Karelian Question in Finnish Politics - History

History

The Karelian question arose when Finland was forced to cede territories to the Soviet Union after the Winter War in the Moscow peace treaty in 1940. Most Finnish citizens were evacuated from the ceded areas. Most of them returned during the Continuation War and eventually were evacuated again in 1944. Soviet Union insisted the ceded areas completely evacuated in 10 days. The evacuees were partly compensated for their losses; farmers, for example, received land in proportion to their earlier holdings. Usually, the compensation was about one third of the original farm. Compensation for movable property was much less. However, all evacuee families had a right to receive a small farm, and/or a plot for a detached house or a flat. The land used for these grants was confiscated by the state from municipalities and private owners. Financial compensation was funded by a general property tax of 10 to 30%, levied over a period of several years. Because the vast majority of the evacuees who had to settle in the rest of Finland were from ceded Karelia, the question was labeled The Karelian Question. After the Winter War, Karelian municipalities and parishes established Karjalan Liitto (the Karelian Association) to defend the rights of Karelians in Finland.

During the Cold War, the Karelian-born Finnish politician Johannes Virolainen lobbied for the return of Karelia. President Urho Kekkonen also tried to reacquire the territory, especially when the Soviet Union returned the peninsula of Porkkala to Finland in 1956. There was, however, no significant public controversy about the case, because Kekkonen wanted to keep it quiet. The last time Kekkonen tried to raise it was in 1972, but he had no success, and public discussion died out in the 1970s.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Karelian question re-surfaced. According to an article by the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat in August 2007, the Russian president Boris Yeltsin unofficially offered to sell ceded Karelia to Finland in 1991. However, according to many Finnish political leaders and the Russian vice Prime Minister of the time, there were no such offers, only unofficial probing of the idea. Andrei Fyodorov, an advisor of Boris Yeltsin, told the Helsingin Sanomat, that he was part of a group, that was tasked by government of Russia in 1991–1992 with calculating the price of returning Karelia to Finland. This price was set at 15 billion US dollars. According to Fyodorov, Finnish president Mauno Koivisto and foreign minister Paavo Väyrynen were aware of these unofficial discussions.