Talk:East Karelian uprising

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Intervention is intervention[edit]

I have connected the first and the second name of the article therefore the intrusion of finnish interventionists into the territory of the Soviet Russia ocurred also. Civil war for this moment (november 1921) in Russia has ended (for exception of the Far East). There was a government controlled all territory of Russia ((for exception of the Far East)). But even civil war is not the valid reason for foreign intervention and capture of historical territory of the country by foreign troops. The events 1921-1922 were not the internal civil conflict of Russia and they ended with the Agreement between the governments of two countries, the Soviet Russia and Finland. Ben-Velvel 10:24, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you or your references sure, that reason was to capture East Karelian to Finland? In other sources (Niinistö, Jussi: "Heimosotien historia") the reason was to gain attention for East Karelians needs and to gain independence for East Karelia. Kahkonen 10:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And the justification of the rebellion is not our trouble, we only list facts and views. It's ok to say that "from Russian view the conflict was a Finnish intervention and from Finnish view it was uprising of East Karelians who was helped by Finnish volunteers. According to Russian sources there were 5000-6000 Finnish soldiers and according to Finnish sources there were 550 Finnish soldiers and 3000 Karelian metsäsissit forces.(and refs here)" (don't have sources now and don't remember accurate numbers...) But if we write something "it was un-justified intervention by Finnish troops" or if we only write Finnish or Russian view, we violate neutral point of view (ie. listing all significant views). Kahkonen 11:51, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Non-aggression pact was signed btw in 1932[1]. The aggreement you refer could be decicion of League of Nations in which it decided that East Karelia should be autonomous part of Soviet Union.[2]? Kahkonen 11:29, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
East Karelia is a historical part of Russia and the world community (League of Nations) never supported claims of Finland of this region. The agreement to which I refer, is the intergovernmental agreement of Russia and Finland (Agreements between the governments of Soviet Russia and Finland about the measures of maintenance of the inviolability of the Soviet-Finnish border, 21 March 1922). The existence of this agreement proves, that it was the conflict between the states.
Volunteers can be also interventionists. If the Finnish volunteers were representatives of other state (Finland), they were interventionists. ONLY the residents of Russian East Karelia can be considered as rebels.
Whether Finnish soldiers were volunteers or not is completely minor question. (For example the Waffen SS have been formed of volunteers also). More important question. Did operate the Finnish volunteers in interests of the Finnish government? Obviously, yes. The Finnish government would arrest volunteers if did not approve their action.
I do not understand, why you do not like the words "capture of East Karelia". In any case the Finnish volunteers and insurgents should grasp Karelia, separate it from Russia, and then define its further destiny.
The position of the Finnish authors seems to me strange. In their opinion the invasions of Finnish soldiers to Russia is the innocent help to the Karelian relatives ("Kinship Wars"). It turns out, that Russian soldiers can help any slavic brothers too, and the Soviet Karelians could help the Finnish brothers to construct the socialism.Ben-Velvel 16:07, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thank you for answering now. In future, it would be better first write talk and then edit :-) I'll now answer in same paragraph order:
To "East Karelia is..." – I did not write that League of Nations or Haag supported claims of Finland in this case. Claims of Russia they supported (?) or at least didn't take position to this East Karelian question.
"Volunteers can be..."' – In this conflict, there is surely Russian and Finnish view. As you can read, Wikipedias guideline is to write about all views, not to try tell, which of them is "right". Read more: WP:NPOV. So if. If they were representatives of Finnish government. Or were they only private soldiers in order to help East Karelian uprising? I don't say anything about it, I don't have Niinistö's book yet. Btw, my conclusions and my opinions, they are insignificant - but what say Finnish and Russian historians? It's great we can improve articles with both point of view.
"Whether Finnish..." – For that you have to give references (eg this way: Shirokorad, Alexander 2006, page 49: "Finnish government gave guns for soldiers" or whatever it reads in the book. Please give exact sources). Our own conclusions does not have any importance here (see WP:NOR).
"I do not understand..." – Again, it is not about what I or you like. Sources: what say eg. Shirokorad and what say eg. Niinistö. There are surely other historians too (In Finland: Toivo Nygård, Jouko Vahtola).
"The position of the..." – Again.
Kahkonen 17:44, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I found from "Finnish political history" one sentence: "Finland and Soviet Russia signed in summer 1922 border peace agreement." (p.129) In Niinistö's "Heimosotien historia", we can read: "By order of Interior minister Ritavuori border control was tighten and in start of February 1922 transferring ammunition, food and volunteers was prevented almost totally." (p. 258) (I hope you can read and understand my English...). Page 250: "Although official Finland did not support rebellers, there was a risk that war could extend. - - President Ståhlberg as a leader of foreign policy aspired avoid conflict in every way." I'll write to the article something about Finnish view. Kahkonen 15:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

very detailed article in German Wikipedia could be translated into English — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.141.51.132 (talk) 09:10, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there? Where? Kahkonen 09:20, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

5000-6000 Finnish volunteers? That must be a joke. And yes, the German article should be linked with this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikinist (talkcontribs) 16:24, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Overhaul[edit]

As the page is now, it is a bewildering mishmash, almost unreadable coherently. Compared for example to the Finnish article's clear and concise no-nonsense take on the issue, it is quite clear someone has tampered with it and added bits here and there without any heed for the whole. The intention to downplay that this particular East Karelian uprising was the idea of East Karelians themselves after being displeased after a year of bolshevik rule and dissatisfied with the Tartu treaty is all too evident, as is the opinion of blaming Finland for starting the rebellion. A country letting its citizens volunteer as private mercenaries in a conflict abroad has nothing to do with supporting or not supporting. What about various mercenaries, for example those from United States in the Spanish civil war? Was their homeland supporting either faction in any way? Did USA intervene? Germany and Soviet union certainly were as nations. Sadly, this is proof of the now common opinionated and at worst revisionist sabotage on any history concerning certain countries that has now seeped into Wiki as well. Comment added by Joonavainio 22:35, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for polishing my pretty thorough overhaul of this page, dudes and dudesses. I must admit I gawked a bit at my typos and weird stuff when I finally slept after 30 hours straight writing and cross-referencing. I understand apparently some feel the thorough background of what and why Karelians and Finns have a special kindred relationship does not necessarily belong here. And that thing about suddenly 350 000 Karelians "disappearing" when Finns get there is more of a matter of the forties when the genocide was discovered. But it belongs somewhere. Next target: the highly opinionated article on East Karelia. Next time I promise to sleep a bit before submitting. -Joona. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joonavainio (talkcontribs) 12:16, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

AFAIK, dudes only. ;-)
No problem in adding the "kinship feeling" thing (it's already there), just no need to trace it into the stone age.
Genocide accusations are very serious stuff and unless direct evidence of it exists (such as the Soviet documents for the Katyn massacre), it should always be supported with strong sources *and* attributed.
Russia was continuously recognized as a sovereign state at that time - first as the Empire, then as the republic backed by White forces and eventually, as the Soviet state (part). If that older than dirt excuse for a land grab ("no one controls it at the moment, so it's free for the taking!") should be mentioned at all, then only with direct attribution, not as statement of fact. --Illythr (talk) 13:39, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
NP, Illytrh. The last little edits have been done mostly in good faith by both, and now it is more a matter of polishing some details. It is way better to use the discussion page than engaging in a hectic "juupas-eipäs" (yessitis - noitain't) debate on the article itself. My view still stands that Finnish volunteers should be compared to numerous foreign volunteers partaking in the Spanish Civil War or Finnish Winter War, for example. If foreign volunteers were considered a military intervention by their homeland, then Soviets should regard Swedish volunteers (again, for example) as an act of war by the Kingdom of Sweden as well. And this is not a matter of opinion.
Another point I do not agree with is the apparent attempt to whitewash Soviets with the claim that Karelia got its autonomy. Surely you noticed I didn't leave it at all unclear that Finns were not entirely innocent with all that covert ops stuff about Bear's Nest and such. Giving something a title on paper does not mean it has anything to do with reality. Soviet Union still remained a highly centralised (and became even more so) regime. I do not see any criteria of autonomy met in Karelia, nor other "autonomous" states of the "federation". Compare it to the Finnish Grand Duchy autonomy: no own currency, no own army, no own parliament independent of Russian central government, no own laws, no own judicial system, no respect for own language and culture, no autonomous freedom to have free trade and cultural exchange with other countries, etc... Please read the full text on Treaty of Fredrikshamn if you haven't already. I guess you have, but point here being: there is autonomy and there is "autonomy".
As for genocide or mass deportations, you are right I should provide a reference. I will in a few days as I can drag myself into a library. Using internet sources as reference would be a bit lame thing for me to do. To me the fact remains, hundreds of thousands of ethnic East Karelians were not where they should have been when Finnish forces got there in the Continuation War, and in their place were people from different Soviet states. But as I said, I'll provide refs. Anyway, that belongs more to the East Karelia article. I don't know if you can read Finnish, but the Finnish version of the article is wildly different. Not that it actually contradicted anything in the English one. I have no problem with any POV as long as it is based on facts, and also acknowledges a different POV. The problem with the English article is that it is one-sided POV, references to facts are lacking, and does not provide a balanced account on "whodunnit", so to speak.
And one thing I found a bit amusing. Someone had added a ref of Soviet Russian ski troops commanded by one Red Finnish paper pusher who fled to Russian Reds. According to that anecdote, the unit of 200 kids from a military school managed to practically waste the whole Finnish volunteer forces. There are two things here highly suspect and pretty hilarious at the same time. First, 200 student kids against veterans with combat experience from the Civil War. Second: why only Finns? Finns did not fight as separate units, but with East Karelians. Too bad the ref link was 404. If anyone knows more of this, I'd sure like to hear. It sounds too improbable to be true, but sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.
And last but not least: Another man's rebel is another man's freedom fighter. It is not entirely right to label East Karelians as "rebels". From their POV it was the bolsheviks who were rebels and usurpers. In Finland all but diehard "commie haters" have long since ceased to call our civil war a "Red Mutiny" or "The Liberation War" just because Whites happened to win (with admitted military intervention by Germany - not German volunteers). It is a civil war and atrocities on both sides have been acknowledged.
-Joona
P.S. Oh yeah, there are dudesses here, too. My significant other is Karelian. Watch out... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joonavainio (talkcontribs) 09:08, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I might add that the German military aid by its standing army in the end of Finnish civil war is not considered "intervention" by most Finns, as the White Guard asked for help (there is a controversy, though, as some of the Whites opposed asking for German aid). The terms intervention or incursion are a bit hazy, but it does have a ring of active meddling without asking for it. Civil wars are always a bitch when trying to determine who is the "rebel" and who is the incursor. I hope this article stays neutral without labeling anyone as the guilty part. Or on the other hand, both just as guilty. This does not have anything to do with this wiki article in question, but I guess most partaking in the article are military history buffs, this might interest them, if you haven't watched it before. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5v_RziBNOg And the two parts after that. I hope your Flash player is up to date to see the English subs. In part 3/3 I have subs embedded. This is a hypothetical scenario, but it does make it pretty clear Finns do not trust the Russian state. Although the enemy in that "what if" is not directly stated. Nothing I can do about it, but I hope the situation will eventually evolve into mutual trust. This is, of course just talk page talk. Articles should remain as strictly factual as possible. Joonavainio (talk) 12:38, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Volunteers: Note that the Soviet/Russian point of view is clearly marked as such. In any case, sending volunteers to help defend a friendly state is one thing, providing material support to an insurgency in a not-so-friendly one is another. This violates article 2 of the treaty of Tartu, which stipulates that the countries are obliged to conduct "good neighbor relations." I don't have the secondary sources to support this and am too lazy too search for them though, so I removed that part.
On autonomy - well, I have provided two (remarkably Soviet-unfriendly) sources stating that Karelia got a wide degree of cultural autonomy, such as public schools teaching in Karelian, leadership being entirely Finnic (eh, Finnish, actually, but whatever), and being "thoroughly Finnicised" by the mid-1930. This was only until 1938, of course, but the Stalinist crackdown should be described in an article about that period.
On genocide - aha, now we're talking: mass deportations of Karelians did occur in the region at the time, but this is not what this version of the article implicitly claims ("we don't know what happened to them, but look, the Soviets committed genocide, so it must've been it!"). Once you get the sources, it's probably best to add the deportation data to the KASSR and there, rather than here, though.
On the Red Finnish cadets, here are several Soviet accounts of the event in Russian. Apparently, they didn't encounter much resistance in the first place.
About rebels - actually, the word "rebel" has gained a somewhat positive connotation in English lately, what with the noble Rebel Alliance fighting the Evil Empire... That quote originally reads "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" for a reason.
P.S.: I mean, people editing this article. Or does she, too? :-) --Illythr (talk) 14:16, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again. This seems to be an one on now. No prob, as long as we stick to facts and try to understand each other. I try to keep this as brief as possible. First, military material aid was not sent by the Finnish government. The Japanese rifles were sent by the jäger movement. Which is not the same as Finnish government. This is only speculation, but I have a hunch why they were Japanese. Wherever they had been obtained (my guess is from some obscure source from Russo-Japanese war), by being Japanese was probably an attempt to cover traces to the official Finnish Defence Force.

In any case, the more or less covert weapons shipments for operation Bear's Den (yeah I know I called it Nest before) to the East Karelians was before the treaty of Tartu. And as I have referred to history, the Finnish government called it quits after the treaty where RSFSR was recognised and borders were defined.

As for pilkunnussinta (committing sexual intercourse with commas, and a fairly non-obscene term in Finnish) in the treaty of Tartu, I still don't see any clause that makes humanitarian aid and allowing private citizens to volunteer as a violation. Surely you noticed Finnish government explictly prohibited even volunteers crossing the border when the diplomatic relations and interpretation of the Tartu treaty became a thing too hot to handle. I must repeat: is the "intervention" of Swedish volunteers in Winter War a military incursion by the Kingdom of Sweden according to Soviet standards?

As for genocide and / or mass deportations or population transfers, I told you I gotta have a few days to get it exactly right as far as refs are concerned. So just hold your horses, please. Before the proper refs, I won't touch the article.

About the cadets... The anecdote someone put in there several years ago does not claim they were Finnish cadets, but rather implies they were Soviet cadets led by a Finnish defector. Heh, you said you're too lazy to check right now, so I say I am likewise. Thanks for the link anyway. I will check it.

I have no interest beyond trivia in what is positive or negative connotation. I have watched my share of Star Wars to know "rebel" may indeed be a positive connotation. I have also watched Battlestar Galactica with all its episodes of the "resistance" in New Caprica. To that I cannot say anything else than: so what? Any wiki article should be as neutral as possible, but it should also explain in these delicate matters how the belligerents in question were viewed that at the time. That's one reason I used Finnish/Karelian names for places as they did use those then, and at least tried to provide the Russian and Anglic ones in the refs.

No, my significant other is not editing, but she does read these, and naturally has a lot of things to say on this subject. She can read English fluently, but as you prolly know, fluent reading does not guarantee fluent writing. What she wanted me to ask for her, was simply whatchagonna do as a Finn (volunteer, mind you) when East Karelians say: "Ryssät tulloo, auttakaa!" - "The Russkie's a-comin, help us!" I made some pretty lame typos and grammatical errors myself, but I blame sleep deprivation. I can of course ask my Californian, Hungarian and other friends to barge in. But I think we have enough volunteers in this "fight" already ;)

(a rare smiley from me) Take care. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joonavainio (talkcontribs) 15:52, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If material aid is provided specifically to the forces of an armed rebellion (as opposed to it being indiscriminately distributed among the impoverished populace), it's not "humanitarian" anymore. In any case, it's probably best to stick to what the sources say thus avoiding a pointless argument. As I see it, the "Second Soviet-Finnish war" is a relatively recent (1990s) neologism, with the original Soviet name for it being "White Finnish intervention". Here's an article on it by William Pokhlyobkin (also in Russian; apparently, nobody outside of Russia and Finland cares enough to write a comprehensive book about these events).
That source says these cadets were Finnish. Specifically, this page states: January 1922 - a group formed out of Finnish cadets of the International military school under the command of T. Antikainen conducted a 1100km raid along the following route: st. Masel'skaya - Padany - Gongi-navolok - Penega - Reboly - Kimas-lake - Ukhta. Also, the battles the source describes were rather small-scale - they took out three guard posts, circumvented the rest by avoiding roads and surprised the camp, causing most of its inhabitants to panic and flee. This is the most detailed account of the whole thing I could find just by googling around.
On rebels - point is, the word is not a negative description. See rebellion. Insurgents is more accurate as the uprising was rather limited, though. --Illythr (talk) 18:26, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but you seem to miss or disagree on one point there. Weapons shipments were not from Finnish government to begin with, and the ones jäger movement sent were before Tartu and recognising RSFSR as a sovereign nation. So, de facto, Karelians were not rebels then. As is apparent from the article, weapons shipments and support for the project Bear's Den ceased before that, and Sivén was asked to account for the arms he had received so far, and explictly told not to use them in arming Rekola paramilitary troops. Their further fate seems to be unknown, but I suppose they were used anyway. And after Tartu and apparently Soviet Russians getting nervous about the volunteer activity, Finland did not allow volunteers with their weapons and munitions to cross the border anymore. As then it would have been supporting an armed rebellion with military materiel. Or rather letting volunteers to do so. And yeah, before someone (maybe you, doesn't matter) removed the Russian term someone had provided, it was indeed "Finnish incursion/invasion to Karelia". That much I can read Russian assisted with a bot translator. Thanks for more info on Antikainen's ski troops. The way it was represented before this overhaul was as I described in my last post. I'll be glad to do some further research on it. But naturally I could not leave there a suspect anecdote whose ref was a dead link to a webpage with 404. Unfortunately I cannot read Russian more than a little bit without the aid of a machine translation (which is asking for trouble), but I'll take a look at those links just out of curiosity, thanks. As for rebel being negative/positive, argument seems to be pointless. I only wish English had a more neutral word for participants in a civil war. -Joona —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joonavainio (talkcontribs) 07:06, 2 July 2010 (UTC) A minor point I thought of on a smoke break. My POV is East Karelians were resistance fighters as in French Resistance in WW2. Or partisans as in Poland or Yugoslavia etc... Not "partisans" as in the Finnish-Russian wars during WW2, though. Those are a whole different kettle of fish and do not deserve the title partisan. Joonavainio (talk) 07:30, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, nice addition / correction there. I didn't know Uhtua (Ukhta) is now Kalevala. You can prolly understand that sounds a bit amusing. I can't help if someone has changed the name to Kalevala, but the Kalevala in the Finnish "bible" refers to southwestern Finland. Roughly Varsinais-Suomi, Uusimaa, Satakunta and Häme. Pohjola north of it, and Karelia east of it. Savo falls in between Kalevala and Karelia, but I guess it is more Kalevalan than Karelian. Very interesting, and I'd like to know more on why was Uhtua renamed Kalevala and by whose initiative? Joonavainio (talk) 08:26, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm specifically referring to the "humanitarian" aid to the uprising there.
Speaking of anecdotes, check this out, hehe.
On the Russian name - Colchicum removed it and he's right - there doesn't seem to be an established name for these events in modern Russian historiography. Pokhlebkin seems to have coined the term, but he doesn't claim that this was an "official" Finnish intervention (and Shirokorad doesn't have an academic degree in history). Most sources I read/browsed refer to this as a general "White Finnish" ploy, as reflected in the Soviet name.
Yeah, I checked out Ukhta on the map and was surprised with how far those 2500 guys went in achieving the Uraliin dream. Then I saw the disambig. Anyhow, according to this article, the Ukhta region was renamed to Kalevala on 1 June 1935 in commemoration of the 100 year anniversary of the poem that was written down in the town, according to legend. Since the town was the administrative center of the district, it was probably renamed later for the sake of consistency.
Resistance fighters is a WWII term denoting underground armed resistance to foreign occupation. Different type and time. Although I suppose every separatist movement would see itself as "La Resistance" if it's not strong enough to try and overthrow the central authority in a more direct fashion. --Illythr (talk) 11:06, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Heehhh. I hope you understand songs like Uraliin (to the Urals) are mostly jokes. Soldiers always have these jokes, often with dark humour to alleviate battle fatigue, and that song is in fact more self-ironic than propaganda about really wanting to go all the way to Urals. "Itäraja Uraliin" (east border to Urals) is a catch phrase never meant seriously. This is a bit offtopic as it is about the Continuation War 20 years later, but the military leadership of Finland did never want to go further than East Karelia and secure a buffer zone for the inevitable Soviet counterattack. Also notable is that despite German demands, Finland strictly refused to attack or siege Piter. Nor did Finland cut the Murmansk railway. Partly because of humanitarian reasons, partly because USA threatened with a declaration of war. Anyway, boys will be boys, and BTW, Kalinka was one of our favourite songs in the trenches during the trench warfare of 42- early 44. Bit like Lili Marlene was the favourite of soldiers no matter which side they were on. And Germans have been known to sing "It's a long way to Tipperary".
I dunno if you have read (the English translation sucks) the Unknown Soldier by Väinö Linna or seen either of the movies made of it. But it has this pretty hilarious exchange of Soviets blaring propaganda in a megaphone like this:
Sov: "Finnish soldiers, kill your Lapuan officers (Lapua Movement) and join the revolution for the People!"
Finn: "Lapuans are all gone, we have only Laihians now!"
Sov: "Finnish boys, come to us to have bread!"
Finn: "You come here and get your bread buttered!"
As I said, boys will be boys. There is another propaganda jocular song from the Winter War: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pWcVxl9v6Y
Hope you will find it amusing, although the translation is so and so.
As for more serious matters, thank you very much for the links about this "runaway Kalevala". Interesting stuff. Joonavainio (talk) 12:33, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Name of the article[edit]

The topic probably not widely known elsewhere so i doubt there are much non-Finnish or non-Russian texts from it but is there any real basis for naming this article as the Eastern Karelia Uprising and Soviet-Finnish conflict 1921-1922 instead of for example just East Karelian Uprising. That is there does not seem to be much evidence that Finnish state would have been part of the conflict or provided military support after the treaty of Tarto and much less that there would have been state of war between Soviets and Finland at the time. Finnish volunteers participated into it but then again so did in Swedish volunteers in Winter War but i haven't yet seen any documents claiming that it would have been Soviet-Swedish conflict/war or anything (sorta far fetched example but roughly valid)... I know the name of the conflict in Soviet/Russian sources is 'Soviet-Finnish war' (or equivalent) but are there any practical basis for that (as volunteers and humanitarian/non-military supplies rarely seem to count in such matters)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wanderer602 (talkcontribs) 16:29, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's (probably) called "East Karelian Uprising" in Finnish sources and "Soviet–Finnish conflict 1921–1922" in Russian ones. The solution here is to provide an English language source using one of those and adopt it as the article name. --Illythr (talk) 18:58, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Karelian-Bolshevik conflict? The Soviet–Finnish conflict does not give a right picture, as the conflict was probably more anti-bolshevik than pro-Finnish. However, people in Repola and Porajärvi would wanted to join into Finland - but that was probably not the case in most part of the Eastern Karelia. Peltimikko (talk) 21:59, 3 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The title was meant to appease Ben-Velvel, sapienti sat, otherwise see his original research above. Shirokorad? Why not Mukhin? Ok, maybe not that bad, but still, we should base this on something more reputable. Most English-language sources describe it as an uprising/rebellion/insurrection of the Civil War, backed by Finnish volunteers and supplies. No English name has been established, but it is misleading to represent it as a conflict with Finland, because this was merely what it might escalate into. The most common wording in English-language sources (and in some Russian sources too, btw) seems to be the Karelian uprising of 1921-1922. Colchicum (talk) 00:28, 4 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, Pokhlyobkin uses that name too. Anyhow, just provide an English source using "Karelian Uprising" and go right ahead. --Illythr (talk) 00:46, 4 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Let me try to explain as a local (well, not Karelian, but as Helsinki Tavastian pretty close) It is very important for Finns to make the difference between East Karelia and Karelia. In Finnish, Karjala refers to our Karelia that was lost in the WW2 - depending on who you ask, some say "stolen". East Karelia refers to the Viena and Aunus(White and Olonets) Karjala, that never was officially Finnish territory, as I tried to make clear in an earlier version of my take on the article. However, Finns still consider East Karelians as kin. Sure, most Finns consider East Karelia as "belonging with us", but it is rather a kindred land than strictly "our" land. Hence "belonging with us, but not necessarily "belonging to us".
I think calling it Karelian-bolshevik conflict would be an unnecessary complication of things as Karelian is a name for a people in the ethnic and cultural sense, whereas bolshevik is a political ideology. After all, our civil war was a White-Red (red as in bolshevik or bolshevik supported local red guard) conflict. Anglos can call it naturally whatever they want and whatever is their standardised name for it, but in Finnish it is Itä-Karjalan Kansannousu = East Karelian Uprising.
As for reffing different Russian historians, I merely left the refs someone else had made before my military incursion, trusting him/her in good faith to be accurate and honest. Joonavainio (talk) 14:22, 4 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, I don't like the double name either - it makes the lead sentence look awkward. All I ask for is an English history book that uses some kind of definite name for this event so we can use it as well - we can't go inventing names of our own here. --Illythr (talk) 15:39, 4 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not a good source for names but inserting 'East Karelia 1921 1922' to google 'book' search yielded several results. For example:
And several others.. Names include (or imply as there rarely was a set name for the event) 'Karelian uprising', 'East Karelia rebellion' and 'East Karelia Crisis'. But as said nothing really definite or standing out from the rest though 'Karelian uprising' seems to be used slightly more often than the rest. That said the used search term could cause bias to the result. - Wanderer602 (talk) 21:43, 4 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The third one suits me. --Illythr (talk) 22:20, 4 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 21 November 2021[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved to East Karelian uprising, a suggestion for which there was unanimous support. (non-admin closure) Extraordinary Writ (talk) 19:51, 28 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]



East Karelian uprising and Soviet–Finnish conflict of 1921–1922Soviet–Finnish conflict of 1921–1922 – Having two titles for the same thing is kinda redundant. It seems like pro-Finnish sources prefer the more localised naming of 'Karelian Uprising', though to stay neutral, it might be more optimal to use the 'Soviet–Finnish conflict of 1921–1922'. --► Sincerely: Solavirum 14:14, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strongly disagree. The Finnish state (i.e. Finland) was not participant in the conflict which was primarily an anti-Bolshevik uprising. There doesn't appear to be much support for the 'Soviet-Finnish conflict of 1921-22' either. On google search most results point back to this very page. It was the era Soviet history writing which did its utmost to place the emphasis on Finland in the conflict to create the casus belli (and later justify it) for the later actions - so the suggested title is far from neutral. - Wanderer602 (talk) 17:02, 21 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Wanderer602, so, 'East Karelian uprising' fits better? I don't mind this option either. --► Sincerely: Solavirum 06:49, 22 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, it would fit better. In my opinion that is. It is worth noting that ru-wiki refers to this as the Вторая советско-финская война or (per Google Translate) The Second Soviet-Finnish War so it might be a bit contentious. - Wanderer602 (talk) 04:35, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Though you should cite your sources for WP:CONSENSUS and WP:RS's sake. --► Sincerely: Solavirum 06:49, 22 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree (but not strongly) for "Soviet–Finnish conflict of 1921–1922". I acknowledge I'm not too familiar with the topic and I'm mostly working from what's written in the article, but framing an attempt by a group of East Karelian separatists to gain independence from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic [..] aided by a number of Finnish volunteers as solely a conflict between two nation states (as the proposed title, in my view, does) does not seem proper. If East Karelian uprising (either with or without years) is acceptable given any recent'ish Russian scholarship, I'd be inclined to go with that. If it is not acceptable, then I suppose the current paragraph of a heading is at least kinda balancing the viewpoints, even if it's not something I'd ever Google for. -Ljleppan (talk) 09:13, 22 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, because this was not a Soviet–Finnish international conflict. Of the two English-language sources cited in the article, the article “‘Karelian Fever’” only refers to “The Russian and Finnish Civil Wars of 1917 to 1921.” The Ethnohistorical dictionary article “Karelian” just skips past this conflict, and the article “Finn” says “despite their cultural ties to the Russians, most Karelians expressed the desire to become part of Finland. When that did not materialize, Karelian nationalists rebelled against Moscow, but Soviet troops quickly crushed the rebellion.” In light off the latter, I would be okay with moving this to East Karelian uprising or similar. The first article gives some possible English-language sources to check: “On the Civil War see Anatole Mazour, Finland between East and West (Princeton, NJ, 1956), pp. 49–55; D. G. Kirby, Finland in the Twentieth Century (Minneapolis, MS 1979), pp. 40–63; C. Jay Smith, Finland and the Russian Revolution, 1917-1922, (Athens, GA, 1958); Anthony Upton, The Finnish Revolution, 1917–1918 (Minneapolis, MS, 1980); Pekka Kalevi Hamalainen, In Time of Storm: Revolution, Civil War, and the Ethnology Issue in Finland (Albany, NY, 1979); D. G. Kirby, ed., Finland and Russia 1808–1920, from Autonomy to Independence: A Selection of Documents (London, 1975), pp. 143–256.” —Michael Z. 19:45, 22 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I see a overall protest to the first proposal, but general consensus for the uprising option. If no one objects, I'll move the article to "East Karelian uprising". --► Sincerely: Solavirum 05:49, 24 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You should probably wait for someone to close the move request when it expires. It's possible to find consensus for an option other than the one that was originally proposed. (t · c) buidhe 07:55, 24 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.