Putin Sees Karelians as Advance Guard of Russian World Rather than Bridge to Europe, Shtepa Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 21 – Ever more frequently, Vladimir Putin is focusing on the distant past in order to promote his current policies. Last month, the Kremlin leader attracted widespread attention for his article on Russian-Ukrainian “unity.” Less noted but equally important for what it signifies, he also called for celebrating the 800^th anniversary of the baptism of the Karelians (publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/0001202109200011).

            That event, which is supposed to occur with much pomp in 2027 will mark the eighth century of the Karelians being part of the Orthodox world, although historians suggest that it was more legendary than real. Some Karels may have accepted Orthodoxy then but far from the entire people (rk.karelia.ru/special-projects/uchenyj-sovet/s-karelskogo-na-russkij/).

            Maksim Pulkin, a historian at the Karelian Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, says that if something actually happened in 1227, it involved only a handful of people. “But for Russian official historiography, such details are not important.” For them, the baptism of Karelia meant it became part of the Russian world.

            Had this “baptism” not happened, the historian continues, the Karelians likely would have adopted Catholicism and then Lutheranism from the Finns, and then “Karelia would have become part of Sweden and then Finland, and all Karelis would have been assimilated by them (karel.aif.ru/society/yubiley_nomer_dva_otmetim_kreshchenie_karelov).

            Vadim Shtepa, editor of the Tallinn-based Region.Expert portal, calls attention to this to make the point that the Kremlin wants border peoples like the Karelians to be advance guards of the Russian world rather than self-standing nations in their own right and bridges to Europe (severreal.org/a/kremle-reshili-gromko-prazdnovat-kreshchenie-karelii/31516484.html).

            Moscow has worked hard to promote the assimilation of the Karelians and to that end it has not given the Karelian language any official status in Karelia. Indeed, Russians have reacted to any attempt to promote that language with hysterical suggestions that this is a separatist effort to destroy Russia (tsargrad.tv/articles/karelskij-separatizm-ot-mestnogo-kolorita-k-razvalu-rossii_412185).

            Russian authors assume, Shtepa continues, that the Karelians want to join the Finns; but in fact, the Karelians are proud of their own identity and want to remain a nation on their own, one with good relations with others on both sides of the 1000-kilometer-long border between Russia and the European Union.

            Within the Russian Federation, the Karelians have promoted the idea of a genuine federation of peoples including themselves; and between themselves and the EU, they welcomed the formation of a Euroregion, something Putin found so threatening that he has effectively closed it down.

            “The present-day Kremlin policy,” Shtepa says, “is based on the opposition of Russia to Europe, and therefore border territories are viewed not as a space for cooperation but as an advanced guard against ‘enemies at the gates.’” That is why Putin wants to celebrate the baptism of the Karelians who are on the border but not that of the Komis or Udmurts who aren’t.

            Celebrating this anniversary is thus all about geopolitics, about highlighting the separation of the Karelians from the Finns. But the holiday is likely to fall flat in Karelia itself where people want to have ties with Finland and view Moscow’s efforts to erect a new wall between them and Europe with anger.

            In the elections earlier this fall, the residents of Karelia gave the Kremlin’s United Russia party only 31.7 percent of their votes, a low that suggests their vision of the past, present and future is very different from Moscow’s.