Calling a place Karelia invites the question: which one? Finnish Karelia, a historical province now split between Finland and Russia, is Karjala in Finnish. The Republic of Karelia is a Russian federal subject encompassing East Karelia, with a predominantly Russian Orthodox population. Within Finland, Karjala refers to the regions of South and North Karelia, though fragments of historical Karelia also lie within Kymenlaakso, North Savo, and South Savo. Then there is Ladoga Karelia, the area north of Lake Ladoga that belonged to Finland before the Second World War; Border Karelia, the parishes along the old pre-war frontier; White Karelia in the north; and Olonets Karelia in the south. Even Tver Oblast, far to the southeast, has its own Tver Karelians, descendants of those who fled Swedish rule in the seventeenth century.

Karelia has been fought over since the thirteenth century, when Sweden and the Novgorod Republic began their long contest for the region. The Treaty of Noteborg in 1323 drew the first formal line, giving Sweden the southern Karelian Isthmus and Novgorod the north. Viborg became the Swedish capital of the province. Treaties followed treaties: Stolbovo in 1617 ceded large parts to Sweden, prompting thousands of Karelians to emigrate to Russia. Nystad in 1721 reversed the flow, and Abo in 1743 pushed further. When Finland declared independence in 1917, the border seemed settled at last. It was not. The Soviet Union invaded in 1939, and the wars that followed moved the boundary westward again, this time permanently.

Karelia contains Europe's two largest lakes, Ladoga and Onega, and stretches across a vast terrain of boreal forest, rivers, and tundra. The Karelian Isthmus between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga has been the most strategically contested ground, but the region's northern reaches are equally defining. The highest point, the 576-meter Nuorunen, stands on the Russian side of the Maanselka hills. The River Kymi marks the historical western boundary, separating the Hame Finns from the Karelians since the Middle Ages. In the north, the Sami lived without fixed borders, their territory blending into taiga and tundra. This is a landscape that resists straight lines on maps, which may explain why so many have been drawn across it.

When Finnish intellectuals sought the soul of their nation in the nineteenth century, they looked east to Karelia. The movement known as Karelianism drew artists, writers, and composers to the region in search of authentic Finnish culture. Jean Sibelius composed his Karelia Suite from impressions gathered here. Eero Jarnefelt and Juhani Aho found landscapes and stories that fed back into Finnish self-understanding. The Kalevala, the national epic compiled from oral poetry collected largely in Karelia, became the foundational text of Finnish identity. Koli National Park in North Karelia, where many of these artists worked, gained its protected status in 1991. The Russian side has its own cultural treasures: the wooden churches of Kizhi, the monastery island of Valaam, and the Kivach waterfall draw visitors year-round.

Karelia today is politically divided between Finland and Russia, and groups like the Karelian League and ProKarelia campaign for closer ties between the two sides. On the Finnish side, about 5,000 people still speak the Karelian language. South Karelian dialects of Finnish are spoken in the south, while eastern Savonian dialects prevail in North Karelia. The evacuees were resettled across Finland, but their memories traveled with them. Lappeenranta in South Karelia draws 1.5 million Russian tourists annually, creating a curious echo of the region's cross-border history. Imatrankoski in Imatra has attracted visitors since Catherine the Great came in 1772. Karelia endures as a place where geography, language, and memory refuse to align with the borders that politicians have drawn.