Finnish-Ugric movement looks west as Russia ties lock up

Finnish-Ugric cooperation is taking on a transcontinental dimension as official contacts with related peoples in Russia have largely come to a halt, ERR reported in an article by Anti Lillak originally published in Sirp.

Since 2014, an active settlement has been named Finnish-Ugric Cultural Capital almost every year. In Estonia, the title has gone to Obinitsa in Setomaa in 2015, Abja-Paluoja in Mulgimaa in 2021 and the city of Narva in 2025.

This year’s title belongs to Hancock, a city in the United States state of Michigan with a significant population of descendants of Finnish immigrants. The movement’s shift westward may seem unexpected, but it may not be accidental, Lillak writes.

Hancock has about 4,500 residents, making it comparable in size to Kiviõli. It was once an important copper-mining region for the United States. Today, industrial activity has given way to nature tourism. Mountains along Lake Superior, forests and rivers with rapids rich in salmon attract holidaymakers from across the country during the summer.

Because of its significant Finnish-descended population, Hancock has become a cultural centre for Finnish Americans. It is home to a Finnish heritage centre, a bookshop dedicated to Finnish literature and several Finnish cultural associations and groups for people of different ages.

Every summer, Hancock hosts juhannus, the Finnish midsummer celebration. Music, dancing and a bonfire are central parts of the event, but its main purpose is bringing relatives, friends and acquaintances together.

This year’s juhannus focused on Finnish-Ugric themes because of the cultural capital year. Alongside the predominantly Finnish-descended guests usually living in the United States, the celebrations were attended by other related peoples, including delegations from Finland and Estonia.

The programme included concerts, workshops and presentations, as well as a fair and exhibitions. Lillak attended through the non-profit organisation Hõimlõimed, which he said gave him an opportunity to discover Finnish American life and witness the early steps of transatlantic Finnish-Ugric cooperation.

The old Finnish-Ugric world is locked

Finnish-Ugric cultural life is not generally associated with the United States. The term Finnish-Ugric world has traditionally referred to northern Eurasia and the areas of Central Europe where Hungarians live, covering regions with diffuse borders that have been inhabited by Finnish-Ugric peoples for centuries or even millennia.

About 24 million to 25 million people belong to the Finnish-Ugric or, more broadly, Uralic peoples. They are connected by the descent of their native languages from a common ancestor, provisionally called the Proto-Uralic language.

Although ethnic kinship awareness and cooperation based on it have a substantial history reaching back to the 19th century, joint initiatives now face a serious political barrier.

Much of the territory of these Finnish-Ugric peoples is currently under the authority of the Russian Federation. Outside Russia are only the western Finnic peoples, including Estonians, Finns and Livonians, as well as the Sámi and Hungarians.

Official communication across the eastern border, which had already become more difficult each year, was decisively shut down during the war winter of 2022. Only cautious personal contacts have largely remained. A report commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and published this spring by the Fenno-Ugric Foundation provides an extensive account of the situation of Russia’s Finnish-Ugric peoples during the Russia Ukraine war.

The Finnish-Ugric movement has experienced difficult periods before. Parallels can be drawn with the Second World War and the period that followed, when existing forms of cooperation between Finland, Estonia and Hungary based on ethnic kinship were also forced into silence. Estonia was fully absorbed, Hungary was pushed into the Soviet bloc and Finland was forced to manoeuvre between two world orders.