Genocide of the Ingrian Finns

{{Infobox civilian attack

| title = Genocide of the Ingrian Finns

| partof = the population transfer in the Soviet Union and the Great Purge

| image = Map of Ingria and Karelia.jpg

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| caption = Ingria and Karelia Isthmus in 1740s

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| motive = Anti-Finnish sentiment, Sovietization, Russification

| location = Ingria

| target = Ingrian Finns

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| date = 1920s–1930s

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| type = Mass murder, persecution, ethnic cleansing, deportation

| fatalities = 18,800

| victims = 60,000 to 105,000 victims of deportation and imprisonment{{Cite web |title=Historia ja kulttuuri |trans-title=History and culture |url=http://www.inkeri.fi/historia-ja-kulttuuri/ |access-date=24 October 2020 |website=Inkeri |date=28 February 2016 |language=fi |archive-date=19 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210519030657/https://www.inkeri.fi/historia-ja-kulttuuri/ |url-status=live}}{{cite web |first=D. M. |last=Ediev |script-title=ru:Демографические потери депортированных народов СССР |title=Demograficheskie poteri deportirovannykh narodov SSSR |trans-title=Demographic losses of the deported peoples of the USSR |language=ru |location=Stavropol |date=27 February 2004 |publisher=Polit.ru |url=http://polit.ru/article/2004/02/27/demoscope147/ |access-date=23 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230202085648/http://polit.ru/article/2004/02/27/demoscope147/ |archive-date=2 February 2023}}

| perps = {{Flag|Soviet Union}}

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The genocide of the Ingrian Finns ({{Langx|fi|inkeriläisten kansanmurha}}, Izhorian: inkeriläisiin kansaamurha) 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.{{sfn|Reuter|2019|p=}}{{pn|date=June 2025}}{{Sfn|Gild|2007|p=29–30}} In the process, Ingria, in the historical sense of the word, ceased to exist.{{Cite journal |last=Kaisalmi |first=Ahti |date=2018 |title="Neuvostoliitosta suuntautuvasta paluumuutosta ei tarvitse mitään etukäteisselvityksiä" – Inkeriläisten paluumuuton käynnistymisen motiivit ja toteutus ulkoasiainministeriössä vuosina 1990–1991. |url=https://www.utupub.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/146092/Kaisalmi_Ahti_opinnayte.pdf?sequence=1 |journal=Pro Gradu, Department of Philosophy, Contemporary History and Political Science. University of Turku |access-date=24 October 2020 |archive-date=25 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220225012354/https://www.utupub.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/146092/Kaisalmi_Ahti_opinnayte.pdf?sequence=1 |url-status=live}} Before the persecution there were 140,000 to 160,000 Ingrians{{Cite journal |date=2020 |title=Inkeriläiset – unohdetut suomalaiset. |url=https://www.kansallismuseo.fi/uploads/Inkerilaiset-vihko-SUOMI-20-02-05.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=The National Museum of Finland |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211222203459/https://www.kansallismuseo.fi/uploads/Inkerilaiset-vihko-SUOMI-20-02-05.pdf |archive-date=22 December 2021 |access-date=24 October 2020}}{{Cite web |last=Inkeri.ee |title=Inkerinmaan historiaa |trans-title=History of Ingria |url=http://www.inkeri.ee/fi/historiaa/inkerinmaan-historiaa |url-status=deviated |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140108012720/http://www.inkeri.ee/fi/historiaa/inkerinmaan-historiaa |archive-date=8 January 2014 |access-date=24 October 2020 |website=Inkeri |language=fi-fi}} in Russia and today approximately 19,000 (including several thousand repatriated since 1990.{{Cite web |url=https://yle.fi/a/3-7921422 |script-title=ru:Репатриация ингерманландцев во многом изменила Финляндию |title=Repatriatsiya ingermanlandtsev vo mnogom izmenila Finlyandiyu |language=ru |trans-title=The repatriation of the Ingrians changed Finland in many ways |date=10 April 2015 |website=Новости |access-date=22 May 2023 |archive-date=7 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221207210239/https://yle.fi/a/3-7921422 |url-status=live}})

From 1935 onwards, the genocide manifested itself in deportations of entire Ingrian villages, mass arrests and executions, especially in 1937 and 1938 associated with the Great Purge. The reason for the genocide was the skeptical attitude of the Soviet Union towards the Ingrian people due to their close cultural and historical relations with Finland. At the same time, many other ethnic groups and minorities were also persecuted.{{sfn|Reuter|2019|p=134}}

The destruction process targeted at Ingrian Finns was centrally managed and considered. Russian legislation in the 1990s refers to it as genocide. The aim was, in particular, to exterminate the male population. Tens of thousands of Ingrians died due to deportations and in labor camps.{{Cite web |title=Dokumentti Inkerinsuomalaisten kansanmurhasta |trans-title= |url=https://agricolaverkko.fi/review/dokumentti-inkerinsuomalaisten-kansanmurhasta/ |access-date=24 October 2020 |language=fi |archive-date=7 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220407052932/https://agricolaverkko.fi/review/dokumentti-inkerinsuomalaisten-kansanmurhasta/ |url-status=live}} The Ingrian Finns were subjected to total deportation. Over 100,000 Russian Finns were deported en masse without trial, most of whom were Ingrian Finns. Ingria and the border region with Finland experienced ethnic cleansing of Finns during Stalin's regime.{{sfn|Reuter|2023|p=}}{{pn|date=June 2025}}

Background

The Ingrian Finns were mainly independent small farmers in the 1920s and still in the early 1930s with relatively high literacy. They were predominantly Lutheran. Ingria was located in the vicinity of Leningrad, where they formed the second largest ethnic group after Russians in the 1930s. Ingrians were targeted from 1930 onwards. Red refugees who lost the Finnish Civil War took charge in the area. They forced propaganda for collectivization of the agriculture, reported the priests, helped arrest people and harassed Ingrian Finns and "Kulaks".{{sfn|Reuter|2019|p=}}{{pn|date=June 2025}}

In addition to independent farmers, the Soviet regime attacked educated people, such as teachers, as well as religious leadership throughout the Soviet Union. Ingrian Lutheran Church workers were imprisoned, sent to forced labor, deported, and executed. Ingrian churches were converted into clubs and warehouses. Teaching in Finnish was banned in schools in 1937. Ingrian village councils, cultural institutions and magazines were abolished. Ingrian Finns were terrorized and coerced in ways that would now be described by the terms "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing".{{sfn|Reuter|2019|p=134}}

In 1939, the number of Ingrians was recorded to be 115,000.{{Cite web |script-title=ru:Всесоюзная перепись населения 1939 года. Национальный состав населения по регионам России |title=Vsesoyuznaya perepis' naseleniya 1939 goda. Natsional'nyy sostav naseleniya po regionam Rossii |trans-title=All-Union census 1939. Ethnic composition of the population by Russian region |language=ru |url=https://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_nac_39.php?reg=35 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240422235512/https://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_nac_39.php?reg=35 |archive-date=22 April 2024}} In the period of 1929–1931, 18,000 were imprisoned, in 1935 about 7,000 and in 1935–1936, a total of 26,000–27,000 persons were deported. The deported people ended up in working camps and their mortality was high. The deportations were carried out in a hurry and the housing, food and health care of the targeted people were severely deficient.{{sfn|Reuter|2020|p=}}{{pn|date=June 2025}} Between 1929 and 1938, a total of 60,000 Ingrians, half of the Ingrian population, were imprisoned and deported.

Aftermath

During World War II, their homelands fell within combat areas and Ingrian people were once again forcibly deported from their homeland for ethnic reasons by German and Finnish authorities. After the war, Soviet authorities did not allow the 55,000 people who had evacuated to Finland to settle back in Ingria, and instead resettled them in regions of central Russia.{{sfn|Taagepera|2013|p=144|ps=: "When Finland sued for peace, the Soviet Union demanded that the evacuees be 'returned home' whether they wanted to be or not. In December 1944 and January 1945, The Finnish authorities handed 55,773 over to the Soviets, but they never made it home. 'Home' instead meant forced settlements in parts of Russia far removed from Ingria."}} The Soviet Union was silent about the Ingrians and they did not officially exist. It was not until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990 that Russia sought to improve their situation with new legislation. President Boris Yeltsin rehabilitated Russian Finns and some other groups as persecuted peoples. In addition to killings, the concept of genocide included mass deportations. However, the Russian state did little for the victims of the persecution. Few received significant compensation or their property back.{{Cite web |last=Malmi |first=Mia |date=3 November 2023 |title=Anna-Maria Orgolainen, 86, was deported to Siberia as a child on a death train – "I spent most of the year barefoot until I was 10 years old" |url=https://www.apu.fi/artikkelit/siperiasta-palannut-anna-maria-86-paljain-jaloin-10-vuotiaaksi |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231106152815/https://www.apu.fi/artikkelit/siperiasta-palannut-anna-maria-86-paljain-jaloin-10-vuotiaaksi |archive-date=6 November 2023 |access-date=19 June 2025 |website=Apu360 |language=fi}}

According to non-fiction writer Anni Reuter, Stalin's persecution of Finns became a topic of discussion and research in Finland more recently. She believes that the history of various Finnish groups in the Soviet Union is relatively poorly known in Finland. Reuter states that the issue seems to have been taboo for a long time, and has been kept quiet about it in homes and schools. In Reuter's view, this may have been influenced by Finlandization, maintaining good relations with the Soviet Union, and the Cold War. She has emphasized that it is time to bring the large-scale mass deportations and persecutions experienced by Finns into school teaching and public awareness in the nation.{{sfn|Reuter|2023|p=}}{{pn|date=June 2025}}

By 1970, the Ingrian Finn population decreased by 50,000 people, a 43% decline from the 1928 population, which political scientist Rein Taagepera described as a "clear case of genocide".{{sfn|Taagepera|2013|pp=143–144}}

References

=Works cited=

{{Cite book |last=Gild |first=Leonid |url=http://archive.org/details/LeonidGildInkerinSuomalaistenKohtalo2007 |title=Inkerinsuomalaisten kohtalo: Suomalaisten salattu kansanmurha Venäjällä ja sen seuraamukset Venäjällä vuosina 1930-2002 |publisher=Ingrian Cultural Foundation |year=2007 |isbn=978-952-92-2250-6 |trans-title=The fate of the Ingrian Finns: The secret genocide of Finns in Russia and its consequences in Russia in 1930-2002}}
{{Cite book |last=Reuter |first=Anni |date=2019 |chapter=Neuvostovaltaa vastaan – Inkerinsuomalaisten hiljaista vastarintaa 1930-luvulla. |language=fi |trans-chapter=Against Soviet rule – Silent resistance of the Ingrian Finns in the 1930s. |title=Hiljainen vastarinta |trans-title=Silent Resistance |editor1-last=Autti |editor1-first=Outi |editor2-last=Lehtola |editor2-first=Veli-Pekka |url=https://trepo.tuni.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/105315/neuvostovaltaa_vastaan.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y |publisher=Tampere University Press |pages=131–162 |access-date=24 October 2020 |isbn=978-952-359-000-7 |archive-date=27 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201027093923/https://trepo.tuni.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/105315/neuvostovaltaa_vastaan.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y |url-status=live}}
{{Cite journal |last=Reuter |first=Anni |date=2020 |title="Kansaamme pirstotaan" Inkerinsuomalaisten karkotukset ja diaspora Neuvostoliitossa 1930-luvun kirjeissä kuvattuna. |trans-title="Our people are being shattered" The deportations and diaspora of Ingrian Finns in the Soviet Union as described in letters from the 1930s. |language=fi |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344034153 |journal=Historiallinen Aikakusikirja |volume=March 2020}}
{{Cite book |last=Reuter |first=Anni |year=2023 |title=Suomalaiset Stalinin puhdistuksissa |publisher=SKS Kirjat |isbn=978-951-858-491-2 |trans-title=Finns under Stalin's Purges}}
{{cite book |last=Taagepera |first=Rein |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=spouAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT115 |title=The Finno-Ugric Republics and the Russian State |year=2013 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=9781136678080 |lccn=00269170}}

Genocide of the Ingrian Finns

Background

Aftermath

See also

References

=Works cited=

Further reading