17 Facts About Karelians

Karelians are a Baltic Finnic ethnic group who are indigenous to the historical region of Karelia, which is today split between Finland and Russia.

Karelians living in Russian Karelia are considered a distinct ethnic group closely related to Finnish Karelians, who are considered a subset of Finns.

However, owing to Karelian not being recognized as its own language by the Finnish government until recently, most of these Karelians had no choice but to learn Finnish and now speak mostly Finnish.

Until the end of the 13th century, Karelians enjoyed a period of relative independence and self-government.

However, as Karelians came in contact with Novgorod some of them started to take part in the Novgorodian internal and external politics.

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In 1278, Novgorod made war against Karelians and, according to the chronicle, put Karelian lands "to sword and fire", which significantly reduced Karelian military power.

In 1314, Karelians rose up against efforts made to convert them to Christianity, according to the Novgorod chronicle.

In 1323 AD, Karelians suffered a forceful sundering as Sweden and Novgorod divided Karelian lands and their inhabitants by signing a peace agreement.

Subsequent wars had Karelians fighting on both sides of the conflict and often against each other.

However, in 1617, the history of Karelians underwent a significant change as Russia ceded to Sweden, along with other territories, the eastern part of the Karelian Isthmus, Ladoga Karelia and modern-day North Karelia.

Yet eastern Karelians managed to preserve traditions and folklore better than western Karelians.

The ideology of Karelianism inspired Finnish artists and researchers, who believed that the Orthodox Karelians had retained elements of an archaic, original Finnish culture which had disappeared from Finland.

Several thousands of eastern Karelians migrated to Finland by 1922 from different parts of Eastern Karelia.

The Karelians who migrated to Finland in the 20th century were initially Karelian speakers, but due to minor lingual differences and in order to assimilate into the local communities soon adopted the Finnish language after the war.

Russian Karelians, living in the Republic of Karelia, are nowadays rapidly being absorbed into the Russian population.

Significant enclaves of Karelians exist in the Tver oblast of Russia, resettled after Russia's defeat in 1617 against Sweden — in order to escape forced conversion to Lutheranism in Swedish Karelia.

Karelians have been declining in numbers in modern times significantly due to a number of factors.