Constructing Familiarity in Finnish--Russian Karelia: Shifting Uses of History and the Re-Interpretation of Regions

This paper will present evidence of regionalization processes taking shape in “Finnish--Russian” Karelia based on the construction of “familiarity”. This region-building strategy harks back to the well-known Euroregion model developed within the context of European integration. However, if Euroregions can be seen as largely public sector projects of “place-making” the construction of familiarity is a much more socially grounded process. The major shift under consideration is that of transcending the national appropriations of Karelia that have characterized Finnish, Russian and Soviet policies in the past. The focus will be on two aspects: (1) notions of a common regional space in order to promote cross-border co-operation and (2) the re-framing of history and the influence of tourism in developed multifaceted (partly post-national) regional ideas of Karelia. Rather than understand Karelia within the framework of nationalizing historiographies, these contemporary interpretations depict Karelia as a borderland—as a space of cultural and historical ambiguity marked but not dominated by alternating phases of Russification, Finnishization and Sovietization.