Managing Multiethnic Communities: 'Best practice' case studies

1. Case-Study No. & Title:
158. Promoting Veps People's Cultural Identity in ‘Vepsskaya Nationalnaya Volost’ (VNV, Republic of Karelia, Russian Federation).

1.1 Keywords:

2. Author information
2.1 Author’s Name:
Elena Filippova

2.2 Institutional Affiliation and Contact Details:
Institute of ethnology and anthropology
Russian Academy of Sciences
Leninsky prospekt 32-a
Moscow 117334
Russia

Tel/fax: (095) 938-0043
E-mail: fvr@east.ru

2.3 Date recorded:
11 October 2000

3. Good Practice Information Sheet
3.1 Local Level Good Practice:
Establishment of the ‘Vepsskaya Nationalnaya Volost’ (henceforth VNV) as a mechanism for the preservation of Vepsian language and culture and prevention of Veps complete assimilation. The Volost is a local self-government type of institution

3.2 Location:
Sheltozersky, Shokshinsky and Riboretsky districts (Republic of Karelia, Russian Federation).

3.3 Minority/Target Groups:
Veps, inhabitants of the southern shore of the Onega lake

3.4 Major Actors Involved:

3.5 Budget allocated by local government authorities and/or by other actors:
Currently 60% of the Volost budget is guaranteed from the budget of the Republic of Karelia. Vepsian associations have also received grants from international organisations for financing language and cultural programmes.

3.6 Timeframe:
The initiative was first proposed in 1988, it was officially launched in 1989 and was actually put in practice starting from 1991. Currently it is expected to last at least until 2005.

3.7 Local level good practice relation to national level ethnic policy:
The local level initiatives considered is in line with the State Nationalities Policy Conception of the Russian Federation which was adopted in 1996 where the promotion of minorities’ languages and cultures is listed among its basic principles.

4. Good Practice Description
Brief Background
The Veps are a Finno-Ugric minority, settled mainly on the southern coast of the Onega lake. In the 1920s, as a result of the korenizatsya policy, their native language was canonised into written form, they were granted public schooling in the mother tongue, and also had some representatives in local power structures. They did not, however, receive from Soviet authorities their full status territorial autonomy as their territory was divided administratively between the Republic of Karelia and the Leningrad oblast. Some Veps national districts and rural communities were created in these two territories. These lower level forms of territorial autonomy were abolished in 1937, while Vepsian local intellectual fell victims of Stalinist repression.

As a result the areas historically inhabited by the Veps came to be divided between South-East Karelia, the north-eastern part of Leningrad oblast and the north-western part of the Vologda oblast. Vepsian villages occupied marginal positions in all these territories and when Soviet authorities launched the industrialisation programme for these northern regions and decided the 'liquidation of non prospective rural villages', Vepsian communities were the first to suffer and many were forced to resettle in industrial towns.

In the course of carrying out the population census of 1970 and 1979 local officials were instructed to register Veps as ‘Russian’. This same practice was used also upon the issue of new passports. The Vepsian nationality was actually erased from the official list of Soviet nationalities.

As a result of all these changes, from the 1930s the number of Veps in Karelia decreased by 33%, in the Leningrad oblast by 300%, and in the Vologda oblast by 700%. According to the population census of 1989 there were less than 200 pure Vepsian families (with both parents being Veps) and their total number amounted to 12,500.

While in practice Veps became a ‘small-numbered people’, they were not included in the official list of ‘small-numbered people of the north’ (applied to groups residing in the North, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation) and thus did not benefit for the special allocations granted to this category.

In June of 1987 in the Leningrad oblast the first Vepsian national festival ‘Tree of life’ and the scientific conference ‘Problems of the Vepsian culture and language preservation’ were held. In 1988 Vepsian activists established the ‘Vepsian Cultural Society’ and started to convey to the Russian government and the authorities of Leningrad and Vologda oblast and of the Republic of Karelia how the situation in the Vepsian area had deteriorated. In the same year a second conference took place in Petrozavodsk (‘The Veps: problems of economic and cultural development during Perestroika’). The conference elaborated some recommendations, which became the basis for the State Planning Committee’s programme concerning the Veps national rebirth adopted in 1989 by the council of ministers of Russia.

The programme envisaged the elaboration of a long-term plan for the implementation of the most important measures for economic and social development of the Vepsian ethnic area until the year 2005. These measures included: a) reconstruction of depopulated villages; b) efficient use of timber resources; c) roads construction; d) development of consumer services and health protection; e) training of Vepsian specialists and skilled workers; f) financial support for activities regarding the development and preservation of Vepsian national culture and language; g) publishing of special texts for Vepsian schools.

This programme laid the grounds for new initiatives undertaken in the second half of the 1990s by the local authorities of Karelia to help improve the situation of Vepsian communities.

The Veps National Volost in the Republic of Karelia
The resolution No. XP 23/625 of the Supreme Soviet of Karelia, adopted on 20 January 1994, established an autonomous territory for Veps: the Vepsian National Volost, including the territory the rural villages of Sheltozersky, Shokshinsky and Riboretsky.

In 1995 the government of the Republic of Karelia adopted the ‘Program for the Rebirth of the Karelian, the Vepsian and the Finnish languages and cultures in the Republic of Karelia’.

With a decree (No. 985, December 2, 1996) of the president of Karelia the Vepsian Volost was granted the full status of an administrative unit of the Republic, consisting of 14 villages with a total population of about 3600 individuals, of whom Veps account for 42%.

Despite these measures and the establishment of a national territorial autonomy, the dire conditions of widespread social and economic crisis hitting the Russian federation as a whole and also the republic of Karelia did not allow for an immediate improvement of the living conditions of the Vepsian communities. In 1997 the Vepsian Volost, if compared with other parts of the republic, had more pensioners (one third of the population), higher level mortality rate (two times higher than the average level in the republic), lower level of birth-rate, and the highest level of unemployment.

On 7 June 1998 the Karelian government adopted the resolution ‘On the Governmental Measures of Support for the Vepsian National Volost’. These measures included: a) financial supports to Vepsian schools (for textbooks and pedagogic material); b) support to local libraries; c) improvement of health services; d) construction of pre-school facilities.

These measures cannot, however, totally resolve the situation of economic crisis in the Volost, where out of the 58 enterprises only 15 are actually functioning. The republican authorities came to realise that the situation of the Volost can be improved only by instigating new economic activities. Accordingly they have adopted the new economic programme 'Resource' orientated towards a better use of local natural resources. Within this framework the republican Committee on physical culture, sports and tourism of Karelia launched the special programme ‘Development of Tourism in the Vepsian National Volost’.

All these programmes, to which representatives of Vepsian communities participated, aim to help the Volost become a self-financing entity.

Despite the economic problems inevitably tied to the genera economic and social crisis affecting Russia as a whole, the various initiatives mentioned and undertaken in the last 10 years did improve the situation for the Veps. During the last 10 years it was done a lot for development of the Vepsian national culture.

Today all the pupils of the 3 Vepsian schools functioning in the Volost study Vepsian language from the 2^nd up to the 9^th grade. One Finno-Ugric school was also opened in Petrozavodsk (capital of the republic of Karelia).

Teachers for Vepsian schools and pre-school institutions are trained at the Karelian Pedagogical University (where there are departments of Karelian and Vepsian languages), at Petrozavodsk State university (faculty of Baltic-Finnish philology and culture), at Petrozavodsk Conservatory and Finno-Ugric Academy.

Textbooks and book in general are published in Vepsian language, while radio and TV programs in Vepsian are being broadcast regularly, while a newspaper has been published since 1991.

Folkloric festivals are organised regularly and in the administrative centre of the Volost – the village of Sheltozersky – an ethnographic museum was created, where there are regular performances by a Vepsian chorus. The autumn of 1999 saw the realisation of the project ‘Ethnocultural Camp for Children of Village Riboretsky’.