Karelia - Russian Scandinavia

Karelia, the land of the Karelian peoples, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Finland, Russia, and Sweden. It is currently divided between the Russian Republic of Karelia, the Russian Leningrad Oblast, and Finland.

Interesting to trace the origins of current Finnish design in Eastern Karelia, which now is part of Russia. This is the place we are visiting this summer (2013) in search of handcrafts, so please let me know if you would like join into this mini expedition!

After Finland got its independence from Russia, the country was looking for motifs to become their national identify and they looked no further then the Eastern part of Karelia, now Russia. This explains a lot of intervention between the Northern Russia and Finnish arts and crafts.

Here is an extract from the book 'Finnish Design' and on the origins of Finnish design and how Finnish national idenity was developed through crafts and arts, primarily found in Karelia.

Finnish Design by Pekka Korvenmaa, 2009

p.31 [...] Fanny Churberg (1845-1892) was one of the charter members of the society (Friends of Finnish Handicraft Society, founded in 1879) and its leading figure until her death. She rejected her former career as a renowned painter and concentrated for the rest of her life on creating a national style, with woven textiles in particular as her medium. Appreciation of national motifs and their adaptation to contemporary needs were associated with the so-called national awakening that had emerged earlier. The cultural and literary symbol and flagship of the nationalist ideology that it engendered was the Kalevala folk poetry epic, originally published in 1835. Now, the impulses of the heritage of vernacular material culture became involved. Its most prominent re-interpretations were to be created in the 1890s and around the turn of the century.

The Friends of Finnish Handicraft first began to copy 'ancient Finnish' and mainly Finnish, Karelian, motifs. In this respect, it opened the way for the Karelianism that made a deep imprint on cultural life in Finland towards the end of the century. Copies gradually made way for new interpretations, combining folk heritage with the latest trends in applied art. [...]

p.33 [...] The quest for the 'Finnish' national, style that was regarded as important remained the task of visual artists and architects in the 1890s. [...]