Building That Bright Future: Soviet Karelia in the Life Writing of Finnish North Americans

277 Pages·2022·2.964 MB·English

by  Samira Saramo

BUILDING THAT BRIGHT FUTURE
Soviet Karelia in the Life Writing of Finnish North Americans
In the early 1930s, approximately 6,500 Finns from Canada and the
United States moved to Soviet Karelia, on the border of Finland, to
build a Finnish workers’ society. They were recruited by the Soviet lead-
ership for their North American mechanical and lumber expertise,
their familiarity with the socialist cause, and their Finnish language and
ethnicity. By 1936, however, Finnish culture and language came under
attack and ethnic Finns became the region’s primary targets in the
Stalinist Great Terror.
Building That Bright Future relies on the personal letters and memoirs
of these Finnish migrants to build a history of everyday life during a
transitional period for both North American socialism and Soviet policy.
Highlighting the voices of men, women, and children, the book follows
the migrants from North America to the Soviet Union, providing vivid
descriptions of daily life. Samira Saramo brings readers into personal
contact with Finnish North Americans and their complex and intimate
negotiations of self and belonging.
Through letters and memoirs, Building That Bright Future explores
the multiple strategies these migrants used to make sense of their rap-
idly shifting positions in the Soviet hierarchy and the relationships that
rooted them to multiple places and times.
SAMIRA SARAMO is a Kone Foundation Senior Researcher at the Migra-
tion Institute of Finland.
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Building That Bright Future
Soviet Karelia in the Life Writing
of Finnish North Americans
SAMIRA SARAMO
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press 2022
Toronto Buffalo London
utorontopress.com
Printed in the U.S.A.
ISBN 978-1-4875-0480-9 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4875-3093-8 (EPUB)
ISBN 978-1-4875-2349-7 (paper) ISBN 978-1-4875-3092-1 (PDF)
_____________________________________________________________________
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Building that bright future : Soviet Karelia in the life writing of Finnish
North Americans / Samira Saramo.
Names: Saramo, Samira, author.
Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220132518 | Canadiana (ebook) 2022013264X |
ISBN 9781487504809 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781487523497 (softcover) |
ISBN 9781487530938 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781487530921 (PDF)
Subjects: LCSH: Finnish Americans – Russia (Federation) – Karelia – Biography. |
CSH: Finnish Canadians – Russia (Federation) – Karelia – Biography. | LCSH:
Finnish Americans – Russia (Federation) – Karelia – Correspondence. | CSH:
Finnish Canadians – Russia (Federation) – Karelia – Correspondence. | LCSH:
Finnish Americans – Russia (Federation) – Karelia – History – 20th century. |
CSH: Finnish Canadians – Russia (Federation) – Karelia – History – 20th
century. | LCSH: Finnish Americans – Russia (Federation) – Karelia – Social life
and customs – 20th century. | CSH: Finnish Canadians – Russia (Federation) –
Karelia – Social life and customs – 20th century. | LCSH: Karelia (Russia) –
History – 20th century. | LCSH: Soviet Union – History – 1925–1953.
Classification: LCC DK511.K18 S27 2022 | DDC 305.894/54104715–dc23
_____________________________________________________________________________
We wish to acknowledge the land on which the University of Toronto Press
operates. This land is the traditional territory of the Wendat, the Anishnaabeg,
the Haudenosaunee, the Métis, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support of the
Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts
Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario, for its publishing activities.
Funded by the Financé par le
Government gouvernement
of Canada du Canada
Contents
List of Illustrations vi
Acknowledgments vii
Map of Karelia x
Introduction 3
The Life Writers 11
1 The Call of Karjala: Contextualizing the Karelian “Fever” 20
2 “Our Comrades Are Leaving Again”: Moving to Soviet Karelia 41
3 “Of Course Not Like There”: Karelian Living Conditions as
Experienced by Finnish North Americans 59
4 “The Golden Fund of Karelia”: Childhood in Finnish North
American Karelia 84
5 “Isn’t It a Different Land, This Sickle and Hammer Land?”: Working
in Soviet Karelia 102
6 “All Kinds of Hustle and Bustle”: Community Life and Leisure 123
7 “Karelia Is Soaked in the Blood of Innocent People”: Writing about
the Great Terror 149
Conclusion 178
Notes 187
Bibliography 231
Index 247
Illustrations
1 Finnish Labour Temple, Port Arthur, Ontario, in the 1920s 23
2 Edvard Gylling 31
3 The MS Gripsholm leaving New York in 1932 54
4 A view of Petrozavodsk 57
5 Cars in Petrozavodsk 63
6 Foreign worker barracks in Kondopoga 65
7 The Hiilisuo daycare 79
8 Young Pioneers marching in Ishpeming, Michigan, in 1932 86
9 Fairy Tales for Workers Children, 1925 89
10 Women working at the Karelian Ski Factory in Petrozavodsk in the
early 1930s 109
11 Soviet technology at work building roads in Karelia 112
12 Women measuring logs in Matrosy 119
13 The National Culture Centre in Petrozavodsk in 1935 127
14 Film screening for lumber workers in 1938 135
15 Katri Lammi and Jukka Ahti in New York 173
Acknowledgments
I am grateful for all the ways I have been supported through the long
process of seeing this book to publication. It seems fitting to begin these
acknowledgments with Varpu Lindström, since this project began with
her. Varpu was an inspiring scholar, mentor, and friend, who taught me
so much about Finns and social history, but also about generosity, coop-
eration, and kindness. Though Varpu is not here to see this book, or
the York University History doctoral dissertation on which it is based,
I have been very fortunate to have had the guidance and friendship
of Roberto Perin throughout it all. I am also greatly indebted to Jane
Couchman, Marcel Martel, Sheila Embleton, Katherine Bischoping, and
Marlene Epp for helping me to think through the project in new ways.
I am immensely thankful for the feedback and friendship of many bril-
liant colleagues at the Migration Institute of Finland, the John Morton
Center for North American Studies, the University of Turku, Lakehead
University’s Department of History and Northern Studies Resource
Center, York University Department of History, the Comparative
Immigrant Book Cultures Research Group, the History of Finnish
Migrations Network, the Finnish Oral History Network, and the Place &
Colonialism Reading Group, among other scholarly communitites
I have the privilege to be part of. I want to give special thanks to Katie
Bausch, Andrew Watson, Malla Lehtonen, Reetta Humalajoki, Anne
Heimo, Marta-Laura Cenedese, Pekka Kolehmainen, Niko Heikkilä,
Saku Pinta, Ulla Savolainen, and Hanna Snellman for their unwavering
camaraderie.
My engagement with this history began with the opportunity to be
part of Varpu Lindström’s Missing in Karelia research project from 2006
to 2010. Through the project, I learned so much from the expertise of
colleagues including Markku Kangaspuro, Alexey Golubev, Peter Kivisto,
Irina Takala, Evgeny Efremkin, and Börje Vähämäki. I am grateful to
viii Acknowledgments
Raija Warkentin, who generously shared her research materials with me.
I have also had help and support from some of the descendants of the
Finnish North American life writers. Thank you, Nancy Mattson, Kathy
Toivonen, Leonore Heino, Arthur Koski, and the late Eini Tuomi, for
sharing your families with me. Thanks also to Laurie Hertzel, who years
ago kindly answered my questions about her time working with Mayme
Sevander.
I gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Ontario Graduate
Scholarship program, the Academy of Finland, Kone Foundation, and
the Migration Institute of Finland, which have enabled this work at
different stages. Thank you to Lennart Husband, Robin Studniberg,
Barbara Porter, and the University of Toronto Press team for making this
book a reality. Thank you also to copy editor James Leahy and indexer
Ellen Hawman.
In the process of learning about the Finns in Karelia, I discovered that
my family has played a role in this history, too. My maternal grandfather’s
uncle was among these Finnish North American migrants, my maternal
great-grandfather brought Finnish “border hoppers” to the Soviet bor-
der, and the Närvänen family has deep Finnish-Karelian roots. My family
has, of course, influenced this work in many other more immediate, inti-
mate, and nourishing ways. My warm thanks to my mother and father,
Tiina and Jari Närvänen, my in-laws, Lita Boudreau and Lyle and Vicki
Nicol, my amazing assorted siblings, Ninja, Jaan, Milko, Jonna, Erna, Bret,
Kate, Michael, and Justin, and my nephews and nieces. I am blessed with
a wonderful community of family and friends in Finland and Canada
(and elsewhere), and you have each made a mark on this work. Finally,
my greatest love, thanks, and appreciation go to my partner Luke Nicol
and our “raised in the revolutionary spirit” children, Azelia and Maeve.
I dedicate this book to the Finnish North Americans who went to
Karelia. May the memory of their commitment to building a better world
inspire us to work now for an equitable, sustainable, and brighter future
for all.
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Kandalaksha
W H I T E S E A
Ukhta (Uhtua) / Kalevala
Solovetsky Islands
Kem
Belomorsk
Medvezhyegorsk Sandarmokh
Kondopoga
(Kontupohja)
PETROZAVODSK (Petroskoi)
Matrosy Hiilisuo
F I N L A N D
(Matroosa)
Lososinnoie (Lososiina)
L A K E
O N E G A
Säde
L A K E L A D O G A
Map of Karelia in the 1930s. (Inset map by Danloud, reproduced under the
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International [CC BY-SA 4.0]
licence, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en.)