Russians Will Integrate Successfully Into Lithuania but Continues To

Russians will integrate successfully into Lithuania but continues to worry that over the longer term, an economically growing Lithuania might attract Russian cheap labor that could come into conflict with the Lithuanian majority. The principle weakness of the volume is that it fails to account adequately for the negative relations between the Russian diaspora and the majorities of some of the new states. For instance, Solonar and Bmter fail to give adequate proof for the statement that the Moldovan government is a "nationalistic dictatorship" and neglect the question of the Dneister republic - a Russian enclave within Moidova -- despite the fact that it is behind ethnic problems in Moldova. Contributors suggest that the Russian diaspora issue could be settled easily if the non-Russians were a little less hot-headed, a little less racist. If oniy it were thus. Many of the non-Russian populations suffered at the hands of the tsars and Soviet leaders and, unfortunately, continue to indentify the local Russians with these miseries. It will take time for the majority populations of the new states to conclude that Russians no longer pose a threat -- especially given the stated goals of Zhirinovskii and others to reconstitute the old Soviet Union. But an even greater obstacle to good relations is the fact that many of the new states are developing countries. The less advanced a society, the more likelihood of conflict as it modernizes. In much of the Caucasus and Central Asia, Russians have been the elite. As its political power grows and educational level rises, the majority will want to displace it. In these countries, it is likely, too, that the majority population has a less devdoped system of mediating conflicts between individuals or groups. For these reasons, the future of Russians in the Caucasus and Central Asia remains an open question. Allan L. Kagedan Ottawa, Ontario Russian Karelia in Search of a New Role. Edited by Ileikki Eskelinen, Jukka Oksa and Daniel Austin. Joensuu, Finland: Karelian Institute, University of Joensuu, 1994. 176 pp. 100 FIM paper. Despite its gaps, this is a much-needed book. Compared to Soviet Karelia, the present day Karelian Republic plays a more distinct role in the world, yet tittle has been published in English on this change. By "Karelia" in the contemporary context mean the Karelian Republic within the Russian Federation. In Soviet times the Finland-Karelia border was "one of the world's most inaccessible" (p. 7), reducing both countries to peripheric cui-decs - Finland of Western Europe and Karelia of the Russian-dominated empire. Russian relaxation of cross-border interaction has turned the Karelian and Finnish dead ends into a potential traffic corridor, ranging from Scandinavia to the Arkhangel'sk oblast' and on to the Komi Republic, helped by a direct rail link now being constructed with Finnish input. South and north of Karelia, the Baltic and Barents Seas are also being de-peripherized. Both had been important trade route ever since the Biarmian merchants (Komi or Karelian) interacted with the Norsemen 1,200 years ago. Global warming will wreak havoc on permafrost-based buildings north of Karelia, but it r-ill also unfreeze the Arctic sea route. Karelia can now be much more in the center of actMtles than it has been for the last 400 years. The book consists of nine chapters by ten Finnish authors and five chapters by six Russian Karelians. With one exception, the Finns hail from the University of Joensuu in Finland's North Karelian province (which is west of the southern part of the Karelian Republic). Apart from the stimulating Introduction (by all the editors) and Epilogue (Eskelinen, "Russian Karelia as a Peripheral Gateway Region"), the essential reading is Oksa and Eira Varis on population and administration of Karelia. This chapter also gives an up-to-date overview of the economy and the strong presidential government structure. All the Russian Karelian authors are from the Karelian Science Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, located in Petrozavodsk, capital of the Karelian Republic. Their chapters deal mainly with current bread-and-butter issues: economy (especially forest), unemployment and social welfare. The book has good maps and tables of socio-economic data. It lacks an index and has some translation infelicities, such as "liquidization" pro "liquidation" (pp. 22, 24, 48). Education, cultural developments and the press are not discussed. The Finland-Karelia border "marks one of the sharpest differences in living standards in the world" (pp. 7, 41). The gap widened during Soviet rule and bcame a chasm during its debate. Karelia is an "urbanized forest republic" (p. 60), where only 0.5 percent of the land is cultivated, in contrast to 5 percent in contiguous eastern Finland. It is the "nearest Siberia to Moscow" (pp. 156, 165). As of 1994, reprivatization of the economy was limited, and Karelia was "gripped by an economic paralysis" (p. 78). Even the birth rate went down from 1.7 percent in 1985 to 1.0 percent in 1992. One wonders about the future. Karelia's economic autonomy is expanding to include foreign trade decisions. But increased cross-border interaction alone may not blur the contrast with Finland - witness the heavily travelled border between California and Mexican Baja California. To evaluate Karelian prospects, the causes of the disparity must be mercilessly dissected, and this the present book shies away from. Many chapters by Finnish authors (and the three on the historical framework in particular) even pussyfoot even around those Soviet iniquities freely acknowledged by many a post-Soviet Russian scholar. They choke on the word "deportations," preferring "expelled." (pp. 21, 24, 58) It is commendable that instances of Finland's misbehavior be pinned down, such as high- mortality concentration camps for Russians during the Finnish occupation of the Karelian Republic in 1941-44 (p. 23), but sliding over the prolonged Soviet terror distorts the overall picture and fails to elucidate the causes of uneven development. I Mention of the current debate in Finland on the return of some of the land taken by the Soviets in 1940-44 concludes with: "Official opinion on the matter in Finland coincides with that expressed by Russian authorities." (p. 35) Expressions like this contribute to the rnistaken impresoion that Finland is so neutral it does not even interfere in its own affairs. Nor do they tell the whole story. Presslent Kekkonen did broach border revision with Nikita Khrushchev, and quiet diplomacy is likely to continue with the solution tied to that in the southern Kuriles. Since the present book is not a government publication, a more relaxed discussion should have been possible. The specific contemporary problems of the age-old Finnic population of the Karelian Republic are barely mentioned, ostensibly because Russian colonization has reduced their share to "only about one tenth" (p. 5) of the total (actually 13 percent). This is like dismissisg the Maori issues when discussing New Zealand. Indigenous peoples matter beyond their percentages. Moreover, the revival of Finno-Karelian and Vepsian cultures does benefit from Finnish funding. The soft-pedalling of the ethnic issse denotes no lack of Finnish interest but rather a conscious self-restraint. The only hints come in Ari Lehtinen's comments on "Neocolonialism in the Viena Karelia." .

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