An Attempt to Cecede
and Join Finland
(1918-1922)
By Jan
Oskar Engene
In the aftermath of
the Russian revolution and Finnish independence (December 1917), things started
to happen in East Karelia too. On 17 March 1918 a meeting was
convened in the village
of Uhtua.
The meeting expressed the wish to separate from Russia and called for union with Finland. Later
in 1918 the Uhtua community used a flag consisting of
a blue field with seven white five-pointed stars in the canton (representing
the Ursa Major constellation).
According to Paskov [pas94],
the designer of this flag was J. Heiska.
If you try to find Uhtua on a modern map, you will probably not find it. In
1935 the village was renamed Kalevala for the century
of the publication of this work by Lönnrot. Much of
the material for the Kalevala was collected in East Karelia.
The East Karelians were quickly
caught in the middle of the struggles between red and white Russian forces, the
intervention forces under the British and Finnish volunteer expeditions. The
military situation changed quickly. However, the East Karelians worked to set up a government of
their own.
In July 1919 a
conference of delegates from White Sea
Karelian parishes met in Uhtua and appointed an East
Karelian Committee that acted as a provisional government of East
Karelia. This provisional government organized the first East
Karelian Diet, elected by universal suffrage and consisting of representatives
from twelve municipalities (or parishes). The Diet sat from 21 March to 1 April 1920 in Uhtua and appointed a regular six-member government. On 22
March the diet called for independence from Russia and adopted arms and a flag.
The flag and arms were designed by Finnish artist Akseli
Gallen-Kallela.
Aunus Karelia
A short-lived
government existed also for Aunus Karelia. The
provisional government of Aunus was set up when
Finnish volunteer forces advanced into the area in April 1919. An assembly was
called and met in Rajakontu 5-6 June 1919. However,
the Russian Bolsheviks quickly struck back and by 10 June the provisional
government and the Finnish forces were back in Finland. That was the end of the Aunus government.
Tver Karelia
After the peace between Russia and Sweden in 1617
gave much of the Kexholm/Käkisalmi province to Sweden, several
thousands Orthodox Karelians left to be resettled in
the Tver province northwest of Moscow. The 1926 census put the number of Tver Karelians to 140,000. In the
1930s a separate Tver Karelian language was
established. A national area was set up in July 1937, but as the Soviet
authorities changed their mind about the Tver Karelians, the national area was abolished in early 1939. A
dramatic reduction in the population followed, and in the 1989 there were only
23,000 Tver Karelians left.
Click
on the above picture to listen to a Karelian song
BACK
