Ingria

Ingria (Russian: Ингрия, Ингерманландия, Ижорская земля, romanized: Ingriya,

Ingermanlandiya, Izhorskaya zemlya; Finnish: Inkeri, Inkerinmaa; Swedish: Ingermanland;
Estonian: Ingeri, Ingerimaa) is a historical region including, and adjacent to, what is now the city
of Saint Petersburg in northwestern Russia. The region lies along the southeastern shore of the
Gulf of Finland, bordered by Lake Ladoga on the Karelian Isthmus in the north and by the Narva
river on the current international border with Estonia in the west. The earliest known inhabitants
of the region were indigenous Finnic peoples, primarily the ancestors of modern Izhorians and
Votians, who converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity during the late Middle Ages. They were
later joined by the Ingrian Finns, descendants of 17th century Lutheran Finnish immigrants. At
that time, Ingria, the Karelian Isthmus, Estonia, and what is now Finland were all part of the
Kingdom of Sweden.

Ingria as a whole never formed a separate state; however, North Ingria was an independent state
for just under two years in 1919–1920. The inhabitants of Ingria cannot be said to have
comprised a distinct nation, since the population is made up of several different ethnic groups,
despite the Soviet Union recognizing Ingrian as a nationality. The indigenous peoples of Ingria,
like the Votians and Izhorians, are today close to extinction, together with their languages. This
notwithstanding, many people still recognize and attempt to preserve their Ingrian heritage.[2]

Historic Ingria covers approximately the same area as the Gatchinsky, Kingiseppsky, Kirovsky,
Lomonosovsky, Tosnensky, Volosovsky and Vsevolozhsky districts of modern Leningrad Oblast
as well as the city of Saint Petersburg.

The names of the region are:

Finnish: Inkeri or Inkerinmaa;

Russian: Ингрия, Ingriya, Ижора, Izhora, or Ингерманландия, Ingermanlandiya;

Swedish: Ingermanland;

Estonian: Ingeri or Ingerimaa

History Ingria
Izhora

Historical region

Ingria and its Lutheran parishes in the Russian

Saint Petersburg Governorate, c. 1900[1]

Ingria may be seen represented in the easternmost part

of the Carta Marina (1539).

In the Viking era (late Iron Age), from the 750s

onwards, Ladoga served as a bridgehead on
Flag
the Varangian trade route to Eastern Europe. A Coat of arms
Varangian aristocracy developed that would
Demonym Izhorians
ultimately rule over Novgorod and Kievan Rus'. Votes
In the 860s, the warring Finnic and Slavic Ingrian Finns
Russians
tribes rebelled under Vadim the Bold, but later Estonians
asked the Varangians under Rurik to return
Area
and to put an end to the recurring conflicts
• Coordinates 59°38′N 29°18′E (http
between them.[3] s://geohack.toolforg
e.org/geohack.php?p
The Swedes referred to the ancient agename=Ingria&par
ams=59_38_N_29_18
Novgorodian land of Vod people as _E_source:kolossus-n
"Ingermanland", Latinized to "Ingria". Folk owiki_type:country)

etymology traces its name to Ingegerd

Olofsdotter, the daughter of the Swedish king
Olof Skötkonung (995–1022). Upon her Today part of Russia

marriage to Yaroslav I the Wise, Grand Prince

of Novgorod and Kiev, in 1019, she received the lands around Ladoga as a marriage gift. They
were administered by Swedish jarls, such as Ragnvald Ulfsson, under the sovereignty of the
Novgorod Republic.

In the 12th century, Western Ingria was absorbed by the Novgorod Republic. There followed
centuries of frequent wars, chiefly between Novgorod and Sweden, and occasionally involving
Denmark and Teutonic Knights as well. The Teutonic Knights established a stronghold in the
town of Narva, followed by the Russian castle Ivangorod on the opposite side of the Narva River
in 1492.

With the consolidation of the Kievan Rus and the expansion of the Republic of Novgorod north,
the indigenous Ingrians became Eastern Orthodox. Ingria became a province of Sweden in the
Treaty of Stolbovo in 1617 that ended the Ingrian War, fought between Sweden and Russia. After
the Swedish conquest of the area in 1617 the Ingrian Finns, descendants of 17th-century
Lutheran emigrants from present-day Finland, became the majority in Ingria. In 1710, following a
Russian conquest, Ingria was designated as the Province of St. Petersburg.

In the Treaty of Nystad in 1721, Sweden formally ceded Ingria to Russia.

In 1927 the Soviet authorities designated the area as Leningrad Province. Deportations of the
Ingrian Finns started in late 1920s, and Russification was nearly complete by the 1940s.

In the modern era, Ingria forms the northwestern anchor of Russia—its "window" on the Baltic
Sea—with Saint Petersburg as its centre.

Swedish Ingria

Although Sweden and Novgorod had fought for the Ingrian lands more or less since the Great
Schism of 1054, the first actual attempt to establish Swedish dominion in Ingria appears to date
from the early 14th century, when Sweden first founded the settlement of Viborg in Karelia[4] and
then the fortress Landskrona (built in 1299 or 1300) at the confluence of the Ohta and Neva
rivers. However, Novgorod re-conquered Landskrona in 1301 and destroyed it. Ingria eventually
became a Swedish dominion in the 1580s, but the Treaty of Teusina (1595) returned it to Russia
in 1595. Russia in its turn ceded Ingria to Sweden in the Treaty of Stolbova (1617) after the
Ingrian War of 1610–1617. Sweden's interest in the territory was mainly strategic: the area
served as a buffer zone against Russian attacks on the Karelian Isthmus and on present-day
Finland, then the eastern half of the Swedish realm; and Russian Baltic trade had to pass through
Swedish territory. The townships of Ivangorod, Jama (now Kingisepp), Caporie (now Koporye)
and Nöteborg (now Shlisselburg) became the centres of the four Ingrian counties (slottslän), and
consisted of citadels, in the vicinity of which were small boroughs called hakelverk – before the
wars of the 1650s mainly inhabited by Russian townspeople. The degree to which Ingria became
the destination for Swedish deportees has often been exaggerated.

Ingria remained sparsely populated. In 1664 the total population amounted to 15,000. Swedish
attempts to introduce Lutheranism, which accelerated after an initial period of relative religious
tolerance,[5] met with repugnance on the part of the majority of the Orthodox peasantry, who
were obliged to attend Lutheran services; converts were promised grants and tax reductions, but
Lutheran gains were mostly due to voluntary resettlements by Finns from Savonia and Finnish
Karelia (mostly from Äyräpää).[2][6] The proportion of Lutheran Finns in Ingria (Ingrian Finns)
comprised 41.1% in 1656, 53.2% in 1661, 55.2% in 1666, 56.9% in 1671 and 73.8% in 1695, the
remainder being Russians,[6] Izhorians and Votes.[7] Ingermanland was to a considerable extent
enfiefed to noble military and state officials, who brought their own Lutheran servants and
workmen. However, a small number of Russian Orthodox churches remained in use until the very
end of the Swedish dominion, and the forceful conversion of ethnic Russian Orthodox forbidden
by law.[8]

Nyen became the main trading centre of Ingria, especially after Ivangorod dwindled, and in 1642
it was made the administrative centre of the province. In 1656 a Russian attack badly damaged
the town, and the administrative centre moved to Narva.[2]

Russian Ingria

Map of Saint Petersburg Governorate in 1900

In the early 18th century the area was reconquered by Russia in the Great Northern War after
having been in Swedish possession for about 100 years. Near the location of the Swedish town
Nyen, close to the Neva river's estuary at the Gulf of Finland, the new Russian capital Saint
Petersburg was founded in 1703.

Peter the Great raised Ingria to the status of a duchy with Prince Menshikov as its first (and last)
duke. In 1708, Ingria was designated a governorate (Ingermanland Governorate in 1708–1710,
Saint Petersburg Governorate in 1710–1914, Petrograd Governorate in 1914–1924, Leningrad
Governorate in 1924–1927).

In 1870, printing started of the first Finnish-language newspaper in Ingria, Pietarin Sanomat.
Before that Ingria received newspapers mostly from Viborg. The first public library was opened in
1850 in Tyrö. The largest of the libraries, situated in Skuoritsa, had more than 2,000 volumes in
the second half of the 19th century. In 1899 the first song festival in Ingria was held in Puutosti
(Skuoritsa).[2]
By 1897 (year of the Russian Empire Census) the number of Ingrian Finns had grown to 130,413,
and by 1917 it had exceeded 140,000 (45,000 in Northern Ingria, 52,000 in Central (Eastern)
Ingria and 30,000 in Western Ingria, the rest in Petrograd).

From 1868 Estonians began to migrate to Ingria as well. In 1897 the number of Estonians
inhabiting the Saint Petersburg Governorate reached 64,116 (12,238 of them in Saint Petersburg
itself); by 1926 it had increased to 66,333 (15,847 of them in Leningrad).

As to Izhorians, in 1834 there were 17,800 of them, in 1897—21,000, in 1926—26,137. About

1000 Ingrians lived in the area ceded to Estonia under the Peace Treaty of Tartu (1920).[2]

Estonian Ingria

Ingrian battalion that served in the

Finnish Defense Forces, during the
Continuation War. Giving their oath to
Finland in Karelian Isthmus, 27 April
1944.

Under the Russian-Estonian Peace Treaty of Tartu of 1920, a small part of West Ingria became
part of the Republic of Estonia. In contrast to other parts of Ingria, Finnish culture blossomed in
this area, known as Estonian Ingria. This was to a large extent due to the work of Leander Reijo
(also Reijonen or Reiju) from Kullankylä on the new border between Estonia and the Soviet Union,
who was called "The King of Ingria" by the Finnish press. Finnish schools and a Finnish
newspaper were started. A church was built in Kallivieri in 1920 and by 1928 the parish had 1,300
people.[9][10]

In 1945, after the Second World War, Estonian Ingria, then in the Soviet Union, was transferred to
the Russian SFSR and incorporated into the Leningrad Oblast. Since Estonia reclaimed its
independence in 1991, this territory has been disputed. As Russia does not recognize the Treaty
of Tartu, the area currently remains under Russian control.
Soviet Ingria

Finnic settlements in Western Ingria throughout the 20th

century

After the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia, the Republic of North Ingria (Finnish: Pohjois-
Inkerin tasavalta) declared its independence from Russia with the support of Finland and with
the aim of incorporation into Finland. It ruled parts of Ingria from 1919 until 1920. With the
Russian-Finnish Peace Treaty of Tartu it was re-integrated into Russia, but enjoyed a certain
degree of autonomy.

At its height in the 1920s, there were about 300 Finnish language schools and 10 Finnish
language newspapers in Ingria.[11]

The First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union in 1926 recorded 114,831 Leningrad Finns, as
Ingrian Finns were called.[2] The 1926 census also showed that the Russian population of central
Ingria outnumbered the Finnic peoples living there, but Ingrian Finns formed the majority in the
districts along the Finnish border.[6]

In the early 1930s the Izhorian language was taught in the schools of the Soikinsky Peninsula
and the area around the mouth of the Luga River.[2]

In 1928 collectivization of agriculture started in Ingria. To facilitate it, in 1929–1931, 18,000

people (4320 families), kulaks (independent peasants) from North Ingria, were deported to East
Karelia, the Kola Peninsula as well as Kazakhstan and Central Asia.

The situation for the Ingrian Finns deteriorated further when in the fall of 1934 the Forbidden
Border Zone along the western border of the Soviet Union was established, where entrance was
forbidden without special permission issued by the NKVD. It was officially only 7.5 km (5 miles)
deep initially, but along the Estonian border it extended to as much as 90 km (60 miles). The
zone was to be free of Finnic and some other peoples, who were considered politically
unreliable.[6][12] On 25 March 1935, Genrikh Yagoda authorized a large-scale deportation
targeting Estonian, Latvian and Finnish kulaks and lishentsy residing in the border regions near
Leningrad. About 7,000 people (2,000 families) were deported from Ingria to Kazakhstan, Central
Asia and the Ural region. In May and June 1936 the entire Finnish population of the parishes of
Valkeasaari, Lempaala, Vuole and Miikkulainen near the Finnish border, 20,000 people, were
resettled to the areas around Cherepovets and Siberia in the next wave of deportations. In Ingria
they were replaced with people from other parts of the Soviet Union, mostly Russians but also
Ukrainians and Tatars.[2][6]

In 1937 Lutheran churches and Finnish and Izhorian schools in Ingria were closed down and
publications and radio broadcasting in Finnish and Izhorian were suspended.

Both Ingrian Finnish and Izhorian populations all but disappeared from Ingria during the Soviet
period. 63,000 fled to Finland during World War II, and were required back by Stalin after the war.
Most became victims of Soviet population transfers and many were executed as "enemies of the
people".[2][6][12] The remainder, including some post-Stalin returnees (it was not until 1956 that
some of the deported were allowed to return to their villages), were outnumbered by Russian
immigration.

The 1959 census recorded 1,062 Izhorians; in 1979 that number had fallen to 748, only 315 of
them around the mouth of the Luga River and on the Soikinsky Peninsula. According to the Soviet
census of 1989, there were 829 Izhorians, 449 of them in Russia (including other parts of the
country) and 228 in Estonia.[2]

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, surviving Ingrian Finns and their Russified
descendants have been allowed to emigrate to Finland. This has led to the birth of a sizable
Russophone minority in Finland.

See also

Ingrian War

Leningrad Oblast

Saint Petersburg Governorate

Tuutari (parish)

North Ingria
 Swedish Ingria

Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria

Postage stamps and postal history of North Ingria

References

1. Based on Räikkönen, Erkki. Heimokirja. Helsinki: Otava, 1924.

2. Kurs, Ott (1994). "Ingria: The broken landbridge between Estonia and Finland" (https://doi.or
g/10.1007%2FBF00810142) . GeoJournal 33.1, 107–113.

3. Alfred Rambaud (1970). History of Russia from the Earliest Times to 1882 (https://books.go
ogle.com/books?id=Xj83PbqdvyUC&q=An+ancient+tradition+speaks+vaguely+of+a+revolt+
against+Rurik+the+Old+under+the+hero+Vadim+.+Sviatoslaf+,+the+conqueror+of+the+Bul
garia+of+the+Danabe+,+undertook+to+govern+her+by+mere+agents+,+but+Novgorod+insi
sted+on+having+one+of+his+sons) . Vol. 1. AMS Press. p. 129. ISBN 978-04-04-05230-0.

4. Åström Anna-Maria; Korkiakangas Pirjo; Olsson Pia (2018). Memories of My Town: The
Identities of Town Dwellers and their Places in Three Finnish Towns (https://books.google.c
om/books?id=FLpiAAAAMAAJ&q=Torkel+Knutsson+founded+Vyborg+Castle+in+1293+as+
a+base+of+the+Swedish) . Suomen Kirjallisuuden Seura. p. 67. ISBN 978-95-17-46433-8.

5. A. Pereswetoff-Morath, "'Otiosorum hominum receptacula': Orthodox Religious Houses in

Ingria, 1615–52", Scando-Slavica, vol. 49, 2003.

6. Matley, Ian M. (1979). "The Dispersal of the Ingrian Finns" (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F2497

223) . Slavic Review. 38 (1): 1–16. doi:10.2307/2497223 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F2497
223) . ISSN 0037-6779 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0037-6779) . JSTOR 2497223 (h
ttps://www.jstor.org/stable/2497223) .

7. Inkeri. Historia, kansa, kulttuuri. Edited by Pekka Nevalainen and Hannes Sihvo. Helsinki
1991.

8. Daniel Rancour-Laferriere (2000). Russian Nationalism from an Interdisciplinary

Perspective: Imagining Russia (https://books.google.com/books?id=g3giAQAAIAAJ&q=forc
eful+conversion+of+ethnic+Russian+Orthodox+forbidden+by+law) . E. Mellen Press.
p. 138. ISBN 978-07-73-47671-4.

9. Johannes Angere, Kullankylä (1994) Swedish magazine Ingria. (4), pages 6–7

10. Johannes Angere, Min hemtrakt (2001) Swedish magazine Ingria (2), pages 12–13.
11. "Inkerinsuomalaisten kronikka" (http://www.inkeri.fi/Historia.htm) , Tietoa
Inkerinsuomalaisista (Information about Ingrian Finns), archived (https://web.archive.org/w
eb/20080213111809/http://www.inkeri.fi/Historia.htm) at the Wayback Machine, 13
February 2008 (in Finnish)

12. Martin, Terry (1998). "The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing" (https://dash.harvard.edu/bits
tream/1/3229636/2/Martin%201998.pdf) (PDF). The Journal of Modern History. 70 (4):
813–61. doi:10.1086/235168 (https://doi.org/10.1086%2F235168) . ISSN 1537-5358 (http
s://search.worldcat.org/issn/1537-5358) . JSTOR 10.1086/235168 (https://www.jstor.org/
stable/10.1086/235168) . S2CID 32917643 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:329
17643) .

Further reading

Kurs, Ott (1994). Ingria: The broken landbridge between Estonia and Finland (https://doi.org/1
0.1007%2FBF00810142) . GeoJournal 33.1, 107–113.

Kepsu, Kasper. 2017. The Unruly Buffer Zone: The Swedish province of Ingria in the late 17th
century. Scandinavian Journal of History. (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0346
8755.2017.1349576)

Site of the Ingrian Cultural Society in Helsinki (http://www.inkeri.com/english.html)

Ingermanland and St-Petersburg (http://www.ing-spb.narod.ru)

Kyösti Väänänen (1987), Herdaminne för Ingermanland. 1, Lutherska stiftsstyrelsen,

församlingarnas prästerskap och skollärare i Ingermanland under svenska tiden / Kyösti
Väänänen. (https://urn.fi/urn:NBN:fi-fd2019-00022716) , Skrifter utgivna av Svenska
litteratursällskapet i Finland (in Swedish), Helsinki: Society of Swedish Literature in Finland,
ISSN 0039-6842 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0039-6842) , Wikidata Q113529885

Kyösti Väänänen; Georg Luther (2000), Herdaminne för Ingermanland. 2, De finska och
svenska församlingarna och deras prästerskap 1704-1940 / Georg Luther. (https://urn.fi/urn:N
BN:fi-fd2019-00022611) , Skrifter utgivna av Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland (in
Swedish), Helsinki: Society of Swedish Literature in Finland, ISSN 0039-6842 (https://search.w
orldcat.org/issn/0039-6842) , Wikidata Q113529971