Paper Short Abstract:

In my ongoing doctoral research on lived religion in Border Karelia in the interwar period, I am working with oral history material on Orthodox traditions collected among Karelian evacuees in 1971. I am looking at memories of the closing of the border between newly independent Finland and Russia/USSR. The motivation for my research, which is also inspired by recent Karelian activism, is to shed light on the little-studied experiences of the Orthodox Karelian minority in the years following Finnish independence in 1917, a period characterized by Finnish nation-building and the Finnicization of the Orthodox Church. Working with multiple temporalities of marginalized memories, I will reflect on my role as a researcher of Orthodox Karelian ancestry. What is my contribution to the field of contested discourses on Karelians, Karelian language revitalization, and navigating a transnational minority in times of rebordering?

Paper Abstract:

In my ongoing doctoral research on lived religion in Border Karelia in the interwar period, I am working with oral history material on Orthodox traditions collected among Karelian evacuees in 1971. I am looking at memories of the closing of the border between newly independent Finland and Russia/USSR. The motivation for my research, which is also inspired by recent Karelian activism, is to shed light on the little-studied experiences of the Orthodox Karelian minority in the years following Finnish independence in 1917, a period characterized by Finnish nation-building and the Finnicization of the Orthodox Church. Working with multiple temporalities of marginalized memories, I will reflect on my role as a researcher of Orthodox Karelian ancestry. What is my contribution to the field of contested discourses on Karelians, Karelian language revitalization, and navigating a transnational minority in times of rebordering?