Ingrian Finns

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ingrians
The Ingrian flag

Total population

Regions with significant populations
Russia, Finland
Languages
Russian, Finnish
Religions
Lutheranism
Related ethnic groups
other Finnic peoples

The Ingrian Finns (inkeriläinen or inkerinsuomalainen) were the Finnish rural peasant population of Ingria (now the central part of Leningrad Oblast). In the forced population transfers before and after World War II they were relocated to other parts of the Soviet Union. The Ingrian Finns still constitute the largest part of the Finnish population of the Russian Federation. According to some records, some 25,000 Ingrian Finns have returned or still reside in the Saint Petersburg region.

The Ingrian Finns originate mainly from the Lutheran resettlers and work-migrants who resettled to Ingria during the period of Swedish rule 1617–1703 from Savonia and Karelian Isthmus (mostly from Äyräpää), then parts of the Swedish realm^[1]; and to lesser extent from more or less voluntary conversion among the indigenous Finnic speaking Votes and Izhorians were was approved by the Swedish authorities.^{[citation needed]} The proportion of Finns in Ingria made up 41.1% in 1656, 53.2% in 1661, 55.2% in 1666, 56.9% in 1671 and 73.8% in 1695.^[2]

After the Russian reconquest and the foundation of Saint Petersburg (1703), the flow of migration was reversed.^{[citation needed]} Russians nobles were granted land in Ingria and Lutheran Ingrian Finns left Ingria, where they were in minority, for Old Finland, i.e. Russia's 18th century gains north of the Gulf of Finland, where Lutherans were a large majority. There they assimilated with the Karelian Finns.

In 1870, printing of the first Finnish language newspaper Pietarin Sanomat started in Ingria. Before that Ingria received newspapers mostly from Vyborg. The first public library was opened in 1850 in Tyrö. The largest of the libraries, situated in Skuoritsa, had more than 2,000 volumes in the second half of the 19th century. In 1899 the first song festival in Ingria was held in Puutosti (Skuoritsa).^[1]

By 1897 the number of Ingrian Finns had grown to 130,413, by 1917 it had exceeded 140,000 (45,000 in Northern Ingria, 52,000 in Central (Eastern) Ingria and 30,000 in Western Ingria, the rest in Petrograd).^[1]

After the October Revolution, Ingrian Finns inhabiting the southern part of Karelian Isthmus seceded from Bolshevist Russia and formed the short-lived Finland-backed Republic of North Ingria, which was reintegrated with Russia in the end of 1920 according to the conditions of the Treaty of Tartu, but enjoyed a certain degree of national autonomy. In 1928-1939 Ingrian Finns of North Ingria constituted the Kuivaisi National District with center in Toksova and Finnish as the official language.

The First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union in 1926 recorded 114,831 Leningrad Finns, as Ingian Finns were called.^[1]

The 20th century Soviet rule, and the German occupation (1941–1944) during the World War II were as disastrous for the Ingrian Finns as for other small ethnic groups. Many Ingrian Finns were either executed, deported to Siberia, or forced to relocate to other parts of the Soviet Union.

In 1928 collectivization of agriculture started in Ingria. To facilitate it, in 1929-1931, 18,000 people (4320 families) from North Ingria were deported to East Karelia, the Kola Peninsula as well as Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The situation for the Ingrian Finns deteriorated further because of the Soviet plans to create restricted security zones along the borders with Finland and Estonia, free of the Finnic peoples, which were considered politically unreliable.^[3]^[4] In April 1935 7,000 people (2,000 families) were deported from Ingria to Kazakhstan, Central Asia and the Ural region. In May and June of 1936 the entire 20,000 Finnish population of the parishes of Valkeasaari, Lempaala, Vuole and Miikkulainen near the Finnish border were transferred to the area around Cherepovets. In Ingria they were replaced with people from other parts of the Soviet Union.^[1]

In 1937 Lutheran churches and Finnish-language schools in Ingria were closed down and publications and radio broadcasting in Finnish were suspended.

In March 1939 the Kuivaisi National District was liquidated.

After the war many Ingrian Finns settled in Soviet-controlled Estonia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union a significant number of them have moved to Finland, where they are eligible for automatic naturalization in the Finnish Law of Return. The number of people who declared their nationality as Finnish in the 2002 Russian census was 34,000 (down from 47,000 in 1989 (RSFSR).

As many Ingrian Finns, including mixed families, who moved to Finland did not speak another language than Russian and in many cases identify themselves as Russians,^[5] mostly the younger generation, there are social integration problems similar to those of any other migrant groups in Europe, to such an extent that there is a political debate in Finland as to the maintenance of the Finnish Law of Return.