What if at the end of WWI independent Finland had all of Karelia (Karel'skaya A.S.S.R.) up to the White Sea, including the Murmansk peninsula?
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It seems that around 1900 Ingria was nearly solidly Finnish (or similar)-speaking except for the built-up area of St.Petersburg.
How similar are Finnish and Estonian? Can they understand each other's languages?
It seems that around 1900 Ingria was nearly solidly Finnish (or similar)-speaking except for the built-up area of St.Petersburg.
How similar are Finnish and Estonian? Can they understand each other's languages?
It seems that around 1900 Ingria was nearly solidly Finnish (or similar)-speaking except for the built-up area of St.Petersburg.
How similar are Finnish and Estonian? Can they understand each other's languages?
Yes, but they only got passive support from Helsinki. The Finnish government was more eager to get parts of East Karelia. Finland was especially eager to get the muncipalities of Repola and Porajärvi, buut ultimately traded their claims for Petsamo and access to the Arctic Ocean. I think a more active Finland combined with a more chaotic Russia could have given Finland access to Onega, but that would be max.See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Ingria and this map for part of north Ingria that OTL tried to secede from Russia and join Finland after WWI.
I belive (as a Swede) that Finnish and Estonian are fairly close - but there are big differences in that "close". Also, by 1918 languages such as English or Finnis had far more regional differences. BBC English hadn't started to spread, so one finn may understand one estonian dialect - but not a different dialect.
Yeah, the Finns had romantic-nationalist ideas but they weren't stupid. They knew that without being backed by the Entente to the hilt, nothing that could be described as a "Finnish invasion of Russia" was going to end well, so they restricted themselves to sending volunteer bands into Karelia; but outside Repola and Porajarvi, the Karelians themselves were pretty apathetic and the expeditions quickly fell apart.
The Finns were even more cautious about Ingria, where the Soviets, as seen in 1939, thought the border was rather unfortunately close to Leningrad already.
Tyr said:From my experience with Finns they seem to enjoy comparing words with Estonians but they're really not all that close, its not like Swedish and Norwegian. More like...I dunno...English and German or somesuch.