Inhabitants
The inhabitants of Karelian provinces historically belonging to Finland are known as Karelians. Confusingly, the same name is used also of a closely related but distinct ethnic group living mostly in East Karelia, earlier also in some of the territories Finland ceded to the Soviet Union in 1944. The Finnish Karelians include the present-day inhabitants of North and South Karelia and the still-surviving evacuees from the ceded territories. Present Finnish Karelia has 315,000 inhabitants. The more than 400,000 evacuees from the ceded territories were re-settled in various parts of Finland. (The displacement of the Finnish Karelians in 1940-44 as a result of the Winter War and the Continuation War, according to official Finnish statistics resulted the total number of 415,000 evacuees from the territories ceded to the Soviet Union while 5.000 Finnish Karelians remained in the Soviet controlled territory.)
Finnish Karelians are considered as a regional and cultural sub-group of the ethnic Finns. They speak the eastern or south-eastern dialects of the Finnish language. The Finnish Karelians include also people of East Karelian origin or roots, but these have been linguistically and ethnically assimilated with closely related Finns after the Second World War. However, the Orthodox religion is still maintained by many Finnish Karelians with East Karelian background, especially in North Karelia; the majority of the Finnish Karelians are predominantly Lutheran.
Read more about this topic: Karelia (historical Province Of Finland)
Famous quotes containing the word inhabitants:
“Of all the inhabitants of the inferno, none but Lucifer knows that hell is hell, and the secret function of purgatory is to make of heaven an effective reality.”
—Arnold Bennett (1867–1931)
“Perhaps anxious politicians may prove that only seventeen white men and five negroes were concerned in the late enterprise; but their very anxiety to prove this might suggest to themselves that all is not told. Why do they still dodge the truth? They are so anxious because of a dim consciousness of the fact, which they do not distinctly face, that at least a million of the free inhabitants of the United States would have rejoiced if it had succeeded. They at most only criticise the tactics.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It further said, “The inhabitants of Sandwich generally manifest a fond and steady adherence to the manners, employments and modes of living which characterized their fathers,” which made me think that they were, after all, very much like the rest of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)