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| Heimosodat | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theRussian Civil War | |||||||||
 Finnish and East Karelian soldiers fighting side by side against Russians during theEast Karelian uprising | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 United Kingdom (Estonian War of Independence) | (Viena expedition andPetsamo expeditions) | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
 Kurt Martti Wallenius Johan Laidoner Ukki Väinämöinen Georg Elfvengren  | |||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| Finland: ~10,000 | Red Army: 113,000[citation needed] Red Guard: 1,500[citation needed] | ||||||||
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TheFinnish termHeimosodat (singularheimosota)[a][1] refers to a series of armed conflicts andprivate military expeditions in 1918–1922 into areas of the formerRussian Empire that bordered on Finland and were inhabited in large part by otherFinnic peoples.
The term has been translated into English as "Kindred Nations Wars", "Wars for kindred peoples", "Kinfolk wars",[2] or "Kinship Wars," specifically referring to Finnic kinship.Finnish volunteers took part in these conflicts, either to assert Finnish control over areas inhabited by related Finnic peoples, or to help them gain independence fromSoviet Russia. Many of the volunteers were inspired by the idea of "Greater Finland". Some of the conflicts were incursions from Finland, and some were local uprisings in which volunteers wanted either to help people fight for independence or to annex areas to Finland. According toAapo Roselius, about 10,000 volunteers from Finland took part in the armed conflicts mentioned below.[3]
The phenomenon is closely linked tonationalism andirredentism, as Finland had just formally gained its national independence in 1917, and a part of the population felt that they had obligations to help other Finnic peoples to attain the same. Estonia, the closest and numerically largest "kindred nation", had gained its independence at the same time, but had fewer resources, fewer institutions ready to support its attained position, and more Bolshevik Russian troops within its borders. Other Finnic peoples were at a less organized level of cultural, economic and political capability. TheFinnish Civil War had awakened strong nationalistic feelings in Finnish citizens and other Finnic peoples, and they sought tangible ways to put these feelings into action. For the two next decades, Finns participated at a relatively high rate in nationalistic activities (e.g.Karelianism andFinnicization of the country and its institutions). This development was related to the trauma and divisiveness of the Finnish Civil War. Many White sympathizers in the Civil War became radically nationalistic as a result of the war. The strenuous five-year period ofWorld War II — which also mostly unified the nation — reduced this enthusiasm.
