Abstract
The beginnings of the Soviet Union as well as Finnish-led Soviet Karelia date back to the First World War. However, the decade before the Second World War, with its Stalinist Purges and the outbreak of the Winter War (1939–40), changed the destiny of Karelia's Finns. During the Stalinist Purges, thousands of American Finns fled from Karelia to Finland or back to North America or to forest work stations in Karelia or to other parts of the Soviet Union. Thousands were repressed and executed; they died in forced labor camps and remote regions of exile. American Finns fell into the whirl of one of the mightiest powers in history, with little opportunity to have a say in the events that took control of their lives and determined their fates.
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© 2011 Journal of Finnish Studies
2011
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