ABSTRACT
Karelia is a region located partly in eastern Finland and partly in northwest ern Russia. It is one those European peripheries in which the meaning of the border has been determined by the changing relationships between the polit ical power centres of Eastern and Western Europe. The southern part of the Karelian borderline, which is connected to the circle of influence of St. Petersburg (see the chapter by Katajala), has moved back and forth accord ing to the changing balance of power. Although some locations on the shores of Lake Ladoga have been permanent Karelian settlements since the 8th century, Karelia has never constituted an institutional entity with bor ders of its own. Through the centuries it has been defined by the relation ships of its two neighbours, Finland (before its independence the Autono mous Grand Duchy under Russian Emperor, and before that an eastern part of Kingdom of Sweden) on the western side, and Russia (most of this cen tury the Soviet Union) on the eastern. In fact, both neighbours have, at times, promised the Karelian people a bright future as a part of their terri tory. Finland declared the Karelians to be a branch of the Finnish nation and the Karelian language a dialect of Finnish. The leaders of the Soviet Union invited the Karelians to join the family of Soviet nationalities. Since Karelia is a borderland, the geographical definitions of Karelia are many, and this confusion has not been clarified by the many borderlines drawn in different periods of history. Even today the term "Karelia" is used to refer to different geographic areas; the seven most commonly recognized can be seen in Fig ure 17.1 (p. 288).
