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This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Narratives of History and the Discursive Construction of National Identity in the Russian Republic of Karelia. Fraser Tew-Street University of Edinburgh PhD 2014 1 2 Contents Page Abstract: 7 Introduction: 10 Chapter One: The Historical, Linguistic, Legal and Institutional Background to Problems of Karelian Language and Identity 1.1 A Short History of the Republic of Karelia 15 1.2 The Contemporary Karelian Political System 50 1.3 Institutional and Legal Factors 52 1.4 Karelian, Vepsian and Finnish in Contemporary Society in the Republic. 55 Chapter Two: Theoretical Considerations 2.1 Introductory Remarks 61 i) Identity and the Individual 62 ii) Identity, the Individual and Society 70 2.2 National Identity and the Nation i) What is the Nation? 76 ii) Constructing the Nation 82 iii) Narrating National Identity 84 iv) National Identity and Multiple Identities 88 2.3 Critical Discourse Analysis 91 2.4 Methodological Considerations 96 i) Content 97 ii) Strategies 98 iii) Means of Realisation 100 iv) Mass Media , Cultural Capital and the Karelian Press 101 v) The Interview Material 105 Chapter Three: Constructing the History of ‘Karelia’: Territories, Boundaries, and the Narration of Nationality in Karelian Newspapers. 116 3.1 Karel’skaya Guberniya and Kareliya 118 3.2 Constructing the History of a ‘Karelia’, or Who is Who on this Land? 134 i) Karelia as the Karelian homeland 134 3 ii) Local and National Identity: From the Village to the Nation 138 iii) 1920: A Foundational Myth? 147 3.3 The Position of Vepsian History Within the Mass Media Discourse 154 3.4 A Special Case: Ingrian Finns 159 3.5 Russians in Karelia: Indigenous or Immigrant? 161 i) Karelia as a Centre of Russian Culture 161 ii) Russians as Indigenous: Further Narratives of Karelia as Part of the Russian World. 167 iii) Russians as the Coloniser 168 iv) ‘Pan-Finnish’ Propaganda: A Historical Threat? 173 3.6 A Town Without a Past? Disputed Territories and Forbidden Histories 178 3.7 Heretical Narratives? Karelia Without the Karelians 191 3.8 A Common ‘Spirituality’ and a Common Past: Orthodoxy and Karelia 194 3.9 The Past and Future of the Karelian Language 203 3.10 Victims, Aggressors and Enemies: War, Conflict and the Other in Mass Media Discourse in the Republic of Karelia. i) Ancient Enmities and Modern Identities: The ‘Bulwark’ of Russia 212 ii) The Sacred and the Heretical: Memories of the Conflicts of the 1940s 216 3.11 The Kantele, Kalitki and the Kalevala: Karelian History as a Brand 248 3.12 The Kondopoga Affair: Racism in Quiet Karelia? 256 Conclusions 267 Chapter Four: Narrating National Identity in Private Discourse: Interview Material 276 4.1 The Composition of the Interview Data 278 4.2 Indigenous or Immigrant? The Interview Data 281 i) Narratives which exclude the Vepsians 281 ii) Narratives Which Exclude the Finns 282 iii) The Status of Russians 286 4.3 The Indivisible Narrative? Links Between Karelian and Russian History i) Karelia as Russia From (Almost) Time Immemorial 292 ii) The Role of Orthodoxy 299 4.4 Karelia as a Finno-Ugric Territory 301 4.5 Karelians and Russians: United Against a Common Enemy? 308 4.6 The Sacred and the Heretical in Private: 1940-44 i) Private and Public: Personal Recollections and Official Narration 313 ii) Further Narratives of the Occupation 319 iii) Responsibility for the Conflict 324 iv) Karelian and Russian Relations After the Occupation 329 4 v) The Potential Deportation of the Karelian People 332 vi) The Annexed Territories 335 4.7 The Foundation of the KASSR: A Named Beginning? 337 4.8 The History of the Karelian Language 353 4.9 The Kalevala: Foundational Myth or Irrelevance? 364 4.10 Does it Matter Anyway? The Importance of History 370 4.11 Karelian Self-image: Heteronomy and Helplessness 383 Conclusions 389 Conclusion 400 Bibliography 422 5 6 Abstract Although an element of our quotidian existence the manner in which national identity is produced is one of the most contested problems in the contemporary social sciences. One method of examining the production of national identity is to study the mechanism through which such identities are constructed in discourse. This study considers the use of historical narratives in the construction of differing formulations of national identity in the Russian Republic of Karelia. Using the tools of critical discourse analysis this study surveys the production of varying historical narratives in the Republic of Karelia and the fashion in which such narratives contribute to producing or deconstructing competing conceptions of national identity. This thesis uses an analysis of both mass media discourse and interview data to provide a thorough illustration of the production of narratives of Karelian history on public and private levels and their use in engendering or refuting opposing notions of Karelian identity. It shall examine how various historical events and tendencies are incorporated into contrasting narratives of the historical development of the Karelian people and their Russian, Finnish and Vepsian counterparts and how such narratives are used to justify or invalidate current political and social realities. The relationship between such narratives of history and other aspects of identity production is investigated alongside the difficulties of ethnic Karelians in producing and promoting such narratives to sustain an image of Karelian national identity. It shall also demonstrate the manner in which Karelian identity can be positioned through the use of such historical narratives as closer to or more distant from Russian or Finnish national identity. The narration of a history of Karelia as an area and the manner in which this can be deployed to incorporate or distance the region from conceptions of Russian or Finno-Ugric identity is also made evident. 7 8 9 Introduction Examination of the phenomenon of national identity often encounters the problem of an apparent dichotomy between our conceptual understanding of the nation and its actuality; that is to say, between theory and reality. Our ideas of the nation state and theories of ethnic or civic nationalism often do not seem readily applicable to the reality of the nation as it exists around us. When addressing the phenomenon of national identity it is also important to attempt to understand how the construction of identity on an individual level relates to the production of group identities. Arguably our Western conceptions of nations and nationalism are particularly ill-suited to the examination of the Russian term национальность and the manner in which it is understood and articulated by members of that society. It is arguable that the term ‘nationality’ within the former Soviet Union is more akin to what Western researchers would term ethnic identity than the more politically driven nationalism that is familiar in a Western context. In an examination of national identity within the Russian Republic of Karelia these difficulties are particularly acute. Karelia has been divided, reimagined and reinvented by both Russians and Finns in a manner almost unparalleled in the modern age; it has been both the birthplace of Finnish identity and the westernmost outpost of Russian identity as well as a homeland for the eponymous Finno-Ugric minority. The relationship between ethnic, political and other understandings of nationality and how this sense of identity is produced are thus exceptionally complex in a Karelian context. The complicated history of the area known as Karelia and the multitudinous, politically driven conceptions of ‘Karelian’ identity this has spawned, together with the modern marginalisation of self-identified Karelians and their language in a society overwhelming dominated by a Russian minority make a very interesting social context for the potential production of variant national identities. The starting point for this study is a contention that identity is a social construction, constituted discursively by its performance, its production and reproduction in social interaction. In particular it is argued that narratives of history are a particularly important strategy by which individuals can perform and produce their sense of national identity. On an individual basis narrative 10 identity allows an individual to integrate change, that is to say all that is unstable, contradictory and variable, and the perceived constancy of the individual. The narration of a ‘national history’ performs an analogous role for an individual’s sense of national identity. This construction of national identity is therefore contingent but rooted, as is the individual, in social reality; it is thus tied to a repertoire of potential identities constituted by apparent objective linguistic, geographic, political and historical ‘facts’. Consequently the next chapter of this study shall examine the history of Karelia as a region and its modern demographics in order to survey the potential historical referents available for use in the construction of narratives of Karelian history. It shall also review the main sources available within Western, primarily Finnish, and Russian historiography on this subject. Researchers, in the main from a Western intellectual background, have already explored the usage of historical narratives in the construction of national identity.