ProKarelia is a Finnish fringe

irredentist Irredentism is usually understood as a desire that one state annexes a territory of a neighboring state. This desire is motivated by ethnic reasons (because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to the population of the parent st ...

group that works for the return to

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

Finnish Karelia Karelia ( fi, Karjala) is a historical province of Finland which Finland partly ceded to the Soviet Union after the Winter War of 1939–40. The Finnish Karelians include the present-day inhabitants of North and South Karelia and the still-sur ...

, Petsamo,

Salla Salla (''Kuolajärvi'' until 1936) ( smn, Kyelijävri) is a municipality of Finland, located in Lapland. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . The nearby settlement of ...

and some islands in Gulf of Finland ceded 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, ...

in past treaties 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 ...

and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

(See Karelian question in Finnish politics). As a preliminary goal the group hopes to overturn the articles of the

Paris Peace Treaty The Paris Peace Treaties (french: Traités de Paris) were signed on 10 February 1947 following the end of World War II in 1945. The Paris Peace Conference lasted from 29 July until 15 October 1946. The victorious wartime Allied powers (princi ...

of 1947 and remove Finnish responsibility in starting the

Continuation War The Continuation War, also known as the Second Soviet-Finnish War, was a conflict fought by Finland and Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944, as part of World War II.; sv, fortsättningskriget; german: Fortsetzungskrieg. A ...

. ProKarelia strives to make the

Karelian question The Karelian question or Karelian issue ( fi, Karjala-kysymys, ) is a dispute in Finnish politics over whether to try to regain control over eastern Finnish Karelia and other territories ceded to the Soviet Union in the Winter War and the Conti ...

better known. According to the organization itself, ProKarelia's ideas do not include aggressive actions, nor do the association participate in

demonstrations Demonstration may refer to: * Demonstration (acting), part of the Brechtian approach to acting * Demonstration (military), an attack or show of force on a front where a decision is not sought * Demonstration (political), a political rally or prote ...

. ProKarelia publishes Internet pages in eight languages. It mails articles to decision-makers all over the world. ProKarelia also publishes the ''Karelia Klubi'' journal four times a year. They also published magazine ''Karjalan Kuvalehti''. ProKarelia's chairman was Heikki A. Reenpää (†2020). Their general secretary is Veikko Saksi who keeps blogs in various Finnish blogging sites and posts articles from ProKarelia website and his own writings in these and in Facebook (up until 2019). He has also made some comments in media. Former commander of the Finnish Air Force Rauno Meriö is mentioned as one of the advisers. ProKarelia claims they had 2,300 members in 2009. Their website has gone offline during year 2020. Also the company that published their magazine has ceased operations at the end of 2020.

Positions

ProKarelia has repeatedly accused former social democrat president

Mauno Koivisto Mauno Henrik Koivisto (; 25 November 1923 – 12 May 2017) was a Finnish politician who served as the ninth president of Finland from 1982 to 1994. He also served as the country's prime minister twice, from 1968 to 1970 and again from 1979 to 1 ...

of treason or breaking the constitution. In 2006 ProKarelia made a claim on their website that incumbent social democrat president

Tarja Halonen Tarja Kaarina Halonen (; born 24 December 1943) is a Finnish politician who served as the 11th president of Finland, and the first woman to hold the position, from 2000 to 2012. She first rose to prominence as a lawyer with the Central Organisa ...

had held a speech in 1976 where she claimed capitalism will destroy itself and wished Finland to join Soviet Union. This claim made it to the mainstream media, where it was quickly dismissed as false. Article on ProKarelia website claims that

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

is a socialist project, initially funded by "Jewish bankers" and the CIA. In 2009 ProKarelia organized a film screening showing ''

The Soviet Story ''The Soviet Story'' is a 2008 documentary film about Soviet Communism and Soviet–German relations before 1941 and after, written and directed by Edvīns Šnore, and sponsored by the far-right Union for Europe of the Nations group in the Euro ...

''. In 2015 Veikko Saksi predicted in an interview that the Russian Federation will collapse in two years and the Republic of Karelia will join Finland.

Nord Stream

In 2009 the activists of ProKarelia tried to block the building of the

Nord Stream 1 Nord Stream (German-English mixed expression; german: Nord and en, Stream, literally 'North Stream'; russian: Северный поток, ''Severny potok'') is a pair of offshore natural gas pipelines in Europe that run under the Baltic Sea ...

operated gas pipeline between Russia and Western Europe. Making a large mining claim of the sea floor between

and

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

, the actual purpose was to gain a bargaining chip to require the return of the Russian territories lost to Soviet Union during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. The mining estate was never granted, but the bad faith operation was widely reported in the media.

References

{{reflist

External links

ProKarelia

KareliaKlubi

Related organizations

Aluepalautus ry
Karelia Finnish irredentism