Albisteak
The Karelian Language Nest
In the Russian Federation's far northwest, nested within the northern shores of Ladoga and Onego, Europe's two largest lakes, the White Sea's western seaboard, the southern stretches of the Kola Peninsula and the over 700 Km-long international border with Finland to the west, lies the autonomous Republic of Karelia. This land is known as "the country of lakes" for the over 60,000 inland bodies of water that dot the 180,000 square kilometers of a territory twice the size of Portugal.
Karelia is also the original home of the Karelians, a community numbering 45,000 people among the region's total population of over 700,000. And is the cradle of Karelian, a language related to Finnish and subdivided into three linguistic varieties.
Under the Soviet Union the Karelian language was never official; the former system however, did officially recognize both Russian and Finnish. The soviet regime deemed Karelian a dialect of Finnish and as such chose to teach in schools the standard language spoken in Helsinki.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Karelia was recognized as an autonomous republic within the larger post-soviet Russian Federation, meaning there is some extent of devolution from the central government, but the head of the local authority is appointed by Moscow. With the new regime, the soviet-era linguistic balance flew to pieces, the teaching of Finnish was terminated, but Karelian did not gain official status in Finnish's stead. Efforts to make Karelian co-official with Russian failed to pass by a mere two votes at the local legislative in the regional capital Petrozavodsk in the 1990s.
In the wake of these events a group of Karelian students reading Baltic languages and Finnish culture at university decided to set up Nuori Karjala (New Karelians), an association to "promote and develop Karelian language and culture in Karelia". Alyna Chuborova, Nuori Karjala's chairperson thinks that if serious efforts in favor of Karelian are not made, the language will virtually disappear in 10 years: «Only 50% of a total of 45,000 people of Karelian origin still speak Karelian and the great majority of those who do speak it, are seniors», says Chuborova.
One encouraging initiative is the Karelian Language Nest. Launched just two years ago with the financial support of NGOs from Finland, it consists of a network of full-immersion Karelian-language primary schools. The Karelian Language Nest is an encouraging first step, but according to Ms Chuborova it cannot go far enough: «What we need is the official recognition of Karelian; otherwise the local government will not feel obliged to act for the defense and promotion of the language».
As precedents of official bilingualism do exist in other autonomous regions of the Russian Federation, the case for Karelian is not a lost cause in post-soviet Russia. The Karelian speakers spawned in the Language Nests could spread their wings in the skies of an officially bilingual Karelia, lest the "country of lakes" loses its native tongue.
Robert Scarcia
Journalist
