Greater Finland

Greater Finland was a Finnish nationalist aspiration to unite Finnic peoples and territories, especially East Karelia, with Finland. It gained political force after Finland became independent in 1917.

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Fennoman movement: A nineteenth-century Finnish nationalist movement that promoted Finnish language and culture in a society long dominated by Swedish. Its cultural nationalism helped frame Finnic unity as a political cause.
Vienna expedition: A 1918 Finnish volunteer military expedition into Viena Karelia, seeking to detach the region from Soviet Russia. It was an early armed attempt to extend Finnish influence into East Karelia.
Georg von Hertzen: A Finnish activist who helped organize the 1918 Viena expedition and promoted Finnish involvement in East Karelia. He connected expansionist ideas to the first post-independence expedition.
Treaty of Tartu: The 1920 treaty between Finland and Soviet Russia that established their border and placed East Karelia within Soviet territory. It fixed a boundary that Greater Finland's supporters sought to revise.
Pan-Finnicism: A movement promoting cultural or political solidarity among Finnic peoples across national borders. Greater Finland was a territorial and political expression of this broader solidarity.
Karelianism: A Finnish cultural movement that treated Karelia as a source of ancient Finnish tradition and national identity. Its idealized image of Karelia helped make the region central to Greater Finland.
Aunus expedition: A 1919 Finnish volunteer expedition into Aunus Karelia during the struggle over the region's political future. It carried Greater Finland's territorial aims into another part of East Karelia.
Elmo Kaila: A Finnish nationalist and organizer associated with the Academic Karelia Society and Greater Finland activism. He helped turn the aspiration into a sustained political movement.
Winter War: The 1939–1940 war in which the Soviet Union attacked Finland, ending with Finland ceding territory under the Moscow Peace Treaty. The war made territorial revision a matter of national survival as well as nationalist ambition.
Pan-Scandinavianism: A movement promoting cooperation and shared identity among the peoples of Scandinavia. It offers a neighboring model of regional solidarity without Greater Finland's eastern territorial claims.