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Up to the beginning of the 1990's, the Karelians, living in the Republic of Karelia and north-western regions of Russia, formed the largest (131 thousand in 1989) national minority of the former Soviet Union that did not have a literary language of their own. Absence of such an important tool of national culture in modern society can be considered as one of the basic reasons behind the fast ethnic and linguistic assimilation of the Karelians that has been observed during the last decades.

During the last few years, creation of Karelian literary language has been started in Karelia and the Tver oblast. Karelian has been introduced into the school curriculum, primers, textbooks and other literature have been produced in the Latin alphabet. A weekly newspaper Oma mua (Native land) has been published for five years. Remarkable in this activity the fact that it is conducted in different dialects. The best results have been achieved in creation of literary forms of the Olonets dialect and the northern dialects of Karelian Proper. A primer has been published and facultative lessons are conducted in the Karelian Proper dialects of the Tver oblast. Publications exist also in Ludic and the southern (Padany) dialects of Karelian Proper. All the dialects are used in the Karelian newspaper.

Problems of further development of the Karelian literary language are widely discussed in the Republic of Karelia as well as in Finland. Enrichment of the lexicon, creation of a unified literary language and functioning of the Finnish language among the Karelians have been regarded as the most acute questions. Attention of linguists and the general public has quite often been directed to the experience of the 1930's when similar attempts to create literary forms of Karelian were made.

In this paper I shall try to present some preliminary results of my research in the Karelian language planning in the 1930's and to notice a few points that should be taken into account in the present situation. Material for the research has been collected from the Karelian press and archives. The work is carried out at the Russian Department of the University of Joensuu in Finland, within the framework of a research program on Karelia, Russia and East Europe.

First of all, it is necessary to pay attention to the inconsistency of the Karelian language planning in the 1930's, caused be dialectal and territorial disunity of the Karelian language, as well as political reasons, in particular those related to foreign policy. During a period of little more than ten years, no less than five different strategies were tried out to solve the language problems of the Karelians.

1) Introduction of the Finnish language in the Soviet Karelia

When the Karelian autonomy was created in the beginning 1920's, it was decided that introduction of a Karelian literary language would be unnecessary. The decision was motivated by absence of literary traditions, dialectal differences of the Karelian language, affinity of its northern dialects to the Finnish language and wide-spread knowledge of Russian among the southern Karelians. A significant role in this was played by the Finnish Communist emigrants who aspired to creation of a springboard for a future revolution in Finland.

Finnish became the literary language for the northern Karelians who accepted it without any special difficulties. Russian remained the literary language of the overwhelming majority of Karelians.

During the second half of the 1920's, within the framework of the all-union policy of "national rooting" (korenizcija), introduction of Finnish as a literary language "uniting all Karelian dialects" was started. The so-called "Karelization", carried out in Finnish, however, was hampered by significant differences between Finnish and the dialects of Southern Karelia.

2) Literary language of the Tver Karelians

In what was then the Tver okrug of the Moscow oblast (later Kalinin oblast), the local Karelian Proper dialect was chosen to become the means of carrying out "Karelization". In the beginning of the 1930's, a project of a Karelian literary language based on the Latin alphabet was approved, publication of a newspaper and textbooks was organized, transition of the elementary school into the native language began. D.V. Bubrikh, a well-known specialist in Finno-Ugrian languages, and members of the local Karelian intelligentsia took part in elaboration of the literary language.

Due to the relative unity of the Tver dialects, establishment of the basic phonetic and morphological norms of the new literary language did not require great efforts. The main obstacles on its way turned out to be the problems of adopting the Latin alphabet and translating materials into Karelian, as well as the limitations of the Karelian vocabulary.

The choice of the Latin alphabet did not justify itself in circumstances where the Russian language remained the basic means of cultural development for the Karelians. Use of the Latin alphabet caused significant confusion in the orthography, hindered spreading of Karelian literacy among the adult population, complicated teaching of the native and Russian languages at school.

Predominance of translated materials, particularly those of a political character, in the Karelian press caused wide use of alien constructions such as replacement of the genitive with the partitive alongside with maintenance of the Russian word order, for example: tožitanda osnovnoida zaduaččua socializmua 'realization of the basic task of socialism", instead of socializman osnovnoin zaduačan tožitanda.

The word stock and the derivational potential of the local dialects, internationalisms and sovietisms as well as loans from the Finnish language were declared as the main sources of enrichment of the lexicon. As a result of the practice of translation, Russian loan words, semantic and word-formational calques received the largest distribution. An example of creation of Karelian neologisms is the word urhakka 'courageous, brave; dexterous' which was given the meaning 'shock worker'(Russian udarnyj, udarnik) and then used to derive the words urhakaldi (Russian po-udarnomu), urhakuš (Russian udarničestvo).

The problems encountered in the development of the Karelian literary language, together with political motives, resulted in discontinuance of "Karelization" in the Moscow oblast in the spring of 1933. During the next years, the Karelian language continued to fulfill very limited functions, mainly at the elementary school, local press and amateur art. At the same time, one can observe a gradual establishment of the norms of the Karelian orthography and syntax, alongside with a refusal from the most characteristic neologisms of the beginning of the 1930's.

3) Search for compromise in the Karelian ASSR

In connection with the creation of the Tver literary language, the question of literary language for the other Karelians was raised. In the Karelian ASSR the demands for introduction of a Karelian literary language were rejected, yet, together with the Republic's own language problems, they forced the local leadership to look for compromise strategies. At first, an idea of "Karelizing" the Finnish language by means of enriching it with local elements was put forward. The attempts to apply this mixed "Karelian-Finnish" language, however, soon turned out to be unsuccessful.

During the next years, in particular after beginning of persecutions against the Finnish emigrants and removal of the former leadership of Karelia in 1935, began development of the so-called "dialect literature". It was based mainly on the Olonets dialect, with use of some rules of the Finnish orthography, Finnish and Russian borrowings and models. At the same time, however, the dialect literature, called to play only an auxiliary role, did not have established ortographical, grammatical or lexical norms.

In parallel, attempts were made to give a more "Soviet-like" appearance to the Finnish language that already in the beginning of the 1930's started to become associated with Finland's claims to the Soviet Union. Inclusion of Russian and international elements was regarded as a means of differentiating the "Soviet" Finnish from the "bourgeois" language of Finland. Characteristic example is replacement of the words neuvosto 'Soviet', tasavalta 'republic', vallankumous 'revolution' with the loanwords sovetti, respublikka, revolutsioni.

4) Unified Karelian literary language

In 1937, in an atmosphere of terror that soon resulted in destruction of the most prominent figures of the Finnish emigration and discontinuance of the use of the Finnish language, Karelian was declared a state language in the Karelian ASSR. A decision was made to create a unified literary language for all the Karelians in the Soviet Union. Realization of this task was taken up by representatives of Karelia and the recently founded Karelian national okrug of the Kalinin oblast, lead by professor D.V. Bubrikh.

The new literary language was given a Cyrillic orthography and a grammar in which, according to Bubrikh, "phenomena that could as well as possible suit all the Karelians were selected and connected into a uniform system, regardless of which dialects did these phenomena belong to". In reality, the literary norms were based on the Tver dialects of Karelian proper, with addition of some features of the Olonets dialect. At the same time, the grammar included compromises that contradicted all or most of the dialects. A case in point is the elimination of the sibilants, the use of which follows completely opposite principles in different dialects: instead of ištuo 'to sit', sanuo 'to say' in one dialects and istuo, šanuo in others, one now had to write istuo, sanuo.

Elaboration of the lexicon was to be based on incorporation of the word stock of all the dialects, Karelian neologisms, Russian and international borrowings. In spite of a negative attitude towards the use of Finnish material, many neologisms were created according to Finnish models.

5) Literary language of the Karelian ASSR

By the autumn of 1938, vigorous introduction of the unified literary language had led the Karelian autonomies into a dead end. In the Karelian ASSR, transition of the formerly Finnish-medium schools into teaching in Karelian and Russian left them without textbooks and qualified teachers. In the countryside, particularly in Southern Karelia, wide discontent with the norms of the unified literary language could be observed.

Finally, a second wave of the purges turned against the creators of the new literary language who were declared to have caused the chaos that had aroused as a result of the arbitrary actions by the authorities. In the Kalinin oblast this led to liquidation of the Karelian national okrug and termination of the use of literary Karelian, in the Karelian ASSR - to annulment of the rules of the literary language.

During the spring of 1939, new rules based predominantly on the Olonets dialect were developed. At the same time, action was taken to eliminate the Finnish borrowings, Karelian neologisms and elements of the Tver dialects that had been used in the unified literary language. A direction of maximum approachment to the Russian language was taken.

Among the "alien elements" fell many indigenous Karelian phenomena and words that were common with the Finnish language. The most important such phenomenon was the Karelian Proper system of declination (with five local cases) adopted in the unified literary language, now replaced by the system of the Olonets dialect (with three local cases).

In parallel with elaboration of the norms of the literary language went on expansion of its functions, particularly at school and in publishing. Prestige of the Karelian press, however, was undermined by almost complete absence of original materials, poor quality of translations and an effect of "mixed language", arising as a result of abundant borrowing of Russian elements and models. According to my calculations, in June 1939, for example, Russian borrowings made up to 60 % of all word occurrences in the Karelian newspaper Sovetskoi Karelija.

The final destiny of the Karelian literary language was determined by political tasks of the Karelian-Finnish SSR, created in the spring of 1940 after a war with Finland. Use of the Karelian literary language was discontinued and Finnish was once again proclaimed as the second state language of the republic. During the post-war decades, Finnish continued to carry out some functions of a literary language, mainly for the northern Karelians. At the same time, the majority of the Karelians, speaking in other dialects, was deprived of opportunity to participate in national cultural life. The result of the absence of literary language and other national symbols has been particularly obvious among the Tver Karelians whose numbers declined by more than 50 % from 1959 to 1989.

In our opinion, the experience of the Karelian language planning supports the course chosen in the beginning of the 1990's towards creating literary forms in different dialects. The goal set by the Karelian linguists and the general public - revitalization of the native language - cannot be achieved by means of a literary language alien to the speakers of all or the majority of dialects. At the same time, mutual acquaintance with the varieties of dialect literature, as it is done by the Karelian newspaper, serves as a precondition for possible creation of a unified literary language in the future.

Finally, it is necessary to pay attention to the position of the Karelian language between Finnish, a language that is closely related, yet alien to the majority of the Karelians, and the unrelated Russian that has become almost like a native language. Whereas the 1930's witnessed gradual strengthening of Russian influence on the Karelian literary language, we now have to deal with an opposite tendency - openness to influence of the Finnish language. This tendency has motivated the choice of the Latin alphabet, wide use of Finnish borrowings and models. Taking advantage of the experience of a highly developed kindred language can certainly have a positive significance. Yet, at the same time, attempts of "derussification", together with simultaneous "Finnization", may result in breaking of the historical continuity in the development of Karelian, loss of its originality and fall of prestige of the literary language.