Soviet land swap offer to Finland.

January 19, 2007 5:46 AM

The Soviet Union offered Finland a land swap prior to the Winter War of 1939-1940. I remember seeing a map of the proposed land swap maybe 20 years ago but my google fu is failing me. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
posted by beccaj to Law & Government (11 answers total)

This article, about Suur Suomi, a Finnish movement to expand the country's territory, has some not-entirely-relevant maps, but also refers to the historical events you mention - perhaps consult the author for some ideas on where to find some maps?

In the Continuation War (Wikipedia link), which was apparently a conflict separate from the Winter War you mention, "Finland had to make many limiting concessions: the Soviet Union regained the borders of 1940, with the addition of the Petsamo area; the Porkkala Peninsula (adjacent to Finland's capital Helsinki) was leased to the USSR as a naval base for fifty years (but returned in 1956)." There's a map in that article as well.

Also, here's the Wikipedia article from which the map in the first article comes.
posted by mdonley at 7:17 AM on January 19, 2007

The Wikipedia Winter War page says:

In autumn 1939, after Germany's attack on Poland, the Soviet Union finally demanded that Finland agree to move the border 25 kilometres back from Leningrad, which was at that time only 32 kilometres from Finland. It also demanded that Finland lease the Hanko Peninsula to the USSR for 30 years for the creation of a naval base there. In exchange, the Soviet Union offered Finland a large part of Karelia ("two pounds of dirt for one pound of gold").

This Russian site on the war says:

On October 14 the Soviet government made a new proposal: to lease for 30 years the port and peninsula of Hanko... and to transfer to the Soviet Union — in exchange for Soviet territory 5,523 sq. km. in area in the region of Reboly [Finnish Repola] and Polosozero [Porajärvi] in the Karelian ASSR — islands in the Gulf of Finland: Gotland (Suursaari) ["Gotland" should presumably be Hogland], Seiskari, Lavansaari, Greater and Lesser Tytärsaari [the former is now Kolari], ... the islands Björkö and Tiurinsaari, the part of the Karelian Peninsula up to the line Lipola (now Kotovo) - Lake Yskjärvi (now Vishnevskoye) - Perkjärvi Station (now Kirillovskoye) - Koivisto (now Primorsk) and to the north, the Finnish part of the Rybachiy and Sredniy [see Rybachiy link] peninsulas, in all 2,761 sq. km. of territory.

Aha—I just found an actual map in the book Finland In The Second World War: Between Germany and Russia by Olli Venvilainen (Amazon, GoogleBooks), Map 3.2 (search on "maps" and click on "6. on Page 36"), "The Soviet-Finnish Talks" (showing "Areas demanded by the Soviet Union" and "Areas offered by the Soviet Union in return")—it's not very detailed, but with the information above you can probably do pretty well with it. Good luck!
posted by languagehat at 7:58 AM on January 19, 2007

The Continuation war is a sham. Its Finland's way of pretending that they weren't allied with the Nazi's during World War II. They invaded the Soviet Union along with the Nazis. They just call it the "Continuation War" so they don't have to call it "The German Invasion of Russia."
posted by Ironmouth at 9:04 AM on January 19, 2007

I don't have an answer for you, but I watched a documentary about the Winter War called Fire and Ice at the Twin Cities Film Festival last year. If you can track it down, maybe it will have what you're looking for.
posted by gauchodaspampas at 10:47 AM on January 19, 2007

I found it for purchase from PBS.
posted by gauchodaspampas at 10:48 AM on January 19, 2007

FIRE AND ICE retraces the historic battles of the Winter War when the Soviet Red Army invaded Finland on November 30, 1939.

Doesn't sound like they're likely to have a map of the negotiation offer from October. Do you specifically remember having seen one when you watched it?

The Continuation war is a sham [blah blah]

I'm sure we're all very interested in your opinions on the subject and would like to subscribe to your newsletter, and I'm sure if you had been in charge of Finland you could have done a much better job of steering a course between Hitler and Stalin, but may I point out that you are not even bothering to pretend to try to answer the question?
posted by languagehat at 10:58 AM on January 19, 2007

Curzio Malaparte included an excellent map of the Finno-Russian war in his book Kaputt. Although it might only be in the original edition because I know Granta books made a new edition but haven't seen whether it has maps or not. Either way, read the book, it has some excellent personal depictions of the war from an Italian POV.
posted by parmanparman at 11:23 AM on January 19, 2007

Scroll down about five entries on:

http://www.languagehat.com/

And there was an interesting discussion about the "Finnish" parts of this area of Russia, with a map or two showing Finno-place names. It's only a few days old.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 2:28 PM on January 19, 2007

Best answer: Heh. I didn't link to it myself because the map's in Finnish and Russian, but it might come in handy, so here's the LH post.
posted by languagehat at 3:50 PM on January 19, 2007

thanks for these links and the information! I tried making a map like the ones at languagehat in the early 1980s for a family history research project because my (step) grandmother was born in Karelia when it was still part of Finland and I've always been fascinated by the politics behind the story. her parents broke with the traditional Finlander naming pattern to give her a name somewhat equivalent to "Refined Peace" and she said that one of her early memories from childhood was throwing stones at the Czar of Russia's carriage as it made its way through her village.
posted by kuppajava at 6:46 PM on January 19, 2007

Response by poster: Terrific. Thanks so much everyone. You're all my favorite!
posted by beccaj at 12:13 PM on January 20, 2007