Recent academic exchanges that became possible after the fall of the Iron Curtain continue to yield significant results in scholarly research and publications. V Sem'e Edinoi..., a book edited by Timo Vihavainen (Finland) and Irina Takala (Russia, Karelia), is one of these results. An international project aimed at developing a fresh glimpse of the national policy of the Soviet Communist party in the North-Western Region of the USSR in the context of its general policy toward nationalities, V Sem'e edinoi... contains contributions by scholars from Finland, Russia (Petrozavodsk and St. Petersburg) and France.
Scholarly inquiry into nationalities policies in the former Soviet Union has undergone a true revival during the recent decade. Shaking off ideological burdens of the Cold War era, researchers have been able to approach issues of formation and implementation of these policies with better empirical precision and from the perspective of open methodological debate. Departing from the work of Richard Pipes, whose Formation of The Soviet Union, for all the criticisms expressed about this text, remains an important standard of scholarly inquiry, today's historians have a privilege of using theoretical debate on nationalism as a source of inspiration as well.^[1]
Methodological innovations in history, such as cultural approaches, “history from below” or historical sociology helped researchers of nationalities policy in the former USSR move away from a “master-plan” narrative that implies cold, rational and conscious policy realization by the Bolsheviks, to a more balanced and nuanced account of events in the first half of the Soviet era. Such matters as activities of local élites or policies developed and defended by scholars (ethnographers, linguists, educators) receive more attention and their exploration serve to add important dimensions to our understanding of the very complicated and vulnerable question of early Soviet nationalities policy. It is even more pleasant to read a book published in Russian and for the Russian academic audience that takes into account both research done inside the country and rich material available from the world scholarship.
Timo Vihavainen's introduction into the problem of nationalities policies in the North-Western Region of the USSR helps to place local problems and particularities into a more theoretically framed account, in which the work by Miroslav Hroch seemingly plays an important role. Vihavainen argues for an understanding of the high rate of assimilation of the Karelians that would pay more attention not only to the evil policies of the Central Committee (although, obviously, he does not deny a degree of manipulation by the party top policy-makers) but, also, to the fact that Karelians have been envisioned both officially within the USSR and by Finland as part of the Finnish nation while they themselves displayed little or no sense of national identification. This weakness of the Karelian national consciousness, coupled with the presence of the Finnish element that was more developed in terms of this consciousness and could rely on the example of Finnish independent statehood, was at the core of the national processes and their dynamics. Contingency and the personality factor played their role as well: Lenin’s personal interest and energetic activity of a Finnish communist Giulling secured the creation of the Finnish Labor Commune.
One can wonder if it would be productive, from the theoretical point of view, to apply Rogers Brubaker's model of national minority (Karelians), external national Homeland (claims by Finland) and nationalizing state (USSR in some periods of its development) to this situation.^[2] Obviously, Brubaker's highly theoretical approach would have to be modified to be used in the context of the USSR before World War II.
Vihavainen has also written the first article in the book, “Natsional'naia Politika VKP(b)/KPSS v 1920-e - 1950-e gody i sud'by karel'skoi i finskoi natsional'nostei.” Sketching a brief history of “korenizatsia”, the author focuses on the role of linguistics in policy formation. Particularly interesting is his outline of the fate of Marr and Bubrikh's doctrines of the class nature of language and suggestion of a way, in which these doctrines influenced developments in Karelia.
According to proposed periodization, the policy of korenization gave place to the period after the cultural revolution, then to the Great Terror, Soviet-German cooperation, World War II and its consequences and, finally, the abolition of the Karelo-Finnish Republic in 1956. The haphazard and accidental policy of the Bolsheviks toward the Karelians and the Finns in the region was, according to Vihavainen, open to pressures of foreign policy interest. For instance, the creation of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic was, according to Vihavainen, a tool to legitimize annexations of Finnish territories after the Winter War of 1939-1940. It was also a tool of power exercise as the Karelo-Finnish Republic was an “example” of a Finnish “socialist statehood” during 1940-1956.
Seppo Lallukka focuses on the dynamics of demographic processes in the region, analyzing those factors that led to the decrease of the share of Finno-Ugric peoples in the region. Among these factors were internal migrations, general impact of modernization that usually leads to assimilation of national minorities and World War II, which brought a tremendous upheaval in the demographic situation of the country as a whole. Leo Suni draws on the history of the Finns of Ingermanlandia, that is, the region around St.Petersburg/Leningrad and presents a story of their deportation and suffering. Here again, internal Soviet political developments as well as foreign policy concerns played a role in determining another deeply tragic page of modern Russian/Soviet history, as the Bolsheviks cleansed the Leningrad oblast' of all Finns. Other contributors have taken up ethnic and national aspects of terror as well.
Boris Starkov's contribution places the situation in the North-Western region in the context of political repression in the USSR in the 1920s-1940s and follows the dynamics of this repression. This theme is continued by Gabor Rittersporn, who analyzes the percentage of different ethnic groups in the population of Gulag and argues that some nationalities were defined as enemies and were specific targets of repression. Irina Takala concentrates on the purges in Karelia in 1937-1938 and argues that repressions and purges were an inseparable part of the Bolsheviks' nationalities policies in Karelia during the 1930s in general.
The destiny of Eastern Karelia, where the Karelian Labor Commune was created in 1920, is the subject of Markku Kangaspurro's work. Run by émigré “Red Finns”, Karelia became a battlefield of different ideological positions, ranging from the ideas of “Red Greater Finland” to weak Karelian autonomy. The specificity of the Karelian situation was that, despite some ethnic ties between the Finns and the Karelians, the debate was not over whether these two peoples can be united. Émigré Finns acted and sometimes were perceived as “Varangians” among Karelians.
The émigré Finns demanded a specific role for the Communist Party of Finland (with its Central Committee based in Petrograd) in Karelian affairs and won a significant degree of autonomy in the early 1920s. And yet, with Stalin's offensive against local elites, their salvation seemed to be in further “Karelization” of the republic. Still, “Ka-relization” tended to be “Finnazation” as the language used as standard in the republic was literary Finnish, even if the choice was not uncontested. Finns were removed from the leading positions in the Republic in 1935 and the new period of Russian “Karelization” began. Overall, the way of presentation, theoretical approach and logic of exploration makes Kangaspurro's contribution into the best part of the collection, casting light upon goals, methods and technology of korenization.
Esa Anttikoski describes the language policies in Karelia. These policies that led to the introduction of Finnish as the official language (it stayed as such from 1920 to 1937 to be replaced by the newly created Karelian). Finnish returned in 1940, with the creation of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic, to stay until the abolition of the latter in 1956. Finally, the 16 year long history of this Republic is the subject of Antti Laine’s investigation.
The book is supplied with excerpts from the most important documents of the period related to the formation of the Karelian Labor Commune, the Karelian Autonomous Republic and the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic, which makes it a valuable source of materials for the study of the nationalities policies of the period. The texts are published in both Russian and Karelian.
Unfortunately, contributions by different authors are uneven in quality. Although most of them display a good command of sources and knowledge of relevant literature, one has to wonder what in the context of the research in the area does the expression “real interests of the peoples” mean. It remains to be determined to what extent we can ever uncover these “true interests”. It seems more appropriate to the reviewer to avoid inquiries into such matters at all, limiting historical exploration to a more determinable substance. These remarks notwithstanding, V Sem'e Edinoi is a perfect example of international cooperation in scholarly work, research in nationalities policies in the former Soviet Union and a good source of knowledge in history of Karelians and Finns in the North-Western Region of the former USSR. The book adds important material to the results of Jeremy Smith’s research on early Soviet nationalities policies so that the corpus of literature on the subject is growing in a productive manner.^[3] The book can be recommended both to teachers and researchers as it gives an overall idea of the region’s history and supplies the researcher with significantly detailed accounts.