Karjalan Liitto (in English: ''Karelian Association'') is a Finnish organisation that promotes Karelian culture and history. It also functions as an interest group for Karelian evacuees. As of 2023, the organization consists of 14 districts in

Finland 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, ...

, cooperating with other Karelian movements and organisations.

History

The association was established by Karelian local governments, parishes and provincial organizations on 20 April 1940, immediately after the

Winter War The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peac ...

. The chief aim was to attend to the interests of Karelians who had lost their homes. By the 1960s, the organization started to focus on preservation of the Karelian culture, by that point most of the economic and social problems faced by resettled Karelians were addressed. The Karelian Association has close ties to the

Finnish government The Finnish Government (; ; ) is the executive branch and cabinet of Finland, which directs the politics of Finland and is the main source of legislation proposed to the Parliament. The Government has collective ministerial responsibility an ...

and the

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. The organization had an official

magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...

Karjala Lehti, which stopped being published in September 2022, but there are plans to restart printing in 2023. In 2023, Karjalan Liitto was contacted by a Karelian nationalist organisation, which wanted to cooperate with the movement in order to return Karelia back to Finland. The movement refused the offer, seeing it as a Russian information attack.

Goals

* Preservation of Karelian culture * Displaying Karelian culture * Cross border cooperation ( frozen) * Promotion of Karelianism * Cooperation with other Karelian organizations Some members of Karjalan Liito supported a peaceful return of Karelia, but as of 2023, the movement is against border changes with

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

References

History of Karelia {{Authority control