Ingermanlanders Want Their Nation to Survive and Feel They have to Escape Russia to Do So But Fear Pressing for Independence Lest that Spark More Repressions, Parkkinen Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 30 – Susanna Parkkinen, an Ingermanland Finn who is creating a museum in Lapland for all Finnish diaspora groups, says that the members of her name want it to survive and feel they have to escape from Russia to do so but at the same time they fear pressing for independence lest they cause Moscow to repress them further.

            Such feelings have intensified, she says, since the start of Russia’s expanded invasion of Ukraine and they reflect the conflicted situation Ingermanland Finns who live in Leningrad Oblast feel, simultaneously fearful of their nation being destroyed and frightened about the possibility that repressions against their number will intensify.

            The conflicted feelings many Ingermanlanders have undoubtedly are found in other groups but are often ignored with some attending only to one of these two feelings rather than to the way in which they combine (thebarentsobserver.com/ru/korennye-narody/2023/08/dlya-menya-ingermanlandiya-eto-rodina-i-ona-ischezaet-rossiyanka-pereehala-v reposted at severreal.org/a/rossiyanka-pereehala-v-laplandiyu-chtoby-sozdat-muzey-svoego-naroda/32616363.html).