Karelian National Okrug (russian: Карельский национальный о́круг, ''Karelsky Natsionalny okrug''), was a territory with special status within

Kalinin Oblast Tver Oblast (russian: Тверска́я о́бласть, ''Tverskaya oblast'', ), from 1935 to 1990 known as Kalinin Oblast (), is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Tver. It was named after Mikhai ...

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. It existed between 1937 and 1939 and was intended to be a

Tver Karelians Tver Karelians are a people who inhabit regions of Tver, Saint Petersburg, and Moscow. Their dialect is remarkable in that it does not borrow from other Balto-Finnic languages due to centuries of geographical isolation. Although the number of Tve ...

autonomy. Its

administrative center An administrative center is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or ...

was located in the

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

Likhoslavl Likhoslavl (russian: Лихосла́вль) is a town and the administrative center of Likhoslavlsky District in Tver Oblast, Russia, located on the Moscow–St. Petersburg Railway, northwest of Tver, the administrative center of the obl ...

. The population of the okrug was 170,000, of which 65% were Tver Karelians.

History

Karelian National Okrug was established on July 9, 1937 by the decree of the

Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union The All-Union Central Executive Committee (russian: Всесоюзный Центральный исполнительный комитет, Vsesoyuznyy Tsentral'nyy ispolnitel'nyy komitet) was the most authoritative governing body of the USSR d ...

. It included four previously established districts of Kalinin Oblast — Likhoslavlsky (with the administrative center in the town of Likhoslavl), Maksatikhinsky (urban-type settlement of

Maksatikha Maksatikha (russian: Макса́тиха) is an urban-type settlement and the administrative center of Maksatikhinsky District of Tver Oblast, Russia, with a population of It is located on the left bank of the Mologa River close to the mouth of ...

), Rameshkovsky ( selo of

Rameshki Rameshki (russian: Рамешки) is the name of several inhabited localities in Russia. Kostroma Oblast As of 2010, two rural localities in Kostroma Oblast bear this name: *Rameshki, Kologrivsky District, Kostroma Oblast, a village in Ilyinskoye ...

), and Novokarelsky (selo of Tolmachi) districts, as well as of the newly established one,

Kozlovsky District Kozlovsky District (russian: Козло́вский райо́н; cv, Куславкка районӗ, ''Kuslavkka rayonĕ'') is an administrativeLaw #28 and municipalLaw #37 district ( raion), one of the twenty-one in the Chuvash Republic, Russ ...

(selo of

Kozlovo Kozlovo (russian: Козлово) is the name of several inhabited localities in Russia. Modern localities Astrakhan Oblast As of 2010, one rural locality in Astrakhan Oblast bears this name: * Kozlovo, Astrakhan Oblast, a '' selo'' in Kozlovsky ...

). The Karelian population of the Okrug was about 95 thousand, whereas about 25 thousand Tver Karelians lived in districts of Kalinin Oblast which were not included in the Okrug. After the creation of the Okrug, a large effort started in creation of a written Tver Karelian language, led by the philologist

Dmitry Bubrikh Dmitri (russian: Дми́трий); Church Slavic form: Dimitry or Dimitri (); ancient Russian forms: D'mitriy or Dmitr ( or ) is a male given name common in Orthodox Christian culture, the Russian version of Greek Demetrios (Δημήτριο ...

. Tver Karelian first used the Latin alphabet, but in September 1937 central authorities ordered that it should be switched to the Cyrillic alphabet. In January 1938, 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 Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...

, Bubrikh was arrested and charged with counter-revolutionary activity. He was sentenced to death, but his sentence was subsequently commuted. Later, other specialists working on the Tver Karelian language, as well as the authorities of the Okrug, were arrested. Most of them were subsequently acquitted. On February 7, 1939 the okrug was abolished, and the districts were subordinated to Kalinin Oblast. During the subsequent changes in the administrative divisions, Novokarelsky District was split between Likhoslavlsky and

Spirovsky District Spirovsky District (russian: Спи́ровский райо́н) is an administrative and municipalLaw #4-ZO district (raion), one of the thirty-six in Tver Oblast, Russia. It is located in the center of the oblast and borders with Maksatikhin ...

s, and Kozlovsky District was split between Spirovsky and Maksatikhinsky Districts. Kalinin Oblast was renamed Tver Oblast. Thus, the former area of Karelian National Okrug is currently split between Likhoslavlsky, Maksatikhinsky, Rameshkovsky, and

References

{{Use mdy dates, date=November 2012 States and territories established in 1937 States and territories disestablished in 1939 Tver Oblast Autonomous okrugs of the Soviet Union