Karjalased, karjala keel ja Karjala keeleseadus
Karelians, Karelian and the Karelian language law

Summary/Abstract: Amongst the Fennic peoples the Karelians are numerically in third place after the Finns and the Estonians. The last decade there has been much talk of the Karelians and the Karelian language dying out. Till the 1920’s, however, their number increased: in 1835 there were 171 695 Karelians in Russia, in 1897 there were 208 101, in 1926 there were 248 120 Karelians in the Soviet Union. The reforms initiated in the 1920’s in the Soviet Union — industrialisation, urbanisation and collectivisation — had a ruinous effect on Karelian village society, which had been in existence for centuries. At the same time workers from all other regions of the Soviet Union arrived in large numbers in Karelia. The common language of these workers was Russian. Due mostly to immigration the share of Karelians in the autonomous republic was in 1989 only a fourth of what it was in 1928. The concept ‘Karelian’ no longer denotes both ‘the Karelian language’ and ‘Karelian speaker’, as a large number of Karelians do not speak Karelian any more.

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