Talk:Karelian question

Old talk
It's incorrect to say Finnish politicians generally do not want to speak about Karelia. For all the main parties the issue of the ceded territories was closed with Paris peace treaty. It is only being kept alive by small single-issue groups (not non-governmental organisations) like Pro Karelia, and a handful of fairly marginal right-wing parties.


 * When asking about Karelia, Finnish politicians answers are not straight. For example Seppo Kääriäinen said "everybody can think about things by own way" = "jokainen voi sisimmässään näistä asioista ajatella mitä mielii". Issue may be closed, but there are hopes for re-open it. Eg. Anneli Jäätteenmäki said "if it (return) is possible by negotiations, I have nothing against it." = "jos se (palautus) on mahdollista neuvotteluteitse, minulla ei ole mitään sitä vastaan". And not only "small groups" but also Karjalan liitto and 2 million of Finns want Karelia back. Kahkonen 17:54, 2004 Dec 5 (UTC)

What about the opinions of the people living in the terrorities? Morwen - Talk 18:06, 16 August 2005 (UTC)


 * If you can Finnish, see Karjala-kysymys. Kahkonen 17:56, 10 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I can’t, could you summarise please? (—Felix the Cassowary (User talk:Cassowary) )


 * Felix, here it comes: "Tammikuussa 1999 Viipurissa MTV3:n teettämässä mittauksessa palautusta kannatti 34 % ja vastusti 57 %, jos nykyasukkaat saisivat Suomen kansalaisuuden. Jos taas palautus vaatisi alueelta muuttamisen, luvut olivat 17 % ja 77 %." In English: "In January 1999 MTV3 (a commercial Finnish broadcasting company, my note) made a survey in Vyborg. 34 % of the people in Vyborg supported the merging of Karelia to Finland — if they would receive Finnish nationality. 57 % were against it. If people would need to travel away from where they lived at the moment, the numbers were 17 % and 77 %." 81.175.195.69 05:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Indecypherable English?
The article says:
 * Finland's official opinion is that borders can be changed peacefully, but as Russia has there is no need for it while Russia has showed that it does not have any purposes to accept returning negotiations.

which doesn't make sense to me. I gather that Finnland's official opinion is that they want it if it could be done peacefully, but from after the first comma there, I have no idea how Russia relates. As Russia has what? etc. Any clarification would be most welcome!

—Felix the Cassowary (User talk:Cassowary) 07:54, 12 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Simply remove "as Russia has". Kahkonen 21:38, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

GDP(PPP) per capita disparity claim
I removed the following claim from the article:
 * That [the GDP(PPP) per capita difference between Finland and Russia] is the greatest difference between two neighbouring countries in the world after that of USA and Mexico.


 * USA 39,496 - Mexico 9,666
 * Finland 29,305 - Russia 10,179

As can be easily checked at the list of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita, such disparities are not very rare, and indeed it is easy to find even greater disparities, such as:

South Korea 21,419 - North Korea 1,400 Israel 22,077 - Egypt 4,072 Hong Kong 30,558 - People's Republic of China 5,642 South Africa 10,798 - Mozambique 1,247 Indonesia 3,703 - East Timor 400 Greece 20,362 - Albania 4,937 Hungary 15,546 - Serbia and Montenegro 4858

I thought maybe the claim could be true if you qualified the statement in some way, but could think of no meaningful way to do so, so I'm removing it entirely. --Iceager 10:50, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * If you check GDP in Finland side and in Russian side (in this ceded territory) of border, you can get the thing. Can't now find just right values, but it is some 29000 - 2000 (EUR). Kahkonen 13:34, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Right, my mistake. Thanks for correcting it. --Hathaldir

Below is a list of the differences ordered by the ratio of the GDP values. As you can see, of those listed, Finland - Russia is the smallest difference. The difference between the two Koreas is by far the largest. &mdash; J I P  | Talk 09:15, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) South Korea - North Korea: 15.30
 * 2) Indonesia - East Timor: 9.258
 * 3) South Africa - Mozambique: 8.659
 * 4) Israel - Egypt: 5.422
 * 5) Hong Kong - People's Republic of China: 5.416
 * 6) Greece - Albania: 4.124
 * 7) USA - Mexico: 4.086
 * 8) Hungary - Serbia and Montenegro: 3.200
 * 9) Finland - Russia: 2.879

Name of the article
That's fun. When I first started this article, I named it just Karelian question in Finland. :-) Kahkonen 21:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Restored name "Karelian question in Finnish politics". The name "Karelian question in Finland" is bad:
 * It is bad English.
 * It seems that the editor ML wanted to point out that the "Karelian question" only exists on the fringes of Finnish politics. The name change has the opposite effect; it gives te issue more prominance, almost making it an international irredentist issue.
 * For the earlier discusion on the name see Talk:Winter_War.
 * Petri Krohn 01:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * "various groups in Finland advocate restoration of Karelia and other areas ceded to the Soviet Union, but the Finnish Government asserts no territorial demands" - CIA Kahkonen 19:43, 16 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't even understand how name "Karelian question" could be non-NPOV... A bit weird interpreting. Kahkonen 18:39, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Revisiting the title
More than twelve years later, we should revisit the article title yet again. How commonly is the phrase "Karelian question" used to refer to this matter? Is it universally understood to mean this? Even if the similar Finnnish-language phrase Karjala-kysymys is well-recognized to refer to this matter, that does not mean that its English-language equivalent has received similar treatment. If this is not a predominate phrase used to refer to this matter in the English-language, then it seems ill-suited to be the title of this article. I have already initiated a similar discussion about the name of the article currently entitled "Kaliningrad question" (the outcomes of that discussion may differ from the outcomes of this discussion, it is possible that it might be decided to change that article's title whilst retaining the current title of this article). SecretName101 (talk) 21:30, 26 November 2018 (UTC)


 * The current article title has the advantage of being a recognised English-language name for the topic. I do not know of any other recognised names for the topic. Wikipedia policy is that we should follow usage, and not invent new terms.  Toddy1 (talk) 10:28, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Rants & raves
Here's my little rant about karelian question, following text is no way NPOV so feel free to disregard completely. Following text also might contain racistic views, of which I apologise. As a young finn, I find the discussions about returning karelia completely ridiculous. Simple glance at maths explains the situation easily. Karelia currently has population of almost 1 million, compared to finlands 5.1 million. Forget forcibly relocating people, it isn't an option, you cannot evict people from their homes, think israel, do we want suicide bombers taking revenge on us in future? If karelia would be joined to finland, total population would rise to over 6 million, and every 6th "finn" would speak russian as their native tongue. Such large number would likely grant russian language status of official language in finland. Meaning, every public servant would have to be able to speak russian in order to be qualified to work in public offices. Infrastructure in roads, seweage, health care, electricity etc are far inferior in karelia, and below finnish standards. It would cost billions of dollars to repair the infrastructure. Age group of people living in karelian area consists mostly of older age groups. The amount of retired persons would rise alot, increasing pension expenses. Shortly put, it's not economically feasible to pursue the return of karelia. 85.77.62.77 00:52, 20 January 2006 (UTC)


 * "Karelia currently has population of almost 1 million," - You are writing about Republic of Karelia when return debat is about ceded territories. You can join Karelia question in other forums, Wikipedia is not a correct place for discuss about it. 81.197.3.89 13:47, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Relevance of article
The issue of the ceded territories in Karelia is undoubtedly of great importance to some Finns, but even in their own country they are a very marginal group. A quick check of the various irrendentist websites will show that only some half a dozen people actively take part in the debate.

It is therefore questionnable if the issue is worth an article of its own in Wikipedia. A better solution might to refer to the irrendentists in a sentence or two in the article proper about Karelia.

It may also be worth noting the there has been calls on irrendentist websites of using Wikipedia more actively to further their cause. 81.131.65.196 11:17, 3 February 2006


 * Funny comment :-) Laughed at it. See polls, where some 30 percent of Finns support returning. It's important to provide npov information in the Internet. 81.197.3.89 13:44, 16 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree (on questionnability of article). This material is mainly irredentist and revanchist POV pushing. I still think it is a good idea to have a separate article on this. If this article did not exist, the same POV material would start poping up on other pages, and lead to constant edit wars. -- Petri Krohn 14:00, 16 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't forget the history of question. President Kekkonen tried several discuss with Soviet leaders. Of course there should be an article about it. But what did you mean with this: "It may also be worth noting the there has been calls on irrendentist websites of using Wikipedia more actively to further their cause."? Where? I can't agree on Krohn's "revanchist". I have not seen pro-war comments among returners (ok, let's don't count lunatics like Seppo Lehti). I think every "returner" agree that two wars are enough. Kahkonen 19:40, 16 February 2006 (UTC)


 * As I see, in this discussion NPOV is not disputed. If 195.148.27.121 or anyone issues "Relevance of article" you can add VfD template, not NPOV. A quick look to fi-wiki's article shows that result may be keep. Kahkonen 11:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


 * "See polls, where some 30 percent of Finns support returning." I laughed at that. You should have read the polls even further. A couple of next words in the same sentence would have told you that over a half of all Finns are against returning.


 * No need for laugh. If 30 % Finns support it, there is some relevancy for article, isn't it? Kahkonen 15:15, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Swedish article on Karelia purchase
Is important enough to be mentioned here? (Stefan2 10:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC))

Kuusamo
The municipality of Kuusamo lost some 1.700 km2 after the Winter War. The area included the villages of Paanajärvi, Tavajärvi, Vatajärvi, Enojärvi, Pukari and Kenttikylä, totalling 2.100 inhabitants. Therefore, it is prudent to mention that the ceded area includes parts of Salla and Kuusamo. --MPorciusCato 13:27, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Some questions over ambiguous wordings
I'm trying to give this article a once-over in English style and grammar, and would be grateful if someone could check the wordings listed here just to make sure I have not changed the meanings of the sentences.

- However, all evacuee families had a right to receive a small farm, and/or a plot for a detached house or a flat. (should this be "and" or "or"? the original sentence had neither but the stylistic needs in the English language called for a conjunction. Also it seems that either the family was given a farm, or they were given a house or flat, not both.)

- Compensation is ALWAYS singular in English.

- Karjalan Liitto is an interest group of Karelian evacuees which hopes that Karelia will be restored to Finland at some point (changed from "some day" - colloquial, not formal style)

- Removed word "extremists" because that could be considered POV. Does anyone have a source as to who has suggested this so that a more accurate description can be entered?

Lstanley1979 (talk) 16:18, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Prize or price?
From the article:
 * The group counted a prize of returning Karelia to Finland, 15000 million dollars.

Is this a prize (money that you get) or a price (money that you pay)? Many Finns confuse the English words, because the sound z does not occur natively in Finnish. I suspect it's a price, but I have not read the article thoroughly enough to know for sure. J I P | Talk 18:38, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Fixed that. It's rather unlikely that Russia would want to award Finland 15B$ just to get rid of Karelia... ;-) Meh, the whole article is too overblown, IMO. After all, it's just a weird idea on the fringes of the Finnish society. Anyways, it's kind of reassuring that there are people who want go to war with Russia and ethnically cleanse the place in order to get it: The amount of wackos appears to be pretty consistent among the nations... :-) --Illythr (talk) 22:01, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Funny article :)


 * Yeah right. I must be crazy to want stolen property back. Even if that theft included a violent battery on an international scale it doesnt mean its right. -LT —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.85.154.229 (talk) 14:10, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Fringe or mainstream?
Some years ago I insisted that the article clearly states that the Karelian question is on the fringes of Finnish politics. I am no longer convinced of this. Have irredentist demands for the "return" of Karelia entered the mainstream? -- Petri Krohn (talk) 01:29, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
 * No new polls have been published. No politicians have recently or non-recently accounced they support the return of areas annexed by the Soviet Union. Unless that happens, there is no reason to change the article. --Pudeo⺮ 18:56, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Silence speaks for itself. Has any politican or group stated their objection to the irredentist project or the irredentist groups? If so, should that be mentionend in the article? -- Petri Krohn (talk) 20:59, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
 * All presidental candidates in the 2006 elections, except non-aligned Arto Lahti and Timo Soini, said they do not support the concept. Including Halonen, who just answered "no" to the Helsingin Sanomat election quiz (vaalikone). That is covered in the article already though. Before 1999 parliamentary elections all party leaders were asked the same. Finnish Wikipedia covers the opinions of politicians quite nicely: here.  Simply, there are more important and prominent things than 60 year old politics with Soviet Union that doesn't even exist anymore? --Pudeo' 21:28, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

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