Last modified: 2021-08-26 by valentin poposki
Keywords: karelia | uhtua | ursa major | big dipper | kalevala | stars: big dipper | star: 5 points (white) | heiska (j.) |
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In the aftermath of the Russian revolution and Finnish independence (December 1917), things started to happen in East Karelia too. On 17 March 1918 a meeting was convened in the village of Uhtua. The meeting expressed the wish to separate from Russia and called for union with Finland. Later in 1918 the Uhtua community used a flag consisting of a blue field with seven white five-pointed stars in the canton (representing the Ursa Major constellation). According to Paskov [pas94], the designer of this flag was J. Heiska. Apparently, the exact details of the flag are lost, because Paskov names the Finnish heraldist Kari K. Laurla as the one who reconstructed the design as shown in Paskov’s book.
If you try to find Uhtua on a modern map, you will probably not find it. In 1935 the village was renamed Kalevala for the century of the publication of this work by Lönnrot. Much of the material for the Kalevala was collected in East Karelia.
Jan Oskar Engene, 23 May 1997
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