Deportations of the Ingrian Finns were a series of mass deportations of the Ingrian Finnish population by Soviet authorities. Deportations took place from the late 1920s to the end of World War II. They were part of the genocide of the Ingrian Finns.
Lutheran Finns had lived in Ingria for over 400 years, since the period of Swedish rule. They had immigrated there from Finland and the Karelian Isthmus and eventually started referring to themselves as Ingrian Finns. [1] [2] In 1919 the population of the Ingrian Finns was 132,000 in Ingria and an additional 10,000 in Petrograd. The Finnish-Soviet peace treaty of 1920 had granted Ingrian Finns a degree of national autonomy. A national district was formed in 1928 and Finnish was used in schools, radio and administration. [3]
Soviet repression of the Ingrian Finns started at the same time as the forced collectivization in the Soviet Union in 1928. Between 1929 and 1931 Soviet authorities deported 18,000 people from areas near the Finnish border, consisting of up to 16% of the total Ingrian Finnic population. All remaining Finns in four border parishes were deported in 1936 and replaced with Russians. In 1937 all Finnish-language schools, publications, broadcasts, and Ingrian Lutheran churches were closed down. [3] During the 1937–1938 Finnish Operation of the NKVD, 4,000 Ingrian Finns were shot and over 10,000 deported to prison camps. [4] By 1939 the Ingrian Finnish population had decreased to about 115,000, [5] which was about 10% reduction compared to the 1926 population figures [6] and the Ingrian Finn national district was abolished. [1]
Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the Leningrad Blockade, in early 1942 all 20,000 Ingrian Finns remaining in Soviet-controlled territory were deported to Siberia. Most of the Ingrian Finns living in German-occupied territory were evacuated to Finland in 1943–1944. After Finland sued for peace, it was forced to return the evacuees. [3] Soviet authorities did not allow the 55,733 people who had been handed over to settle back in Ingria, and instead deported them to central regions of Russia. [3] [7] The main regions of Ingrian Finns forced settlement were the interior areas of Siberia, Central Russia, and Tajikistan. [8]
The deportations led to the rapid ethnic assimilation of Ingrian Finns. After 1956, return to Ingria was officially allowed but made unfeasible in practice; as a result, many settled in the nearby Finnic regions of Estonia and Karelia. In 1989 there were 18,000 Finns in Ingria and Leningrad, and a total of 67,813 in the Soviet Union, with only 34.7 percent declaring Finnish as their main language. Ingrian and other Finns were not differentiated in the official census. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, attempts began to revive Ingrian Finnish cultural life in Ingria, but at the same time, many of them moved to Finland. [3]
The Demographics of Kyrgyzstan is about the demographic features of the population of Kyrgyzstan, including population growth, population density, ethnicity, education level, health, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects of the population. The name Kyrgyz, both for the people and the country, means "forty tribes", a reference to the epic hero Manas who unified forty tribes against the Oirats, as symbolized by the 40-ray sun on the flag of Kyrgyzstan.
Ingria is a historical region in what is now northwestern European Russia. It lies along the southeastern shore of the Gulf of Finland, bordered by Lake Ladoga on the Karelian Isthmus in the north and by the River Narva on the border with Estonia in the west. The earliest known indigenous European peoples of the region are the now mostly Eastern Orthodox Izhorians and Votians, as well as the Ingrian Finns who descend from the Lutheran Finnish immigrants who settled in the area in the 17th century, when Finland proper and Ingria were both parts of the Swedish Empire.
Votic, or Votian, is the language spoken by the Votes of Ingria, belonging to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. Votic is spoken only in Krakolye and Luzhitsy, two villages in Kingiseppsky District in Leningrad Oblast, Russia, and is close to extinction. In the 2020-2021 Russian census, 21 people claimed to speak Votic natively, which is an increase from 4 in 2010. Arvo Survo also estimated that around 100 people have knowledge of the language to some degree.
The Izhorians, are a Finnic indigenous people native to Ingria. Small numbers can still be found in the western part of Ingria, between the Narva and Neva rivers in northwestern Russia. Although in English oftentimes sharing a common name with the Ingrian Finns, these two groups are distinct from one another.
Votians, also referred to as Votes, Vots and Vods are a Finnic ethnic group native to historical Ingria, the part of modern-day northwestern Russia that is roughly southwest of Saint Petersburg and east of the Estonian border-town of Narva. The Finnic Votic language spoken by Votians is close to extinction. The language is still spoken in three villages of historical Votia and by an unknown number of speakers in the countryside. The villages are Jõgõperä (Krakolye), Liivcülä (Peski), and Luuditsa (Luzhitsy). In the Russian 2020 census, 99 people identified as Votian.
Udmurtia, officially the Udmurt Republic, is a republic of Russia located in Eastern Europe. It is administratively part of the Volga Federal District. Its capital is the city of Izhevsk.
The Ingrians, sometimes called Ingrian Finns, are the Finnish population of Ingria, descending from Lutheran Finnish immigrants introduced into the area in the 17th century, when Finland and Ingria were both parts of the Swedish Empire. In the forced deportations before and after World War II, and during the genocide of Ingrian Finns, most of them were relocated to other parts of the Soviet Union, or killed. Today the Ingrian Finns constitute the largest part of the Finnish population of the Russian Federation. According to some records, some 25,000 Ingrian Finns have returned or still reside in the region of Saint Petersburg.
Ingrian, also called Izhorian, is a nearly extinct Finnic language spoken by the Izhorians of Ingria. It has approximately 70 native speakers left, all of whom are elderly.
The Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Karelian ASSR for short, sometimes referred to as Soviet Karelia or simply Karelia, was an autonomous republic of the Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, with the capital in Petrozavodsk.
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The genocide of the Ingrian Finns was a series of events triggered by the Russian Revolution in the 20th century, in which the Soviet Union deported, imprisoned and killed Ingrians and destroyed their culture. In the process, Ingria, in the historical sense of the word, ceased to exist. Before the persecution there were 140,000 to 160,000 Ingrians in Russia and today approximately 19,000