NARRATION AND RITUAL FORMATION OF DIASPORIC IDENTITY: THE CASE OF SECOND GENERATION KARELIAN EVACUEES

Abstract

The article is based on a case study of second generation Karelian migrants, whose parents had to move to other parts of Finland from the region of Karelia that was ceded to the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. The article poses the question, how long-lived diasporic identities are, and what are the conditions that affect assimilation or maintenance of a diasporic identity. In the Karelian migrants' case, already the first generation was quite successful in integrating with the rest of the Finnish society, and with the second generation, the integration has been practically complete, largely because of a short cultural distance between the evacuees and other Finns. A recent resurgence of interest in their roots by Karelian evacuees or their family members is primarily due to end of the Cold War and the possibility to freely and openly visit Karelia. Visiting Karelia has a ritual-like function for them. To that concrete, bodily experience of going there they can attach the abstract idea that in some ways they are Karelians and thus strengthen the emotional attachment to their roots. In that sense, visiting Karelia can also be described as a pilgrimage.

Key Words:

• Diasporic identity
• narration
• ritual
• Karelia
• Finland
• ethnicity
• pilgrimage

An earlier version of this article was published by the title Second Generation Karelian Migrants: Narrating Belonging and Displacement in Minna Ruckenstein and Marie-Louise Karttunen, eds. On Foreign Ground: Moving Between Countries and Categories. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society. The authors thank all our informants, and Jonathan D. Hill, Marie-Louise Karttunen, Minna Ruckenstein, Thomas M. Wilson, and the anonymous referees for valuable comments.

Notes

1. Richard Stivers (1985) illustrates this well with the changing meaning of drinking among Irish-Americans. According to him, drinking has become a sacred thing for people who cherish their Irish roots. “Thus, at first one drank heavily because one was Irish, whereas now one was Irish because one drank heavily” (Stivers 1985: 124).

2. In the Finnish context, the relocated people are referred to primarily by two terms. One of the terms is evakuoidut (i.e., evacuees), of which there are the colloquial versions evakko (singular) and evakot (plural). The other term is siirtoväki, which can be translated as “displaced people.” The former term is particularly often used when referring to the people in the context of the act of moving out from Karelia, whereas the term siirtoväki particularly refers to people who are already relocated and settled down in the new locations. However, the terms are also used synonymously; the colloquial term evakko may well be used as a reference to the Karelians several decades since the relocation. In this article we use both terms but prefer the term “displaced people,” particularly when talking about the second generation.

3. For an analysis of the construction of the territory of Karelia and its meaning for nation-building and identity construction, see Paasi (1990).

4. To avoid misunderstandings it must be stressed that visiting Karelia has nothing to do with the visitors' religion, whether they belong to the Lutheran or Orthodox churches. In this instance the term “pilgrimage” is used in a metaphorical sense, similar to how Alyssa Howe (2001) uses the concept.

5. On the other hand, if they want to make the claim that Karelia should be returned to Finland, it is not so outrageous politically any more. It has become a matter of rational deliberation, in which the majority ends up thinking that joining Karelia with Finland would create too many problems.