East Karelia

19th-century ethnic-nationalist Fennomans saw East Karelia as the ancient home of Finnic culture, "un-contaminated"[clarification needed] by either Scandinavians or Slavs.

[2] In the sparsely-populated East Karelian backwoods, mainly in White Karelia, Elias Lönnrot (1802–1884) collected the folk tales that ultimately would become Finland's national epic, the Kalevala (published from 1835 to 1849).

It was especially popular during the Russo-Finnish Continuation War of 1941–1944, when such annexation seemed feasible in the wake of an expected German conquest of the Soviet Union.

The war meant hardship for the local ethnic-Russian civilians, including forced labour and internment in prison camps as enemy aliens.

However, within the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic these rights were never realised, and under Stalin (in power c. 1928 to 1953) ethnic Finns were persecuted and an intensive Russification programme began.

East Karelia and West Karelia with borders of 1939 and 1940/1947. They are also known as Russian Karelia and Finnish Karelia respectively.