Mental Walls and the Border: Local Identity Construction in Sortavala

Abstract

This article attempts to examine local identity formation in a border town in the Soviet and post-Soviet era. Exploring new critical geopolitical approaches and analyzing discourses, the article utilizes newspaper and archive material. The main focus is on the activity of the local political elite aiming at constructing a homogenous Soviet identity in a particular place. The article also analyzes how post-Soviet geopolitical realities, the national identity crisis and liberalized border regime have impacted these processes

Notes

“пусть он землю бережет родную, а любовь Катюша сбережет (М. Иссаковский 1938). This is a line from a song with lyrics written by Mikhail Issakovski. The translation is “It is him (a border-guard) who saves/protects/defends the Homeland, as to saving of love it is a duty of his girlfriend Katjusha”.

National Archive of Karelian Republic.

In the Soviet context various sport events had an ideological sense or were aimed at patriotic and military education. I refer here to these kinds of activities: races, competitions etc. In particular, Toivo Antikainen was a military hero of with the so called “white Finns” during the Civil war. So that ski race referred to an activity devoted to his memory.

In both the Soviet and Russian contexts there are two categories of ethnic Finns: those who emigrated from Finland and North America and those whose ancestors moved to Russia from Finland many centuries ago (like French people in Quebec). The first category was closer to Finland in terms of language and culture, the latter one had closer ties with Russian culture. Since the immigrant community was relatively small I emphasize here that its role in the town was significant, because many of them were teachers and held other important positions.

Out of 57 publications in the period 1998–2002, 31 discussed the border regime.

Безопасность и сотрудничество в новых границах России; see Vardomski and Golunov 2002.