"Detail" from Europe?

President Putin, as you know, is increasingly fond of ancient history. After an article on the "original unity" of Russians and Ukrainians in September, he issued a decree on the celebration of the 800th anniversary of the Baptism of the Karelians . This event is proposed to be widely celebrated in 2027, although Putin's presidential powers expire in 2024. But, apparently, this date is as conditional as the appointed anniversary.

The year of the baptism of the Karelians (according to the modern chronology of the 1227th) is mentioned in the Old Russian Lavrentievsky Chronicle, which says that Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich "baptized many cores." True, neither the exact number, nor the area where baptism passed, is not given. “You need to understand that the baptism of the Karelians in 1227 is the event, most likely, the legendary,” says Maxim Pulkin, historian of the Karelian Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “If it took place in reality, then, apparently, on a very limited scale. We know that in the future many Karelians simply did not understand the Russian language and even more so the language of worship.” But for Russian official historiography, these details are not important. It is considered to be the baptism of "who determined the historical fate of Karelia for all subsequent centuries. Karelia became part of the Russian world, Russian civilization. The alternative was the adoption of Catholicism and then Lutheranism from the Swedes. Then Karelia would become part of Sweden, and then Finland, and all the Karelians would be assimilated by them."

From this, it is concluded that it was the existence of Karelia in Russia that saved the Karelians from assimilation. But let's take a look at the unbiased statistics. If in the 1926 census 37.82% of the residents of the then Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic called themselves, then in 2010 - only 7.38%. What, if not rapid assimilation, explain such a sharp drop in the share of the Karelian population in the republic?

One can recall another uncomfortable fact: of all the languages of the Russian republics, Karelsky is the most discriminated - it has no state status at all (which is possessed, for example, Tatar or Yakut). The reason is that its writing is based on Latin, while the federal law requires that all official languages of a giant multinational country from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean are built exclusively on the basis of the Cyrillic alphabet.

By the way, in the same Finland, which, according to many Russian guardians, wants to “assimilate” Karelians, the Karelian language has official status in accordance with the European Charter of regional languages or minority languages.

And in the current Karelia, even the timid attempts by local authorities to add the republican language to street signs caused a fierce hysteria among the Moscow "Tsargraders". The publicist Yegor Kholmogorov called this bilingualism “a very harmful initiative” and even called on the FSB to “engage in” its authors. This is not surprising - for the imperial figures in real federalism, the frightening ghost of the "collapse of the country" imagines.

In Moscow, the stereotype is common that "Karelia wants to join Finland." However, the Karelian writer Andrei Tuomi, tracing the centuries -old history of the formation of the republican consciousness among the Karelians, claims that, despite the related and friendly attitude to the Finnish neighbors, they always considered themselves a sovereign people. In 1990, Karelia of one of the first republics as part of the then RSFSR proclaimed its declaration of state sovereignty. It meant the desire not to separate, but to establish truly federal, contractual relations with other Russian regions. But with the construction of the “vertical of power” it was dangerous to recall this declaration, and employees of the E -E Center were constantly on duty at club concerts in honor of its adoption ...

From a geocultural point of view, Karelia embodies the idea of cross-border, where Scandinavian, Finnish and Slavic (Novgorod-Popomor) roots have been intertwined for centuries. Border cooperation has always developed here, and the border of Russian Karelia and Finland is generally the longest section of the border of the Russian Federation and the EU - about 1000 km. The most reasonable and effective for any government would be to use the advantages of this geographical position, but this is conflicting with the current isolationist and anti -European Kremlin policy. In 1999, the still elected leadership of the republic, together with the administrations of the three regions of Finland, agreed on the establishment of Euro Region Karelia. But under Putin, the project was practically folded.

The current Kremlin policy is built on the contrast of Russia in Europe - and therefore the border territories are not perceived as a space of cooperation, but as an outpost before "foreign enemies." Hence such an aggravated tendency to cultural contrasts. For example, Komi or Udmurts also have their own legendary dates for the adoption of Christianity, but the authorities are unlikely to be going to celebrate them so magnificent as in Karelia. And the celebration of the "Baptism of the Karelians" has a distinct geopolitical meaning - to "disobede" them from family Finns. Like, forget your common Kalevalsky runes, you are just part of the "Russian world". And, by the way, the "younger brothers", since Rus' baptized 1000 years ago in the "sacred Crimea", and Karelov - only two centuries later ...

For the Karelian diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, this anniversary, of course, is very important - it allows us to hope for generous federal financing of new -ve -watering church structures. At the same time, in general, the anti -European ideology of the Russian government does not cause special support in the republic. It is very significant that in the past elections for the ruling party "United Russia" as a whole in the country, almost half of the voters voted, while in Karelia it received only 31.7% of the vote.

So, maybe in 2027, residents of Karelia will celebrate some other holiday?

Vadim Shtepa - journalist

The "Opinion" expressed in the heading of the point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial office