Border Crossing in the 1930s – Salvation and Destruction in the Soviet Union : Oral History Study on the Memoirs of a Finnish Illegal Migrant to Soviet Karelia

Abstract

This study deals with the illegal immigration of Finns to Soviet Karelia in the early 1930s during the economic recession in Finland's post-Civil War 1918 atmosphere. The study examines the reasons for migration, the stages before and after crossing the geopolitical border, and the impact of Stalin's regime's persecution on the migrants' lives through the microhistorical life events of one particular migrant.

Karl Aho crossed the Finland–Soviet border illegally in November 1931 following his family, granted political asylum in the Soviet Union. Aho's stages and interactions with the socio-cultural surroundings along his journey are studied through the concept of physical and metaphorical borders. As part of the National Archives' Finns in Russia 1917–1964 Research Project, this explanatory oral history study examines Aho's memoirs in detail. It reflects the interview remembrance to archival sources and previous research in an anthropological key. This study helps readers identify themselves with the experiences of a particular person and individuals involved in his life in a microhistorical context, thus helping to understand and remember the past on a larger scale.

Having mobile memberships in different social groups with their cultural distinctions across group divisions in the Soviet Union, Karl Aho had to readjust and adapt safe cultural combinations to live in social surroundings of different periods. Being a political Gulag prisoner, Karl managed to find some metaphorical shapable contact areas to mitigate the effects of repressions through formal and informal socio-cultural interaction.