Constructing Finnish North Karelia in the Centre/Periphery Dimension of Cultural Policy

Home , Provinces of Finland, Regions of Finland

The International Journal of Cultural Policy, 2003 Vol. 9 (1), pp. 65–81

THE SPATIAL NATURE OF CULTURAL RECOGNITION: CONSTRUCTING FINNISH NORTH KARELIA IN THE CENTRE/PERIPHERY DIMENSION OF CULTURAL POLICY

Simo Ha¨yrynen*

Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyva¨skyla¨, Finland

Abstract: This article asks how a regional community is culturally constructed as a policy subject in the centre/periphery relation of Finnish cultural policy. The focus is on the options the cultural recognitions analysed from the cultural policy documents of central government and the provincial administration of North Karelia provide for different political interests. It is stated here that the democratisation of cultural policy can be open for and a vehicle of the interests the prevailing spatial dominance attempts to get within the population of peripheries. North Karelia has for centuries been a geographic and economic periphery without inner cultural distinctions. Yet it is regarded as a culturally rich and specific area. The analysis shows that the regional community has continuously been used as a partisan identity for maintaining and reinforcing the spatial integration of national projects. Public cultural image would provide a symbolic compensation for the economically underprivileged. Furthermore, the strong cultural identity of North Karelia has constantly been taken by the regional establishment as an instrument to fight the “opponents of common regional interests” in political conflicts. Thus the principles of democracy have not always meant the capability or attitude to notice cultural polyphony within the region abreast of cultural political decision-making.

Keywords: Democratisation in cultural policy; Cultural recognition; Provinces; Centre/periphery relation of cultural policy; Partisan identity

INTRODUCTION

DEMOCRATISATION HAS been one of the most emphasised missions of cultural policy at least since UNESCO declared the Principles of International Cultural Co-operation over three decades ago (1966). The democratisation of cultural policy has meant, for example, the decentralisation of cultural facilities and the democratisation of deﬁnition and decision-making on culture. The content of the mission, however, varies according to the application of cultural concepts behind the political actions. Depending on how open the process of cultural recognition is, different

*E-mail: hayrynen@yﬁ.jyu.ﬁ

ISSN 1028-6632 print/ISSN 1477-2833 online q 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/1028663032000069176 66 S. HAŸRYNEN interests may have penetrated into it from the first idea of cultural need to the final implementation of that idea. This article focuses on the options the democratisation of cultural policy has provided for different political interests. My question is who and which interests have been allowed to be present in the process of cultural recognition in the case of Finnish regional cultural policy, focusing particularly on one province of Finland, North Karelia. Cultural policy is here understood as a public political action that officially defines not only the cultural interests of a certain group, but also its cultural nature. As an important dimension of implementing political democracy, as well as of making cultural divisions, regionality or the regional centre/periphery relation may explain how political interests intervene in cultural policy. The spatial nature of regional cultures, and especially its influence on the creation of cultural images, is usually ignored when regional cultural policy is studied. Regions are conventionally regarded as quite similar administrative units containing somewhat uniform interests (Irjala and Eika˚s, 1995). However, as many political geographers have noted, a region itself does not do nor is even anything before it is socially and symbolically signified, not only by local inhabitants themselves, but also by different factors outside the region, including the spatial organisation of respective power centres (Massey, 1994; Paasi, 1996: 35–36). The complexity of signification is to be seen everywhere, for example in the controversial definitions of Maori territory belonging to New Zealand since the government started to allocate fishery compensations for indigenous Maori on the basis of very interpretative ancient tribal domains (Levine and Henare, 1994). My contention is that even in the less dramatic conflicts the power of who can speak on behalf of certain territory is determined by the deeper structures of power relations, and this in turn greatly influences the symbolic shape of the territory in question and thus the implementation of democracy. It is stated here that the democratisation of cultural policy can be open to and, paradoxically, a vehicle of the interests the prevailing spatial dominance attempts to have accepted within the population of peripheries. Therefore, the main question here is how the images of provincial cultures in general—and North Karelian culture in particular—are organisationally related, firstly to the larger policy orientations of Finland, and secondly to the power relations of the region itself. The written policy missions are here read in the context of their social production in both the central administration and the regional community.

THE CENTRE/PERIPHERY DIMENSION IN REGIONAL CULTURAL POLICY

Collective cultural characteristics are regarded as cultural and intellectual properties of, for example, national (Anderson, 1983), supranational (Preston, 1997), ethnic (Young, 1995) or regional (Massey, 1994) communities and, simultaneously, as an important justification for their very existence. Preston (1997) has suggested that cultural communities are usually constructed by organising the “institutional memory” that explains their cultural ties. However, this tradition must be flexible because, from time to time, the descriptions of cultural tradition need to be revised in order to be consistent with the changing society (see, e.g. Hobsbawm, 1994: 4, 10). Nevertheless, a new stage of institutional memory does not replace previous notions of cultural tradition completely, but instead uses and organises them for the purposes of a possible new leadership (Aronowitz, 1992). Besides links to the past, an identity would also need some special THE SPATIAL NATURE OF CULTURAL RECOGNITION 67 features, characteristics that are different from neighbouring identities. How have the political structures of the regional centre/periphery relation engaged in the regulation of tradition? At this point, it is useful to describe some general characteristics of my empirical case. Finland has been a typical Nordic welfare state with a reasonably high standard of living but with few sources of livelihood. Its economy is historically based on the forest industry. A forest- based national economy and a large area to be protected (see Fig. 1) has meant that regionality is an important dimension of all political sectors, including cultural policy. The popularity of regional categorisation in culture obviously has something to do with the ethnic and religious homogeneity of Finland1 and also the lack of other physical signifiers of culture such as those created, for example, by feudalism in some countries. The mental map of Finland is partially divided by so-called historic provinces with more or less imagined cultural differences (Haÿrynen, 2000). North Karelia has a dual nature. First, it has for centuries been one of the poorest regions in Finland. This is partially a result of North Karelia’s role in the national economy (as a producer of raw material for the wood industry) and its peripheral location in respect to the industrial centres and harbours, as well as its being situated on the border with Russia. While Finland as a whole is above the European Union average in almost every economic indicator, North Karelia’s gross domestic product is only 75% of that average. Social problems have accumulated, resulting in large-scale emigration from North Karelia to more prosperous areas of Finland.2 On the other hand, North Karelia is regarded as the only part of contemporary Finland that is the mythical

FIGURE 1 Finland and North Karelia. 68 S. HA¨YRYNEN source of the Finnish national culture, the “ancient Karelia” described in the national epic of The Kalevala (1835/1841). The Kalevala was compiled and edited by Elias Lo¨nnrot on the basis of epic folk poems he had collected mainly in eastern Karelia (see Fig. 2). Ever since The Kalevala has been a continuous source of inspiration for Finnish artists, musicians, and so on. The Kalevala and so-called Karelianism have given extra glamour and respectability to the collective image of North Karelia as well. This tension between the deprivation—the constant crisis of the economic structure—and the image of rich culture is important because it reveals the contrast between the ideal and factual criteria of regional culture. Traditionally the centre/periphery question is approached through the concept of diffusionism. Diffusionism holds that societies and states are formed around a central point that assimilates the surrounding peripheries into its own values to form a common social, economic and political system. However, in the initial stages of contact, the contrast between peripheral and central values may be a source of conﬂict (Keating, 1988: 2). The possible coincidence of cultural characteristics and social deprivation may have led to ideas of internal colonialism, where

FIGURE 2 Regions of Karelia. THE SPATIAL NATURE OF CULTURAL RECOGNITION 69 the centre attempts to control the cultural development of the peripheries (Siisiaïnen, 1979: 173). The combination of diffusion and internal conflict has been the basic argument behind the conception of the historical centre/periphery juxtaposition between the more prosperous and industrialised South (especially Helsinki) and the underdeveloped regions of Finland. However, the development is not necessarily so categorical. The state is not a faceless autocracy but is itself a complicated social construction. Some representatives of the central government may, of course, insist on abandoning the political requirements of peripheries as primitive. Some others may, however, understand regional autonomy as politically and economically rational for the whole society. A crucial factor is the position of regionalists inside the centre. Similarly, regions would not be culturally blank spaces which only receive cultural actions. Regional communities vary in at least two ways. First, they differ not only in regard to their power to resist, but also as result of their willingness to accept central operations. Second, regional communities represent various and changing political, economic and cultural roles for the centre, depending on their economic, demographic and cultural resources. In both Finland, as a country without the system of regional self-government, and North Karelia, as a province depending heavily on state subsidies,3 the central government might be an important designer of local hierarchies in a symbolic sense as well. Hence, a collective identity can be partially defined and treasured by people who, strictly speaking, do not belong to that group. In his study on Cornwall, James Vernon understands that the Cornish revival has always been a national affair: many of the leading figures cherishing and policing Cornishness were either English or exiled in England or from further afield (Vernon, 1998: 167–168). Alessandro Pizzorno maintains that the state often attempts to intervene in the construction of identities.

A larger identity is...strong when it generates local identities...[that] have been allowed and encouraged to take root in its territory...The absolute state can be considered to have been supported...by the presence of traditional identities that it recognised or tolerated. (Pizzorno, 1991: 224–225) This representation is revealed to be a mechanism of the production of local partisan identities, or sub-identities. Organisational ties and economic mechanisms would incorporate group identities into the deeper structure of national hegemony (see also Rex, 1995: 24).

This will make partisanship the basis for a strong identity. Although its nature is “local” it is also somehow organically dependent upon the identity of the state...even when they proclaim anti-state ideology, because...they operate predictably according to the rules set by the state. (Pizzorno, 1991: 225) In this way even the conflict between the centre and periphery may be partially supported by the state, if only the conflict is predictable and does not disturb the functions of the dominant centre/periphery coalition. If this role of the state in the construction of a sub-identity is accepted, how does it influence the internal divisions of a group? According to Benedict Anderson there is always an attempt to define community as a deep and equal companionship (Anderson, 1983: 16). It would be a useful brotherhood between the centre and periphery against some more or less real third entity (Gramsci, 1994: 314–315). Bourdieu (1989: 16) says that those in the higher positions try symbolically to deny social distances within the regional community. A practical problem might be that there are always individuals and tendencies that do not suit the picture, especially if the description of a group is selectively constructed (see also Young, 1995: 165). The idea of a united community may be destroyed by the fact that it is not usually the most deprived individuals who are most supportive of territorial political movements (Keating, 1988: 12). For example, many who lived in Cornwall felt alienated by the high cultural tone of a nationalist revival that seemed to deny the Cornishness of those who failed to meet exacting 70 S. HAŸRYNEN standards (Vernon, 1998: 168). Petrisalo (2001: 62) finds a similar alienation of local inhabitants in the Kalevala-based tourism business of North Karelia. In other words, the deliberate construction of otherness frequently generates other othernesses, and can undo the democratisation of culture. In the following I analyse how the social actors and their notion of culture are spatially interlinked in the political recognition of culture between the central government and the provincial officials of North Karelia.4 My contention is that the basic principle of equality is not necessarily to promote equality between real social classes, but rather between some socially constructed divisions. Actual cultural topography—the actual ethnic structure or the visibility of cultural history—cannot be ignored, but can rather be deliberately connected to certain interests of spatial dominance, which has its own interpretation of cultural equality. Therefore, the official descriptions of culture would be discursive chains that tie certain views together and bring new partners and new elements into the field of symbolic construction and, in contrast, exclude and ignore other elements from that field. The conceptual chain between the descriptions of North Karelian culture and the producers of these descriptions forms the basis for the hegemonic function of the democratisation of cultural policy. The crucial question is whose past is behind the manipulation of collective genealogy (Bourdieu, 1989: 21) and whose past ends up as a third entity.

THE SPATIALITY OF FINNISH CULTURE: “TRIBAL” REGIONALISM

Finland has been an independent state for less than 100 years. Until 1917, it was an autonomous Grand Duchy of the Tsarist Russian Empire and prior to that the contemporary area of Finland was a constantly reorganised frontier zone between Sweden and Russia, and between western and eastern (Orthodox) Christianity. The national awakening among Finnish-speaking scholars, artists and politicians beginning in the 1830s took a Fennoman attitude towards occasionally harsh Russification and the Swedish-speaking minority which held crucial positions in industry, the administration and the arts. For the construction of nationhood, for instance, the national landscape imagery relied on the so-called historic provinces of Finland (Haÿrynen, 2000: 10). Fennoman intellectuals, especially in the regional students’ associations of Helsinki University, maintained Heimat romanticism based on relatively imaginary “native regions”. It seems that while in many explored countries (e.g. New Zealand) the aim was to reduce territorial symbolism and replace it with western symbols (Anderson, 1983), Finnish artists and intellectuals tried to create such tribal ties for reinforcing the belonging of the Finnish-speaking people to the land. The Swedish-speaking minority inhabited the coastal regions, so the “real” Finnishness was deliberately found from the inland areas and from the forest landscape. In this national movement, Fennoman politicians and artists (especially Karelianists) got together with the Finnish-speaking forestry and banking industries which increased in power at the end of the nineteenth century. In the decades following independence (1917) and civil war, in which the bourgeois forces defeated socialist revolutionaries, political regionalism was joined by ultra-right organisations and the idea of a greater Finland covering allegedly Fenno-Ugrian areas in the new Soviet Karelia. In 1925, Parliament introduced a border district policy. It stated that a satisfied population would be the best security against the “hostile bolshevist neighbour”. THE SPATIAL NATURE OF CULTURAL RECOGNITION 71

Border areas were considered crucial for purposes other than just defence. Political activists and especially the forest industry were dreaming of those parts of Karelia that had never been part of Finland but were rich both culturally (as a source of Kalevala) and in forest resources (Heikkinen, 1990: 70, 83–84). As a wood producer, and even if only partially a border area at that time, North Karelia was one of the main targets of the border district policy. During World War II Finland waged a separate war against the Soviet Union and, after military defeats, made a separate peace in 1944. The peace treaty included the cession of most of Finnish Karelia (see Fig. 2) and the abolition of those organisations that had participated in the expansive actions. Though a re-evaluation of cultural institutions was generally accomplished after the war among other allies of Nazi Germany, the pre-war Finnish intelligentsia maintained its position.5 Yet the previously harsh criticism of Russia and Russian culture had to be abandoned. After a silent phase of 15 years, romantic nationalism arose again, but this time by cherishing supposedly genuine and pure provincial cultures instead of the whole nation.

A free and decentralised, but yet a united organ of provincial federations would bring a lot more Heimat traditionalism, provincial patriotism and general enthusiasm to the national cultural work. (Vilkuna, 1958: 4)

The traditionalists acted on behalf of the rural and traditional culture against the urbanism and cosmopolitanism of Helsinki (MST, 1966). The development was strongly supported by a shift in political power to the Centre Party (then the Agrarian Union) popular in the Finnish- speaking countryside and provincial cities.6 These regionalists argued that balance between the centre and peripheries would be best achieved by producing a large number of regional intellectuals and teachers and by locating state administration and higher education in the provinces (e.g. Borg, 1970: 221–231). This powerful representation of regions inside the central government might be one reason why Finland has never established regional self- government. Another powerful actor behind the emphasis of provincial cultures was the Finnish Cultural Foundation (FCF)—the biggest semi-public foundation in Finland—which created a provincial network of its own (Pohls, 1989: 222) and was practically responsible for the implementation of Finnish regional cultural policy prior to the end of the 1960s. The new emphasis on regionalism can be understood as the cultural revenge of the nationalist movement defeated in the war, the creation of a symbolic Greater Finland inside the existing borders. The “provincial awakening” was later, indeed, compared to the previous national awakening (MST, 1966: 27). Cultural policy of those days described average people as prejudiced and ignorant, and as being prone to bad inﬂuences from general culture (Committee for Cultural Affairs, 1965: 41, 48, 62). Provincial centres were considered ideal destinations for the evacuation of cultural values from culturally more public and thus insecure metropolises. The need for symbolic shelters was caused by the fact that many cultural organisations and activities came increasingly under the control of the left-wing radicals from 1965 onwards. Furthermore, some traditionalists still bore antagonistic attitudes towards the Swedish- speaking banking and industrial establishments. Ilkka Heiskanen argues that the recognition of two parallel autonomous cultures—Finnish and Swedish—has restrained the formation of distinct cultural regions (CPIF,1995: 48). Conversely, regional cultural policy would have been an instrument to strengthen mostly Finnish-speaking underdeveloped regions and reduce the relative weight of Swedish culture. Paradoxically, the emphasis of provincial cultures coincided with deep structural changes in agriculture and provoked large-scale immigration from the rural and remote parts to more urbanised areas in Finland and to Sweden, where industry was able to receive a large number of unskilled workers.7 72 S. HA¨YRYNEN

In the late 1960s Finnish governments began to aim at a national consensus in order to maintain the functions and competitiveness of the export industry. The distinction into typical Nordic and labour-oriented strategies may be partially due to the power of bourgeois parties in the welfare project. Another factor is apparently the long reliance on traditional and economically sensitive forestry—the cement of the Finnish elite. The task of state-organised regional policy was to keep the whole country populated in order to ensure the effective implementation of defence, energy and forest policy. According to the party programmes of that time (Borg, 1970) all political parties accepted the main target of cultural policy, to provide self-conﬁdence for underdeveloped areas. Until the beginning of the 1990s every new step in the organisation of cultural life had a strong regional emphasis. Besides regional arts councils the same tendency can be seen in the systems of provincial libraries (North Karelia 1961), regional universities (1966), music schools (1968), broadcasting studios (1968), local cultural ofﬁces (during the 1970s), media centres (during the 1980s), and regional systems for theatre, orchestra and museums, establishing internationally one of the most extensive regional networks of institutional cultural activities. Consequently, culture was divided symbolically into political-administrative regions and not by any social categorisation. However, from the beginning of the 1970s onwards the traditional idea of spatial organisation by strong regional establishments gained a new, state-organised policy orientation. This new orientation regarded peripheries as “testing areas” for welfarism. The Committee for Cultural Affairs stated that regional centralisation had failed to equalise cultural affairs within the regions (Comm., 1974: 35, 84). The prevailing dominance in regional communities needed to be overcome. For example, the new public broadcasting policy stated that

radio and TV are...the only organs that can overcome the obstacles constructed by unofﬁcial...censorship of regional establishment. (Salokangas, 1997: 195)

This ideologically quite stable arrangement remained unchanged until the late 1980s, when significant changes took place in Finnish political life. The Soviet Union, the nation’s most important trading partner since World War II, loosened its political ties to Finland and was about to collapse. Highly advanced information technology started to gain an important position in the export industry alongside the formerly hegemonic forest industry. Governments started to implement policy that weakened economic regulation. The deregulation and privatisation of Finnish broadcasting was one reflection of neo-liberalist tendencies in the Western world.8 The main theme in cultural policy has been change: social and economic change and changes in values in Finnish society. Finland’s Minister of Culture has stated that “in order to flourish, arts and culture require air, space and new partners” (CPIF, 1995: 1). The “inflexible state” should give free markets room, i.e. cultural life should apply consumer sovereignty and self-financing (Kupoli, 1992: 233). For cultural policy, therefore, the effects and possible profits of culture became much more important than any definition of culture.

Culture...[has] increasing value as an economic attraction and...a creator of...images now that images are increasingly important instruments for competition. (Kupoli, 1992: 218–219)

From the regional point of view, the idea has been that regional and local groups would make better decisions than central government as far as their cultural environment is concerned. Governments introduced the so-called free municipal system (1989–1996) and reformed the state subsidy system for municipalities in 1993, which meant that previously “earmarked” money, for cultural institutions, for example, was now distributed as a lump sum. THE SPATIAL NATURE OF CULTURAL RECOGNITION 73

In other words, communities could shape their administration and distribute state subsidies without central governmental control.

Democratic cultural policy is possible only if a community can freely decide about cultural policy on the basis of its own tradition, identity and interests. (Committee for Cultural Affairs, 1991: 6, 11)

The deep recession at the beginning of the 1990s ensured that the state reduced the total amount of its municipal subsidies. Moreover, a new actor in the ﬁeld of regional cultural policies—the European Union—emphasised self-sufﬁciency and economic productivity of culture.9 The idea was that culture could be the “calling card” of regions.

Traditional cultural institutions ought to learn from the commercial sector (Kupoli, 1992: 100)...The past of regions may offer opportunities to proﬁt from “nostalgic capital”. (Kupoli, 1992: 88, 195)

It should be noted that the concept of community still referred mainly to the administrative categorisations, and not to the groups in a more profound sense of culture. The only cultural “past” which is attractive enough has been the static stereotypes attached to the native regions: the folk dancing and singing people of The Kalevala in North Karelia, the traditional “patriotic deﬁance” in Ostrobothnia or the Christmas image of Lapland. These ideal stereotypes have been consumed in advertisements and tourism. Behind them, disparities among regions in gross domestic product, unemployment and diseases widen and internal migration continues, marking the sharp distinction between the factual and ideal criteria of regional cultures.

THE REGIONAL ESTABLISHMENT OF NORTH KARELIA

North Karelia is usually regarded as a united community without internal class distinctions. There are historical reasons for that. Until the beginning of the 19th century the economy of the region was based on slash-and-burn cultivation that did not require land ownership. From the 1880s the lands of North Karelia, especially in the eastern forest zones, came increasingly under the ownership of the national forestry companies and outside speculators (Siisiaïnen, 1979: 84). North Karelian peasants were now connected to land that had previously been their own as a labour force for company owners. This outside ownership has since continued and has meant a significant concentration on primary production in North Karelia. Minerals and wood have been processed outside the region. Though the Social Democrats have usually been strong in the region, the organisation of labour was weak and often led by the bourgeois. Small farms did not provide a decent living and deepened the future socio-economic problems of North Karelia. The thin elite of North Karelia was quite comfortable with the expansion of the nationalist movement. For example, in Helsinki the Karelian (before 1905 the Savo-Karelian) Students’ Association gained a special role in the Fennoman movement because there were so few Swedish-speaking students from that area. As for the eastern direction, the North Karelian elite maintained an idea of spiritual fortress in the name of the above mentioned border district policy (e.g. Heikkinen, 1990). The North Karelian students who later formed the backbone of the Provincial Federation (1936)—an inter-municipal organisation—were predominantly descendants of influential peasants, civil servants and clergymen (Waris, 1939: 47). Hence, in the representation of North Karelia, the “regional voice” was socially selective. It focused more on idealistic cultural symbols—provincial anthems and costumes—than, for example, on the striking poverty of the rural areas. As the leading members and seniors of the Students’ 74 S. HAŸRYNEN

Association usually lived outside North Karelia, they were also important factors behind the future spatiality of the regional leadership. Since the war, North Karelia has continuously been one of the hardest-hit areas of emigration and, as such, one of the main targets of modern regional policy. Since the establishment of the state administrative County Board (1960) the political, economic and administrative elite of North Karelia have formed a small but tight coalition seeking to satisfy what they define as regional interest. The state investments have concentrated in Joensuu, the capital and the only growth centre in the region.10 The media is in practice monopolised by the company that publishes clearly the biggest newspaper of the area—the conservative Karjalainen. The concentration of target-setting and decision-making power has produced strong individual leaders for North Karelia. The governors of the county, managers of the provincial federation, editors of Karjalainen, rectors of Joensuu university and a few very influential businessmen have occupied crucial positions in all sectors of society, including positions on the boards of the largest cultural foundations and festivals (NKPF, 1960–1999; Juvonen, 2000). It is interesting to realise that this coalition—the regional establishment of North Karelia—is largely a result of and backed by national regional policy and its decentralisation mechanisms: state administrative districts, regional universities and considerable investments in the forest industry. The exclusive and politically unrepresentative power coalition in North Karelia is therefore maintained by the spatial links between the centre and periphery. In this sense regionalism, besides being a channel to articulate the social needs of a community, has produced strong partisan elements for national projects. From the early 1990s locally selected regional leaders have been granted more political autonomy, but without additional resources. While their connection with the central government has weakened, the significance of industrial life and, mostly EU-orientated, international relations, has been emphasised. The European Union has stressed the ideas of the Europe of Regions and political subsidiarity that have helped the North Karelian municipalities and provincial federation to become more open to private interests and new commercial actors. Experts from all sectors of political life have had no choice but to adopt the hegemonic idea of regional interest originating in the regional establishment. The basic indicators of regional interests have, according to regional strategies (NKPF, 1985; 1995), been anything that is related to the promotion of the industrial sectors considered the engines of future economic growth, traditionally forestry but nowadays also information technology. The problem has been that not all the inhabitants of North Karelia have similar ideas about common interests. In the case of interest conflicts hegemonic ideals have, therefore, required and produced images of outside enemies or threats. Russia and the Soviet Union have occasionally served this function as well as the “culturally expansive” neighbouring province, Savo (see Juvonen, 2000: 102). The most formidable imagined opponent of regional interests has paradoxically been the abstract South—the central government or the “Helsinki elite” (see e.g. NKPF,1973: 16; 1980: 34; 1992: 21). In these ideological descriptions Helsinki is a place where everybody is a gentleman and wears fancy clothes, whereas North Karelia is described as a place where all people are in one way or another subordinated—if not economically then symbolically (cf. Gramsci, 1994: 320). However, when the social structure of the centre/periphery juxtaposition is observed, it is easy to understand that it is not a contrast between geographical areas but rather a rhetorically constructed contrast between two or more ideological views on the spatial organisation of society. The representatives of the central government have also THE SPATIAL NATURE OF CULTURAL RECOGNITION 75 created images of the bureaucratic and elitist state (e.g. the centralised comprehensive school system) destroying the self-consciousness of average people in the peripheries (NKCB, 1968: 10) when it has been relevant for changing something in the centre. The aforementioned centre/periphery juxtaposition may have in fact been a powerful instrument of domination, powerful because it overlaps social distinctions and keeps the spatial organisation of the society predictable, and an instrument of domination because it gives the regional power holders an opportunity to legitimate and maintain their positions as members of a national otherness. That is why the opponents of a hegemonic leadership inside North Karelia have always been experienced as being particularly offensive (NKPF, 1960: 14). Some local university scholars, environmental activists, youth movements and artists have been accused of being egoistic as they withdraw and criticise the prevailing common interest from their point of view (Karjalainen, 13.7.1985; 19.11.2000). If they were not “outsiders” themselves, their values might have been. For example, those who protected the nationally proclaimed landscapes of Koli (the historical travelling destination of Karelianist artists such as painter Akseli Gallen- Kallela and composer Jean Sibelius) from being destroyed by the tourism business were accused of being the worst betrayers of North Karelian common interests (Rannikko, 1996). The governor of North Karelia compared the establishment of Koli national parks (1991) to the Karelia ceded to the Soviet Union. In contrast, in Karjalainen (e.g. 31.5.2001) sometimes very personal interests of great businessmen concerning land use have been considered as parts of the common interest. In short, North Karelia may be an example of a community where few leaders and one media create one interest for all possible areas of social activities but connect it tightly with the needs of national, European and global economy.

THE POLITICAL CONTENT OF CULTURAL IDENTITY

A regional community is, of course, territorially more static than, for example, an ethnic group because it is tied by definition to a certain location—to residence or birthplace. However, its cultural sameness is not as obvious. If there are no overlapping cultural characteristics, the only evidence of membership in a regional community is an address or a birth certificate. Because cultural specialities are considered as an important justification for the existence of a community, and regional communities as important political categories within Finnish society, there have been attempts to create extra criteria for North Karelianness, something that is spectacular enough but does not pose a threat to the carefully maintained organisation of spatial dominance. Ethnically or linguistically North Karelians do not differ drastically from people in other eastern provinces (Talve, 1980: 326–327). In the 17th century almost all Karelians from present-day North Karelia were persecuted and obliged to move eastwards because of the Swedish-Russian wars. There is a 6.5% minority of Orthodox Christians, which is used for parading the image of cultural exoticism in North Karelia as being greater than in the rest of the population. Notwithstanding, the Karelian influence on the everyday life of contemporary North Karelia is highly debatable. Indeed, the cultural significance of the region in the 19th century was not based on the cultural or artistic activities of the regional community itself but rather on the stimulation the landscape and presupposed Kalevalaic character of its people gave to the nationalist movement and artists. The inhabitants of the area were regarded as 76 S. HAŸRYNEN the mythical “bearers” of genuine Finnishness. Novelist Zacharias Topelius created still powerful stereotypical descriptions of Karelians:

A (North) Karelian is talkative, joyful, quick-tempered and humble. (Topelius, 1985: 211)

In other words, the North Karelian is the perfect person for positive images and political subordination. Ever since, some members of the regional establishment have criticised North Karelian people for ignoring their “real character” (Karjalainen, 27.6.1974). Since the 1920s North Karelian regional activists have adopted their regional role as the easternmost border guard of Finland. It was not, however, until peace came with the Soviet Union, when the national elite had to abandon their dreams of conquering Eastern Karelia, that North Karelian leaders, media and associations took the opportunity to monopolise the image of pastoral Karelia nationally for their political resource. Obviously, the pressures of foreign relations and, later on, cultural modernisation did not reach regional peripheries and, therefore, awaken the idea of “value harbours”. The aggressive pre-war Karelianism was replaced by a more peaceful and culturally oriented pankarelianism, where the lost areas and desired history were spiritually present. The Foundation for Promoting Karelian Culture (1950) and the North Karelian branch of the FCF (1961) have been in charge of protecting and maintaining this image and gathering a provincial elite behind it. It is crucial to note that both foundations consisted of a large number of members, not only from district administration, Joensuu city administration, regional media and companies, but also from Helsinki and particularly from the forestry and banking industries (Juvonen, 2000; NKPF, 1961–1999). Thus pre-war cultural idealism and the interests of, above all, Finnish-speaking industrial life were spatially connected, as an allegedly Karelian, and certainly deprived and totally Finnish area, North Karelia, became the ideal target of the cultural traditionalists tormented at the national level. It was very important for these foundations to differentiate North Karelia culturally from the neighbouring provinces. Thus they supported projects where the historic, linguistic and other specialities of the region were studied or promoted (e.g. Juvonen, 2000: 102). North Karelian specialities—“original architecture”, folk dance, costumes and food—were usually found beyond the Finnish–Soviet border, in the Karelia still existing in the mind of the national traditionalist movement. When public policy expanded into all sectors of society in the 1970s, North Karelian cultural policy and cultural administration became an arena for different and even contrasting symbolic interventions. On the one hand, new, welfare-oriented and sometimes politically radical artists and administrators arrived in the area as a result of cultural political decentralisation. For them it was important to seek out the marginalised people and develop cultural activities for them: film clubs for children and the elderly, youth clubs, support for marginalised art forms such as modern dance or photography. In some cases, especially in the theatre and modern arts, they also challenged the legitimacy of the regional establishment (Haÿrynen, 1996). On the other hand, there were still the traditionalists who helped to create an empirical basis for the preferred history by supporting Karelian architecture, folk dance groups and poetry originally rare in the area. North Karelia was also the core of the so-called agrarian epic, popular literature, where the deep structural change of agriculture was told from the point of view of those who proudly remained in the countryside and demonstrated a moral superiority in respect to modern urban life (e.g. novelists Heikki Turunen and Seppo Lappalainen, the first THE SPATIAL NATURE OF CULTURAL RECOGNITION 77 director of the Regional Arts Council). They and their supporters accused welfare-oriented administrators of promoting the romantic images of peripheral deprivation even though the life was still good there. In their vision, a deep sense of the past—a sense that diminishes the lives of those in the present, and enlarges them too (Daniels, 1989: 210)—was highlighted. The division did not take place only between the factual and ideal criteria of culture but also between socially and geographically defined cultural groupings. For most cultural policy professionals cultural problems exceeded administrative regional borders. The regional establishment instead used the ideal cultural tradition not only as leverage but also to justify their political power in respect to their territory. They considered culture itself as too fuzzy a concept. The governor of North Karelia, while nominating the members of the regional arts council, emphasised, from his point of view, political relevance instead of cultural expertise or social diversity of the region (see NKCB, 1969–1993). Paradoxically, the idealistic notion of a self-respective community, accepted in both the central administration and regional establishment (NKCB, 1976: 5), reinforced the images of the rhetorical centre/periphery juxtaposition. Cultural policy was regarded as one area where North Karelia was not peripheral but was able to resist more or less imagined pressures, the supposed outsiders behind the subordination of average North Karelians. When the cultural dimension of development became an important indicator of cultural policy at the beginning of the 1990s, the North Karelian establishment felt confident. It was the North Karelian provincial federation that initially lifted culture to the political agenda and established a special provincial advisory board for culture (1994). North Karelian culture was thought to be strong enough and ready for the administrative and economic challenges of the decade. However, the much-advertised local autonomy of the cultural sector stopped at the economic realities and political-administrative purposes of the municipalities. While sponsorship was emphasised as a saviour of institutional cultural activities, it was also stated that “all art is not useful for economic life” (Karjalainen, 16.12.1998), to quote the manager of the biggest company in North Karelia. This tendency lowered the status of official cultural policy experts in North Karelia. The secretariat of the provincial federation was obliged to emphasise the commercial use of culture, and especially of idealistic Karelian culture, in the name of the EU and new regional planning methods. Ever since, the official cultural expertise has also been driven by those who create attractive idealistic images based on what they consider an organic entity of North Karelianness. For them, the huge singing-stage in Joensuu and the picturesque Karelian buildings along the Russian border (Paasi, 1996: 129–130) were real culture and, besides, commercially useful. Thus the cultural policy of North Karelia has orientated itself to “big and visible” (NKPF, 1995–1998) at the expense of the “small and grass-roots activity”. The economic regression and administrative reforms were followed by a rapid reduction of less visible cultural features, such as cultural secretaries and arts clubs at schools (Korpipaä¨, 1995). Because the definition of the cultural dimension is based on commercial rather than cultural factors, the usual solution has been to choose the existing, comprehensive and attractive cultural tradition rather than create something new and risky. Spontaneous youth movements and movements opposing the destruction of the cultural environment were treated as non-cultural or as “colonial” attempts to incorporate repressive ideas of general culture into the self-understanding underdeveloped regions (see also Rannikko, 1996). In North Karelia, culture has been regarded as a “calling card” for the region with the latest advancement of information technology, commercialised internationalism and, above all, 78 S. HAŸRYNEN the beautiful and attractive pictures of North Karelia on it in order to convince different outsiders of the advantageous prospects of the province. Karelianism and the agrarian epic have been translated into the language of new technology through endorsement, computer games,11 films with sunny images of the past and cultural palaces and festivals with a Karelian flavour. However, according to Petrisalo (2001: 62) the majority of local inhabitants have been embarrassed when they were used by tourism businesses with cultural characteristics they did not recognise as their own. Therefore, despite emphasising cultural diversity, the new strategy seems to create strong links between modern commercial cultural policy and those who wear the traditional cultural armour. It is constantly emphasised that Karelianism in North Karelia is not expansive and does not bear any hostility toward anyone. It is only a part of the North Karelian identity and, as such, is also a useful instrument for economic competition as well as for political reassurance. The problem might be that the imagined or manipulated cultural tradition does not lose its real genealogy (cf. Bourdieu, 1989). Karelianism is still a sensitive and protective conception and spiritually covers a much larger area than just North Karelia. The pre-war patriotic defiance is still disseminated and consumed in North Karelia.

CONCLUSION

In this study I have attempted to ascertain how the recognition of a cultural group is carried out in respect to the larger political interests of the social coalition behind the implementation of regional cultural policy. My contention was that in some cases aims such as the democratisation of cultural policy can be channels for reinforcing the dominant spatial organisation of a society. In order to fulfil this task and to maintain the balance between sometimes even contrasting interests of the state and its subgroups, both central and regional actors are needed. “Local partisans” would handle the final implementation of a spatial version of the national project. This forms what I call the spatial nature of cultural recognition in cultural policy. How does this spatial coalition influence the recognition of culture in the case of North Karelia? I suggest that since culture is politically defined as a space for equality and acceptable otherness, the representatives of the state have used cultural policy to cover up inequalities in other social fields. North Karelia has been both a strategically important and favourable community for symbolic regulation. In the written cultural policy the factual characteristics of North Karelia—distant location, few intellectuals, the bitterness toward constant deprivation—have been connected with the ideal cultural images. People are used for parading the image of cultural exoticism while the group itself is socially underprivileged in the structures of society. In this case, the solid image of a cultural group might be a desired national otherness as a partisan identity that incorporates North Karelia into the prevailing hegemonic agenda. A practical problem would be that in the selectivity the real cultural divisions and distinctions could be overlooked. Partisan actors need to portray their representation of culture as only one possibility. Therefore, a cultural defence is erected against abstract opponents who are today described as people who lay claims against the dominant notions of cultural unity, regardless of whether they are locals or outsiders. It cannot be denied that cultural image may have created some positive effect. Mythical Karelianism has undoubtedly brought a personal asset to some THE SPATIAL NATURE OF CULTURAL RECOGNITION 79 artists and it has, perhaps, created some pride among the deprived people of North Karelia. However, this carefully constructed image has also ensured that alternative interpretations of North Karelian culture and spirit have been unacceptable. People and their habits are not the creators of collective identity but the bearers of taken-for-granted stereotypes. Therefore, the democratisation of cultural policy is not connected with the social realities of the regional community and, consequently, does not offer opportunities to deal culturally with everyday life questions such as the sad expressions of rootlessness, poverty, racism and the undemocratic modes of decision-making. Tosum up, the aim of democratic cultural policy to provide greater cultural equality between people from different cultural backgrounds can sometimes be overshadowed by at least three practical factors of cultural recognition. (1) An unbroken political-administrative chain of decision-making between the central administration and the group representatives that may neglect those cultural representations, which do not fit into the consensual notion of regional culture. (2) The implementation of ideal images by the power holders of a subgroup who never question the hierarchies of the group itself. (3) The need for outside enemies (or the third party) that gives to the establishment of a group an instrument for fighting its local opponents in, for example, cultural, environmental and political conflicts. A united cultural community can thus be a line of defence against outside influences but, at the same time, it may narrow the cultural polyphony of a group itself and make it even more dependent upon the “acceptable allies” at the centres.

Notes

1 Over 90% of the population are white, speak Finnish and practise Evangelical Lutheranism. 2 The population of North Karelia has declined from 207,742 to just over 170,000 in four decades (1960–2000) but the unemployment rate is still among the highest in Finland (over 20%). 3 The net incomes from the state have usually been over e0.25 billion per year. 4 The spatial links are derived from the registers of cultural administration and relevant provincial cultural organisations (NKPF, 1960–1999; NKCB, 1968–1999; Pohls, 1989; Juvonen, 2000). 5 In two major cultural conflicts in the late 1940s, concerning the composition of the Finnish Broadcasting Company and the Academy of Finland, this traditional elite defeated the Communists. 6 This shift in political power was largely due to the antipathy the Soviet leaders felt towards the Finnish social democrats and conservatives and, on the other hand, the fear of communists by other parties. 7 The number of persons employed in agriculture decreased by 600,000 between 1950 and 1975 (approx. 15% of the whole population). 8 The social democratic director of the FBC was worried about local hierarchies and was not ready to permit local entrepreneurs, primarily strong newspapers, to establish commercial radio stations. However, on condition that the programmes have a “local spirit”, commercial radio stations have been permitted since 1985 (Salokangas, 1997: 302, 365). Regardless of the condition, Finnish local radio stations have mainly copied their profile from the Anglo-American model. 9 Kangas and Hirvonen (2001: 13–15) have counted 532 partially EU-funded regional cultural projects in Finland during 1995–1999. 10 According to different social indicators (e.g. unemployment rate, physical and mental health) Joensuu has coped reasonably well in respect to the national average, whereas the eastern forest zone in particular is an accumulation of problems (Oksa, 1985: 33, 39). 11 For example, the Kalevala hyper media and the Internet game where Karelian guerillas fight the Russians ( Juvonen, 2000). 80 S. HAŸRYNEN

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