One fascist academy’s quest for Greater Finland

The analysis of the diaries shows how the national reunification of kindred people in the Leningrad area was based on the activists of AKS [Academic Karelia Society] ‘re-making national community’, based mostly on the earlier ‘dreams’ originating from ideology shared in the right-wing association in the interwar period in Finland. This was illustrated in how Jussi wrote about his enthusiasm regarding the saving of kindred people on his way to Ingria: “My heart is thrilled with the idea that I am on my way to Ingria of which liberation we dreamed in the school and student unions.”⁷⁴

In practice, the ‘liberation’ of kindred people was illustrated in the processes of national inclusion and exclusion in which mostly Ingrian Finns, Izhorians, and, in some cases, Votic people were segregated from the residents who were regarded as ethnic Russians. Remaking this national community outside the borders of the Finnish state had already [been] planned in the AKS ideology during the interwar period.

Although the ideology of kindred people was not clearly considered a practice of unifying racially accepted individuals to the ethnically unified nation ‘Volk’, the practices of remaking the national community reflected the idea of setting kindred people free from the enemy state and connecting them to the national body by gathering them together and bringing them back to the ‘fatherland’. Jussi and his co-workers were involved with the ethnic segregation processes in Ingria, which were often blurry⁷⁵ and sometimes hardly based on official agreements with the Germans.

In the Kattila district, there is no one, like Major Sperling, to take care of German affairs. He would have looked after the interests of the Ingrians, even if there were hardly any Finns in Hatsina. Here, the Germans do not know the special regulations concerning the evacuees and the agreements between the states, and it is difficult to get them sympathize with the transfer. The technical performance of the transfer and the agreements between the states are strange to me. I took the necessary papers from the folders and familiarized myself with them. While Sirkiä stayed in Kattila to segregate the Finns from the Russian transports, and I left by car to organize the Finnish and Izhorian transports.⁷⁶
15.11.1943 Komsekina, Konnunkylä

According to Jussi’s report, it seemed [that] the Germans acting at the grassroots level in wartime actions were unfamiliar with the AKS ideology behind the transfer and the ethnic practices regarding the segregation processes. In contrast, Jussi and his Finnish colleagues were unfamiliar with the official transfer protocol; however, they selected Ingrian Finns and Izhorian people from Russians—a practice based on the AKS ideology of kindred people and the Finnish race.

The main mission of the Finnish AKS activists was to gather Finno-Ugric people for the transfer, although they hardly knew about the ‘agreements between the states.’ The Finnish actors are represented as an ethnically uniting force, gathering all the possible [suffering] members of the national community.

Typically, AKS members, such as Jussi, acted like legal authorities in the [Axis]-occupied area, using politically and religiously motivated reasoning to make the local Finno-Ugric people favourable to the transfer. For instance, at the beginning of the transfer, the Finnish AKS activists and individuals near the AKS ideology spread the religious message and the spirit of AKS in the Lutheran confirmation festivities celebrated with Ingrians in the villages.

[Katri] Korhonen and [Albert] Hämäläinen and his wife had come to the confirmation ceremony in the Niemi’s truck, on which we sang hymns and Finnish hymns while driving through Russian villages. I believe that the AKS’s march⁷⁷ and Kytösavun aukeilla mailla ⁷⁸ never echoed in these lands before.⁷⁹
13.6.1943 Hatsina

These writings illustrated how Jussi’s preaching in confirmation ceremonies was intertwined with spreading right-wing nationalist ideology, such as by singing songs that included resistance towards the historical Russian persecutor as well as clearly political messages based on the extreme right-wing ideology and culture related to building Greater Finland with other politically like-minded Finnish people.

In many contexts in different parts of Ingria, the diaries illustrate well how the Lutheran services were utilized to shape the local people’s political opinions and to stimulate their willingness to leave their homes to ‘repatriate’ to Finland. Lutheran churches and other public and private spaces were used to preach the ‘gospel of Greater Finland’ and racial reunification to the local people. The ‘home’ of all Finno-Ugric people in Ingria and Karelia had already been ideologically and politically built and established during the interwar period.

In AKS ideology, suffering Ingrian Finns, Votic, and Izhorian people desired to become members of the national body — the national community that would become racially unified. However, according to the ideology concerning the national body, the members of the body seemed to be hierarchically organised in various ways in different periods.

Before the transfer, [an Axis] authority, Major Jaening, told Jussi that Ingrians were the most civilised, trustworthy, and purest population in the occupied area.⁸⁰ Specifically after his arrival to Ingria, Jussi made enthusiastic notions of some Finnish families based on their positive attitudes and supporting actions towards the Finnish state.

I also visit the agronomist Lohi’s home where they share the strong Finnish national spirit. During the Winter War, many people prayed for Finland and sent us economic support.⁸¹
4.4.1943 Narva

As the sequence from the diary illustrates, the positive writings concerned Finnish Lutheran residents in Ingria who had been politically, economically, and religiously active in supporting Finland during the wars, for instance. Jussi also appreciated Ingrian Finns’ national feelings and expressed interest in Finland.

However, Jussi’s diaries also show how disappointed AKS activists were in the local population in many ways, specifically at the end of the transfer when kindred people were unwilling to leave their homes after the [Axis] had given the evacuation order. Many local people resisted the ‘national reunification’, specifically in the second phase of the transfer, by fleeing to the forests⁸² and pretending they were ethnically Russians.⁸³

Jussi wrote that he continued his ‘preaching’ related to evacuation after the Lutheran ceremonies. His attitude was paternalistic, specifically towards orthodox Izhorian women who often resisted the transfer operation in a variety of ways.

After the [Lutheran] service held in Komsekina a couple of weeks ago, the Lutherans of Komsekina have no longer doubted the evacuation. On the other hand, old Izhorian [Orthodox] women still didn’t really understand their situation and didn’t want to pack their belongings. I had to preach to them for a long time. Men began to understand their own best. But women are hopeless. Even though the evacuation order had already been given, they couldn’t take it seriously.⁸⁴
15.11.1943 Komsekina, Konnunkylä

The diary reveals repeating ethnic and gender differences concerning the local people’s attitudes towards the ‘national reunification’ implemented by the AKS activists. Clearly, many local Finno-Ugric individuals, families, and communities did not understand and support the ideologies that had spread to the Ingrian villages.

Moreover, the enemy of national unity and solidarity⁸⁵ were the Ingrian ways of forming communities like kettles.⁸⁶ Jussi’s diaries condemned Ingrians for their ‘cattle spirit’⁸⁷ and ‘group thinking’⁸⁸. The cattle spirit of Ingrians seemed to be the opposite of the morally accepted national unity and solidarity typical among AKS members.

The Russian and Ingrian nature is hard to understand without considering the strange village communities. People are thinking and acting “according to the cattle spirit”. [– –] Belonging to the village community has forced people to act as villages. However, it has not developed real solidarity but the cattle spirit.⁸⁹
8.4.1943 Jaama