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From 1940 to 1956, the Karelo-Finnish SSR was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, on par with (amongst others) the Ukrainian SSR, the Russian SFSR and the Turkmen SSR. What if it's wasn't reintegrated in the RFSFR as an ASSR in 1956, and remained an union republic until the collapse of the Soviet Union?

While I'm sure that it would've changed much in the grand scheme of things, and certainly not until the aforementioned collapse, I'm still curious about the possible outcome of this for Karelia?
Given that the majority of its inhabitants are ethnic Russians (73,6% in 1989, with only 10% declared Karelians and 2,7% Finns), would a 'serious' nationalist movement have emerged? Or would Karelia gain its independence 'allmost by surprise' when the Soviet Union was disbanded? Or would it end up as part of the Russian Federation, albeit with a special status?
If it became independent, would it evolve into a second Belarus, or would it follow the Baltic path towards the European Union (but with less anti-Russian resentment)? I presume that, whatever may be the case, it wouldn't suddenly become massively 'culturally re-Finnicized', although a slight revival of Karelian/Finnish culture is likely. Likewise, because of the demographic composition, an East German style union with Finnland seems unlikely.
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