The Continuation War, also known as the Second Soviet-Finnish War, was a conflict fought by Finland and Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union during World War II. It began with a Finnish declaration of war and invasion on 25 June 1941 and ended on 19 September 1944 with the Moscow Armistice. The Soviet Union and Finland had previously fought the Winter War from 1939 to 1940, which ended with the Soviet failure to conquer Finland and the Moscow Peace Treaty. Numerous reasons have been proposed for the Finnish decision to invade, with regaining territory lost during the Winter War regarded as the most common. Other justifications for the conflict include Finnish President Risto Ryti's vision of a Greater Finland and Commander-in-Chief Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim's desire to annex East Karelia.
Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, opposite Estonia. Finland covers a total area of 338,145 square kilometres (130,559 sq mi), including a land area of 303,815 square kilometres (117,304 sq mi), and has a population of 5.6 million. Helsinki is the capital and largest city. The vast majority of the population are ethnic Finns. The official languages are Finnish and Swedish; 84.9 percent of the population speak the first as their mother tongue and 5.1 percent the latter. Finland's climate varies from humid continental in the south to boreal in the north. The land cover is predominantly boreal forest biome, with more than 180,000 recorded lakes.
The Finnish Civil War was a civil war in Finland in 1918 fought for the leadership and control of the country between White Finland and the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic during the country's transition from a grand duchy ruled by the Russian Empire to a fully independent state. The clashes took place in the context of the national, political, and social turmoil caused by World War I in Europe. The war was fought between the Red Guards, led by a section of the Social Democratic Party, and the White Guards, conducted by the senate and those who opposed socialism with assistance late in the war by the German Imperial Army at the request of the Finnish civil government. The paramilitary Red Guards, which were composed of industrial and agrarian workers, controlled the cities and industrial centres of southern Finland. The paramilitary White Guards, which consisted of land owners and those in the middle and upper classes, controlled rural central and northern Finland, and were led by General C. G. E. Mannerheim.
Helsinki is the capital and most populous city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About 682,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.26 million in the capital region and 1.6 million in the metropolitan area. As the most populous urban area in Finland, it is the country's most significant centre for politics, education, finance, culture, and research. Helsinki is 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of Tallinn, Estonia, 360 kilometres (220 mi) north of Riga, Latvia, 400 kilometres (250 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden, and 300 kilometres (190 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia. Helsinki has significant historical connections with these four cities.
Porvoo is a city in Finland. It is located on the south coast of the country, on the Gulf of Finland. Porvoo lies in the eastern part of the Uusimaa region. The population of Porvoo is approximately 52,000, while the sub-region has a population of approximately 60,000. It is the 19th most populous municipality in Finland, and the 15th most populous urban area in the country.
Rovaniemi is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Lapland. It is located near the Arctic Circle in the northern interior of the country. The population of Rovaniemi is approximately 65,000, while the sub-region has a population of approximately 69,000. It is the 17th most populous municipality in Finland, and the 12th most populous urban area in the country.
The Swedish-speaking population of Finland is a linguistic minority in Finland. They maintain a strong identity and are seen either as a separate cultural, ethnic or linguistic group or, occasionally, a distinct nationality. They speak Finland Swedish, which encompasses both a standard language and distinct dialects that are mutually intelligible with the dialects spoken in Sweden and, to a lesser extent, other Scandinavian languages.
Helsingin Sanomat, abbreviated HS and colloquially known as Hesari, is the largest subscription newspaper in Finland and the Nordic countries, owned by Sanoma. Except after certain holidays, it is published daily. Its name derives from that of the Finnish capital, Helsinki, where it is published. It is considered a newspaper of record for Finland.
Järvenpää is a town in Finland, located in the southern interior of the country. Järvenpää is situated in the centre of the Uusimaa region. The population of Järvenpää is approximately 47,000. It is the 24th most populous municipality in Finland. Järvenpää is part of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, which has approximately 1.6 million inhabitants.
Helsinki Cathedral is the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran cathedral of the Diocese of Helsinki, located in the neighborhood of Kruununhaka in the centre of Helsinki, Finland, at the Senate Square. The church was originally built from 1830 to 1852 as a tribute to the Grand Duke of Finland, Emperor Nicholas I of Russia. It was also known as St Nicholas's Church until Finland declared its full independence in 1917. It is a major landmark of the city, and one of the most famous historical structures in Finland as a whole when viewed globally.
From 1941 to 1943, 1,408 Finns volunteered for service on the Eastern Front of World War II in the Waffen-SS, in units of the SS Division Wiking. Most of these volunteers served as motorized infantry in the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS. The unit was disbanded in mid-1943 as the volunteers' two-year commitment had expired and the Finnish government was unwilling to allow more men to volunteer. In 1944-1945 a company sized unit of Finnish defectors recruited to the SS continued fighting alongside Germany.
Uusimaa is one of the 13 electoral districts of the Parliament of Finland, the national legislature of Finland. The district was established as Uusimaa Province in 1907 when the Diet of Finland was replaced by the Parliament of Finland. It was renamed Uusimaa in 1997. It is conterminous with the region of Uusimaa but excludes the municipality of Helsinki which has its own electoral district. The district currently elects 37 of the 200 members of the Parliament of Finland using the open party-list proportional representation electoral system. At the 2023 parliamentary election it had 801,205 registered electors.
The history of the Jews in Finland goes back to the late 18th century. Many of the first Jews to arrive were nineteenth-century Russian soldiers who stayed in Finland after their military service ended. The two synagogues in active use today in Finland were built by Jewish congregations in Helsinki and Turku in 1906 and 1912, respectively. The Vyborg Synagogue was destroyed by Russian air bombings on 30 November 1939, the first day of the Winter War. Today, Finland is home to around 1,800 Jews, of which 1,400 live in the Greater Helsinki area and 200 in Turku. Finnish and Swedish are the most common mother tongues of Jews in Finland, and many also speak Yiddish, German, Russian or Hebrew. Since data collection began in 2008, incidents of antisemitism have been on the rise in Finland. The number of incidents are likely under-reported, as Finland does not have a systematic method for recording specific forms of hate speech that incite violence or hatred.
Russians in Finland or Russian Finns are a linguistic and ethnic minority in Finland. As of 2022, there are 93,535 Russian-speaking people, or 1.7% of population, in Finland. It is the second largest linguistic minority in the country. However, many of Russian-speaking immigrants are ethnically Ingrian Finns and other Finno-Ugric peoples.
Lars Vogt was a German classical pianist, conductor and academic teacher. Noted by The New York Times for his interpretations of Brahms, Vogt performed as a soloist with major orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic. He was the music director of the Orchestre de chambre de Paris at the time of his death and also served as the music director of the Royal Northern Sinfonia. He ran a festival of chamber music, Spannungen, from 1998, and succeeded his teacher Karl-Heinz Kämmerling as professor of piano at the Musikhochschule Hannover.
Immigration to Finland is the process by which people migrate to Finland to reside in the country. Some, but not all, become Finnish citizens. Immigration has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of Finland. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants, settlement patterns, impact on upward social mobility, crime, and voting behaviour.
East Karelian concentration camps were a set of concentration camps operated by the Finnish military administration in the areas of the Soviet Union occupied by Finland during the Continuation War. The camps were intended to hold Russian detainees for future exchange with the Finnic population from the rest of Russia. The mortality rate of civilians in the camps was high due to famine and disease.
Soviet prisoners of war in Finland during World War II were captured in two Soviet-Finnish conflicts of that period: the Winter War and the Continuation War. The Finns took about 5,700 POWs during the Winter War, and due to the short length of the war they survived relatively well. However, during the Continuation War the Finns took 64,000 POWs, of whom almost 30 percent died.
In Finland, the far right was strongest in 1920–1940 when the Academic Karelia Society, Lapua Movement, Patriotic People's Movement (IKL) and Vientirauha operated in the country and had hundreds of thousands of members. In addition to these dominant far-right and fascist organizations, smaller Nazi parties operated as well.
Aarne Emil Kauhanen was a Finnish officer of the Central Detective Police (EK) and its successor, the State Police (ValPo), with special responsibility for aliens in the 1930s and 1940s. During the Continuation War, Kauhanen acted as a liaison between the Finnish and Nazi German police authorities and was involved in the recruitment of the Finnish SS Battalion. He also beat and tortured Jewish refugees during interrogations. After the war, Kauhanen escaped to South America, where he died in unclear circumstances in 1949. According to a memoir, one of his victims recognized and later shot him.
