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Where East Meets West: The Last Stand of Finns and Karelians in Contemporary Karelia?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Antti Laine
Antti Laine*
Affiliation:
Karelian Research Institute, University of Joensuu, Finland
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Extract

The northwestern flank of the Slavic expanse of settlement, the territory of today's Russian Karelia, constitutes an age-old site of Slavic-Baltic-Finnic contact. The Karelians and Vepsians, two Finno-Ugrian groups, are a part of the indigenous population of Karelia. The settlements of the former are found mainly in the western half of the present-day Karelian Republic. The Vepsians live on the southwestern coastal strip of Lake Onega, south of the capital of the republic, Petrozavodsk. Vepsian settlements are also found outside Karelia, in Vologda and Leningrad provinces. For several centuries, the Russians have formed a majority of the inhabitants both near Lake Onega and on the west coast of the White Sea. In contrast to the Karelians, Vepsians and Russians, Finns can be considered newcomers to Karelia.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , March 2001 , pp. 53 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

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