Country: Russia

Group: Karelians

Date Finalized: 04/12/2023

Team: ​​Monica Hallock (lead), Esha Kubavat, Kate Edwards, Hajer Rahee, Julia Curtiss, Brandon Neverez

Content Warnings: forced labor, lethal violence, war, repression, oppression, forced displacement, discrimination

Approximate Time Period:  1900’s – Present

            The Karelian people are an ethnic minority group in Russia, with a population around 60,815 as of 2010. The Karelia region borders Finland and has been the center of Finnish and Russian conflict since the early 1900’s (Minority Rights Group, 2020). In the 1920’s, Stalin’s dictatorship forced the Karelian region into forced labor and lethal violence throughout the Gulag project (Minority Rights Group, 2020). By 1938, the Russian government outlawed speaking Finnish, and Russian was the language taught in school (Khanolainen et al, 2022).  A year later, the Winter War between Finland and Russia resulted in Karelian changing hands and Finnish to once again become the official language of Karelian. In 1944, the Soviet Union reclaimed Karelia for the final time (Oldberg, 2021).

The Russian government has repressed the Karelian people, causing the dissolution of rural communities and imposing Russian culture, language, and identity as dominant in this region (Oldberg, 2021). In an interview with a Karelian youth, they expressed that the non-native population’s perception of them changed due to oppressive behavior, lethal violence and forced migration; this change in perception often led to feeling shame and embarrassment about their ethnicity (Minority Rights Group, 2020). To avoid discrimination many Karelian assimilated to the dominant Russian culture. On the same note, to avoid further judgment, many Karelian did not demand change that would sustain their language, culture, or traditions. “Abandoning their own culture was seen as the only way to stop discrimination against their people” (Khanolainen et al, 2022).

            Currently, the discrimination of the Karelian people in Russia has decreased. Many Karelian have expressed the desire to strengthen their culture, provide relative education, and embrace their language. However, change is slow and belief that this change is meaningful to the Karelian community will take time (Khanolainen et al, 2022).  On a scale of 0-3 the data quality for the Karelian Ethnocide is a 2. There was a solid amount of information found from reliable sources.

Sources

  1. Minority Rights Group. (2020). Karelians. Minority Rights Group. Retrieved April 12, 2023, from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/karelians/
  2. Oldberg, I. (2021, April 2). And the case of russian karelia « balticworlds. Com. Balticworlds.Com. https://balticworlds.com/and-the-case-of-russian-karelia/
  3. Khanolainen, D., Nesterova, Y., & Semenova, E. (2022). Indigenous education in Russia: Opportunities for healing and revival of the Mari and Karelian Indigenous groups? Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 52(5), 768–785. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2020.1834350