Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
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The Karelian ASSR (Russian: Карельская АССР) was an autonomous republic of the Soviet Union. Its capital was Petrozavodsk (Petroskoi).
The first incarnation of the Karelian A.S.S.R. existed from 1923 until 1940. It was a territory within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
From 1940 to 1956, territory annexed from Finland was incorporated with the previous Karelian Autonomous Republic to form the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic, which had the status of a union republic in the federal structure of the Soviet Union. Only about 10% of the population of this region was of Karelian or Finnish ethnic background.[citation needed]
On 16 July 1956, Karelia (sometimes spelled Carelia) was downgraded from a Union Republic to an A.S.S.R., and retroceded to the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
Interestingly, in Soviet Union, the status of Autonomous SSR was considered lower than the status of SSR, although nominally both stood for Soviet Socialist Republic, and intuitively one might think that an 'autonomous republic' has higher level of autonomy than a mere 'republic'.
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