Aina "Aino" Aleksandra Forsten, née Rainio (2 April 1885 – 27 November 1937), was a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...

and educator. She was a member of the

Parliament of Finland The Parliament of Finland ( ; ) is the unicameral and supreme legislature of Finland, founded on 9 May 1906. In accordance with the Constitution of Finland, sovereignty belongs to the people, and that power is vested in the Parliament. The ...

for the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Fo ...

from 1916 to 1918. After the 1918

Finnish Civil War The Finnish Civil War; . Other designations: Brethren War, Citizen War, Class War, Freedom War, Red Rebellion and Revolution, . According to 1,005 interviews done by the newspaper ''Aamulehti'', the most popular names were as follows: Civil W ...

, Forsten fled to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

where she was executed during the

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...

in 1937.

Life

Early years

Forsten was born in a poor peasant family in the

Southwest Finland Southwest Finland, calqued as Finland Proper ( fi, Varsinais-Suomi ; sv, Egentliga Finland), is a region in the southwest of Finland. It borders the regions of Satakunta, Pirkanmaa, Tavastia Proper (Kanta-Häme), Uusimaa, and Åland. The reg ...

municipality of

Maaria Maaria (''S:t Marie'' in Swedish) is a former municipality of Finland in what is now the northern part of the city of Turku. The area has been inhabited since the Iron Age, and it became an important village in the 15th century with the construct ...

. After primary school, she lived in

Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...

and joined the Social Democratic Party in 1904. Two years later Forsten moved to Pori, where her brother Jussi Rainio was a newspaperman for the local labour press. Forsten first worked as a saleswoman, but was soon hired as an agitator for the Social Democrats. She became one of the leading socialists in the Pori area, and was best known of her work for the labour women and their families. In 1909 Forsten married the mail carrier Kaarlo Verner Forsten (1885–1956), who was also a member of the Social Democratic Party.

The Civil War and life in the Soviet Union

Forsten was elected to the Parliament of Finland in the 1917 election from the electoral district of

Satakunta Satakunta (in both Finnish and Swedish, ) is a region ( / ) of Finland, part of the former Western Finland Province. It borders the regions of Southwest Finland, Pirkanmaa, South Ostrobothnia and Ostrobothnia. The capital city of the region ...

. During the 1918 Civil War, Forsten was a member of the

Central Workers' Council of Finland Central Workers' Council of Finland ( fi, Työväen pääneuvosto, sv, Arbetarnas centralråd) was the legislature of the Red side of the 1918 Civil War of Finland. It was appointed by the Workers' Council of People's Representatives to serve as ...

. Her husband stayed in Pori as one of the local

Red Guard Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard le ...

leaders. After the war, the

Whites White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view. Description of populations as ...

started executing the Red leaders and the Forsten family decided to flee to

Soviet Russia The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...

.Lintunen, Tiina: ″Punaisten naisten tiet: Valtiorikosoikeuteen vuonna 1918 joutuneiden Porin seudun naisten toiminta sota-aikana, tuomiot ja myöhemmät elämänvaiheet″, p. 213–214. University of Turku, 2015. . In July 1918, they settled in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, where Forsten worked as an accountant for the

Communist Party of Finland The Communist Party of Finland ( fi, Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue, SKP; sv, Finlands Kommunistiska Parti) was a communist political party in Finland. The SKP was a section of Comintern and illegal in Finland until 1944. The SKP was banned ...

. The party was established by the Red refugees in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

in August 1918. In 1920 Aino and Verner Forsten moved to Soviet Karelia. Aino Forsten worked as an adult educator in Petrozavodsk and

Kalevala The ''Kalevala'' ( fi, Kalevala, ) is a 19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling an epic story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and ...

and later as the head of the Petrozavodsk Finnish school for girls in 1930–1936. Verner Forsten was the Vice-Minister of Economy of the

Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic The Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic ( rus, Каре́льская Автоно́мная Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респу́блика, r=Karelskaya Avtonomnaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respub ...

and the chairman of the Kalevala County Council.

Death

Aino and Verner Forsten were arrested during the

in July 1937, accused of counter-revolutionary nationalist action. Verner Forsten was sentenced to 8 years of forced labour, but Aino Forsten received a death sentence in November 1937 and was immediately executed. Her husband survived the

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...

n labour camps and was released from Krasnojarsk in 1946. Aino and Verner Forsten were rehabilitated after

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

's death in 1955.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Forsten, Aino 1885 births 1937 deaths People from Turku People from Turku and Pori Province (Grand Duchy of Finland) Social Democratic Party of Finland politicians Communist Party of Finland politicians Members of the Parliament of Finland (1916–17) Members of the Parliament of Finland (1917–19) Finnish educators People of the Finnish Civil War (Red side) Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic people Great Purge victims from Finland Executed Finnish women Finnish socialist feminists Soviet rehabilitations