Aunus expedition
Finnish attempt to occupy East Karelia in 1919
The Aunus expedition (Finnish: Aunuksen retkikunta; Swedish: Aunus-expeditionen) was an attempt by Finnish volunteers to occupy parts of East Karelia in 1919, during the Russian Civil War. Aunus is the Finnish name for Olonets Karelia. This expedition was one of many Finnic "kinship wars" (heimosodat) fought against forces of Soviet Russia after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and during the Russian Civil War.
Background
In February 1918 General Mannerheim, the commander of the anti-communist White Guards, wrote his famous "sword scabbard order of the day," in which he said that he would not put his sword into the scabbard until East Karelia was free of Russian control. After the Finnish Civil War there was much public discussion about joining East Karelia to Finland, although the primarily Finnic Russian East Karelia never was a part of the Swedish Empire or the Grand Duchy of Finland.
Earlier attempts in 1918 to Petsamo and White Karelia (Viena expedition) had failed, partly due to a passive attitude of the Karelians. Later the British occupied White Karelia.
During the summer of 1918, the government of Finland received various appeals from East Karelia for joining the area to Finland. Especially active were the inhabitants of the parish of Repola, which had held a vote to join Finland. The Finnish Army occupied the parish in the fall of 1918.
The public source identifies “Aunus expedition” as finnish attempt to occupy East Karelia in 1919. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Aunus, expedition and Finnish.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3500262. The Library of Congress control number is sh2001005979. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1919, 1917 and 1918.
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This entry incorporates text from “Aunus expedition” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.