Karelians

Karelia, a land of forests and lakes now split between Finland and Russia, takes its name from the Karelians, a people whose language and culture are close kin to those of the Finns. For more than seven centuries rival powers fought over their homeland, splitting the Karelians by state, church and eventually language. In Russia they are recognised as a distinct people, centred on the Republic of Karelia; in Finland, Karelians are generally counted as a regional branch of the Finns.

Archaeology suggests the Karelians took shape in the early Middle Ages, as incomers from western Finland merged with the people already living there. Cemeteries of AD 600 to 800 cluster on the western shore of Lake Ladoga and the Karelian Isthmus, and the much larger number of finds from 800 to 1050 points to rapid growth and spread. Scandinavian sagas name the land Kirjaland or Karjalabotn, and Russian chronicles first mention the Karelians, as the Koryela, in 1143, when they raided Tavastia in Finland.

Until the late thirteenth century the Karelians largely governed themselves, sometimes joining Novgorod on campaigns and raiding their Finnish and Swedish neighbours; a Swedish chronicle blames them for the sack of Sigtuna in 1187. Novgorod gradually tightened its grip, ravaging Karelian lands in 1278, while Sweden pushed east, building castles at Vyborg in 1293 and Kexholm in 1295. In 1314, according to the Novgorod chronicle, Karelians rose against conversion and killed the Christians at Kexholm. The Treaty of Nöteborg in 1323 drew a border through their land: western Karelians passed to Sweden and the Catholic, later Lutheran, church, eastern Karelians to Novgorod and Orthodoxy. Eastern Karelians then spread north as far as the White Sea.

In 1617 Russia ceded Ladoga Karelia, North Karelia and the eastern Isthmus to Sweden, whose push for Lutheran conversion met resistance from Orthodox Karelians. After a failed Russian war to retake the area in 1656–58, large numbers of Orthodox Karelians left for Russia; many settled around Tver, where a Karelian minority still lives, and Swedish authorities moved Lutheran settlers from Savonia onto the emptied farms. Russia regained the Isthmus and Ladoga Karelia after the Great Northern War in 1721.

When Russia took Finland in 1808–09, it joined the western Karelian lands to the new Grand Duchy of Finland in 1812. Finnish folklorists, Elias Lönnrot among them, travelled into eastern Karelia to collect sung poetry, and Karelian tales went into the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. Finnish artists, inspired by what became known as Karelianism, saw the Orthodox Karelians as keepers of an older Finnish culture. After Finnish independence in 1917, Finland made several attempts between 1918 and 1922 to extend into eastern Karelia, and thousands of eastern Karelians moved to Finland.

After the Winter War, Finland ceded the Karelian Isthmus and Ladoga Karelia to the Soviet Union, and more than 400,000 people were evacuated across the new border. Thousands more left eastern Karelia when Finnish forces withdrew at the end of the Continuation War in 1944. Resettled across Finland, most Karelian-speaking evacuees soon switched to Finnish.

Most Russian Karelians are Orthodox, with folk beliefs woven into their Christianity. Their language is closely related to Finnish and has northern, southern and Olonets (Livvi) varieties. It is endangered: about 13,880 people spoke it in Russia in 2020, many of them elderly. Census figures show sharp decline through assimilation into Russian society: the 2021 census counted 32,422 Karelians in Russia, 25,901 of them in the Republic of Karelia, where they now make up 5.5 per cent of the population. Karelian has minority-language status in the republic and, in Finland, is recognised as a non-regional minority language.

Our 800 and 1000 maps draw the Karelians north of Lake Ladoga, reaching from eastern Finland towards the White Sea, beside the Finns, the Veps and the Sámi and with the Rus' lands, shown as Kievan Rus' in 1000, to the south. The outline is approximate; Karelian settlement was then concentrated around Ladoga.