Soviet Russia agreed to give Eastern Karelia (known simply as Karelia in the later
Soviet Union
) political autonomy as a concession to Finnish sentiment. This was in line with the
Bolshevik
leadership's policy at the time of offering political autonomy to each of the national minorities within the new Soviet state. At the same time, the
League of Nations
solved the
Aland crisis
in Finland's favor.
After the
Finnish Civil War
in 1918, the
Red Guards
fled to Russia and rose to a leading position in Eastern Karelia. Led by
Edvard Gylling
, they helped establish the Karelian Workers' Commune. The Reds were also assigned to act as a
bridgehead
in the Finnish revolution. Finnish politicians in Karelia strengthened their base in 1923 with the establishment of the
Karelian ASSR
. Finnish nationalists helped some Karelians who were unhappy with the failure of the Karelian independence movement to organize an
uprising
, but it was unsuccessful, and a small number of Karelians fled to Finland.
After the civil war, a large number of
left-wing
Finnish
refugees
fled for the Karelian ASSR. These Finns?an urbanized, educated, and Bolshevik elite?tended to monopolize leadership positions within the new republic. The "Finnishness" of the area was enhanced by some migration of
Ingrian Finns
, and by the
Great Depression
. Gylling encouraged Finns in
North America
to flee to the Karelian ASSR, which was held up as a beacon of enlightened Soviet national policy and economic development.
Even by 1926, 96.6% of the population of the Karelian ASSR spoke
Karelian
as their mother tongue. No unified Karelian
literary language
existed, and the prospect of creating one was considered problematic because of the language's many dialects. The local Finnish leadership had a dim view of the potential of Karelian as a literary language and did not try to develop it. Gylling and the Red Finns may have considered Karelian to be a mere dialect of Finnish. They may also have hoped that, through the adoption of Finnish, they could unify Karelians and Finns into one Finnic people. All education of Karelians was conducted in Finnish, and all publications became Finnish (with the exception of some in
Russian
).
By contrast, the Karelians of
Tver Oblast
, who had gained a measure of political autonomy independent of Finnish influence, were able by 1931 to develop a literary Karelian based on the
Latin alphabet
. These Tver Karelians became hostile to what they saw as Finnish dominance of Karelia, as did some of the small, local Karelian
intelligentsia
. Reactions to the use of Finnish among the Karelians themselves were diverse. Some had difficulty understanding written Finnish. There was outright resistance to the language from residents of
Olonets Karelia
, while White Karelians had a more positive attitude toward it.
In the summer of 1930, "Finnification politics" became politically sensitive. The
Leningrad
party apparatus (the powerful southern neighbor of the Karelian Red Finns) began to protest Finnish
chauvinism
toward the Karelians in concert with the Tver Karelians. This coincided with increasing centralization under
Joseph Stalin
and the concurrent decline in power of many local minority elites. Gylling and
Kustaa Rovio
tried to expand the usage of Karelian in certain spheres, but this process was hardly begun before they were deposed. The academic Dmitri Bubrikh then developed a literary Karelian based on the
Cyrillic alphabet
, borrowing heavily from Russian.
The Central Committee of the Council of Nationalities and the
Soviet Academy of Sciences
protested the forced Finnification of Soviet Karelia. Bubrikh's Karelian language was adopted from 1937 to 1939, and Finnish was repressed. But the new language, based on an unfamiliar alphabet and with extensive usage of Russian vocabulary and
grammar
, was difficult for many Karelians to comprehend. By 1939, Bubrikh himself had been repressed, and all forms of Karelian were dropped in both the Karelian ASSR and Tver Oblast (where the Karelian National District was dissolved entirely).
[1]
The Great Purge
[
edit
]
In Stalin's Great Purge in 1937, the remaining Red Finns in Soviet Karelia were accused of
Trotskyist
-
bourgeois
nationalism and purged entirely from the leadership of the Karelian ASSR. Most Finns in the area were executed or forcefully transferred to other parts of the Soviet Union.
[2]
During this period, no official usage of Karelian was pursued, and the use of the Finnish language was repressed, relegating it to an extremely marginal role, making Russian the
de facto
official language
of the republic.
[3]
By this time, the economic development of the area had also attracted a growing number of internal migrants from other areas of the Soviet Union, who steadily diluted the "national" character of the Karelian ASSR.
The
Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic
(KFSSR) was founded by the Soviet Union at the beginning of the
Winter War
, and was led by the
Terijoki government
and
Otto Wille Kuusinen
. This new entity was created with an eye to absorbing a defeated Finland into one greater Finnic (and Soviet) state, and so the official language returned to Finnish. However, the Soviet military was unable to completely defeat Finland, and this idea came to nothing. Despite this, the KFSSR was maintained as a full
Union Republic
(on a par with
Ukraine
or
Kazakhstan
, for example) until the end of the
Stalinist period
, and Finnish was at least nominally an official language until 1956. The territory Finland was forced to cede under the
Moscow Peace Treaty
was incorporated partly into the KFSSR, but also into
Leningrad Oblast
to the south and
Murmansk Oblast
to the north.
During the
Continuation War
from 1941 to 1944, about 62,000 Ingrian Finns escaped to Finland from German-occupied areas, of whom 55,000 were returned to the Soviet Union and expelled to
Siberia
. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, they were permitted to settle within the KFSSR, although not in
Ingria
itself.
[4]
The Continuation War
[
edit
]
During the civil war in 1918, when the military leader
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
was in
Antrea
, he issued one of his famous
Sword Scabbard Declarations
, in which he said that he would not "sheath my sword before law and order reigns in the land, before all fortresses are in our hands, before the last soldier of
Lenin
is driven not only away from Finland, but from
White Karelia
as well".
[5]
During the Continuation War, Mannerheim gave the second Sword Scabbard Declaration. In it, he mentioned "the Great Finland", which brought negative attention in political circles.
During the Continuation War, Finland occupied the most comprehensive area in its history. Many people elsewhere, as well as Finland's
right-wing
politicians, wanted to annex East Karelia to Finland. The grounds were not only ideological and political but also military, as the so-called three-isthmus line were considered easier to defend. On 20 July 1941, a celebration was held in
Vuokkiniemi
, where
White
and
Olonets Karelia
were declared to have joined Finland.
[6]
Russians and Karelians were treated differently in Finland, and the ethnic background of the country's Russian-speaking minority was studied to determine which of them were Karelian (i.e., "the national minority") and which were mostly Russian (i.e., "the un-national minority"). The Russian minority were taken to
concentration camps
so that they would be easier to move away.
In 1941, the government published a
German
edition of
Finnlands Lebensraum
, a book supporting the idea of Greater Finland, with the intention of annexing Eastern Karelia and Ingria.
Finland's eastern question
[
edit
]
During the Continuation War's attack phase in 1941, when the Finns hoped for a German victory over the Soviet Union, Finland began to consider what areas it could get in a possible peace treaty with the Soviets. The German objective was to take over the
Arkhangelsk
?
Astrakhan
line, which would have allowed Finland to expand to the east. A 1941 book by professor
Jalmari Jaakkola
, titled
Die Ostfrage Finnlands
, sought to justify the occupation of East Karelia. The book was translated into
English
, Finnish, and
French
, and received criticism from Sweden and the
United States
.
The Finnish Ministry of Education established the Scientific Committee of East Karelia on 11 December 1941 to guide research in East Karelia. The first chairman of the commission was the rector of the
University of Helsinki
,
Kaarlo Linkola
, and the second chairman was
Vaino Auer
. Jurists worked to prepare international legal arguments for why Finland should get East Karelia.
Motivations
[
edit
]
The rationales of the Greater Finland idea are a subject of disagreement. Some supported the idea out of a desire for wider cultural cooperation. Later, however, the ideology gained clearer
imperialist
characteristics. The main supporter of the idea, the
Academic Karelia Society
, was born as a cultural organization, but in its second year, it released a program that dealt with broader strategic, geographical, historical, and political arguments for Greater Finland.
The idea today
[
edit
]
The Greater Finland idea is unpopular today, with those who wish for Finnish territorial expansion, such as the former
Finns Party Youth
and some others wishing for the
re-annexation of Finnish Karelia
instead.
[7]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
Sources
[
edit
]
- Manninen, Ohto (1980).
Suur-Suomen aariviivat: Kysymys tulevaisuudesta ja turvallisuudesta Suomen Saksan-politiikassa 1941
[
Outlines of Greater Finland: The question of the future and security in Finland's German policy in 1941
] (in Finnish). Helsinki: Kirjayhtyma.
ISBN
951-26-1735-8
.
- Nygard, Toivo (1978).
Suur-Suomi vai lahiheimolaisten auttaminen: Aatteellinen heimotyo itsenaisessa Suomessa
[
Greater Finland or helping neighboring tribes: Ideological tribal work in independent Finland
] (in Finnish). Helsinki: Otava.
ISBN
951-1-04963-1
.
- Tarkka, Jukka (1987).
Ei Stalin eika Hitler - Suomen turvallisuuspolitiikka toisen maailmansodan aikana
[
Neither Stalin nor Hitler - Finland's security policy during the Second World War
] (in Finnish). Helsinki: Otava.
ISBN
951-1-09751-2
.
- Seppala, Helge (1989).
Suomi miehittajana 1941-1944
[
Finland as occupier 1941-1944
] (in Finnish). Helsinki: SN-kirjat.
ISBN
951-615-709-2
.
- Morozov, K.A. (1975).
Karjala Toisen Maailmansodan aikana 1941-1945
[
Karelia during the Second World War 1941-1945
] (in Finnish). Petrozavodsk.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link
)
- Jaakkola, Jalmari (1942).
Die Ostfrage Finnlands
(in German). WSOY.
- Nare, Sari; Kirves, Jenni (2014).
Luvattu maa: Suur-Suomen unelma ja unohdus
[
Promised land: Greater Finland's dream and oblivion
] (in Finnish). Helsinki: Johnny Kniga.
ISBN
978-951-0-40295-5
.
- Trifonova, Anastassija.
Suur-Suomen aate ja Ita-Karjala
[
The idea of Greater Finland and Eastern Karelia
]
(PDF)
(in Finnish).
University of Tartu
, Department of Baltic Finnic Languages. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 2016-03-04.
- Solome?t?, Ilja.
"Ulkoinen uhka keskustan ja periferian suhteissa: Karjalan kysymys pohjoismaisessa vertailussa 1860?1940"
[External threat in center-periphery relations: The question of Karelia in a Nordic comparison 1860?1940].
Carelia
(in Finnish). No. 10?1998. pp. 117?119. Archived from
the original
on 2006-10-11.
- Ryymin, Teemu (1998).
Finske nasjonalisters og norske myndigheters kvenpolitikk i mellomkrigstiden
[
Finnish nationalists' and Norwegian authorities' women's policy in the interwar period.
] (in Norwegian).
University of Bergen
.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link
)
Web version
- Olsson, Claes.
Suur-Suomen muisto
[
The memory of Greater Finland
] (in Finnish). Archived from
the original
on 2001-03-06.
- Sundqvist, Janne (26 May 2014).
Suur-Suomi olisi onnistunut vain natsi-Saksan avulla
[
Greater Finland would have succeeded only with the help of Nazi Germany
] (in Finnish).
. Yle uutiset 26.5.2014.
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