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After the beginning of World War II, mass rallies were held on the territory of the republic, at which the inhabitants of Karelia declared their readiness to stand up for the defense of the Soviet Union.
There were Karelian-speaking Karelians living in the easternmost parts of Finnish Karelia, known as "Border Karelia" (Raja-Karjala). As Finland had to cede parts of Karelia to the Soviet Union in World War II, evacuated Karelians and Finnish Karelians settled elsewhere in Finland.
At the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, the Soviet Union attacked Finland, thus starting the Winter War. The Treaty of Moscow, signed in 1940 , handed a large portion of Finnish Karelia to the Soviet Union, and over 400,000 people had to be relocated within Finland.
The Karelians, however, differ from both the Russians and the Finns in language and from the Finns also in religion. Location. Prior to World War II, the Finnish Karelians lived chiefly in Border Karelia, in eight districts along the northeastern shore of Lake Ladoga.
After the war, the inhabitants of the areas ceded to the Soviet Union, including Border Karelians, were resettled in other parts of Finland. The traditional areas of different Karelian varieties are shown in Map 16.1 ; Map 16.2 shows the resettlement of Border Karelian evacuees in Finland.
World War. The closure of the state border has promoted the periph-eralization of the Russian as well as the Finnish sides of Karelia, and has deprived the region of any specific features of its own (cf. Paasi, 1996; Eskelinen, 1996). The Karelian question, more particularly, refers to the Karelia of
The Republic of Karelia is one of Russia’s 85 federal subjects and has the longest border with a Western country, namely, Finland, which has two Karelian prov - inces. Present-day Karelia includes areas seized from Finland during the Second World War. Among Russia’s six western border regions, Karelia is the only ethni-cally-based unit.
