Ingria

• History of Ingria

Ingria (Russian: Ингрия, Ингерманландия, Ижорская земля; Finnish: Inkeri, Inkerinmaa; Swedish: Ingermanland; Estonian: Ingeri, Ingerimaa) is a historical region in what is now northwestern European Russia. It lies along the southeastern shore of the Gulf of Finland, bordered by Lake Ladoga on the Karelian Isthmus in the north and by the River Narva on the border with Estonia in the west. The earliest known indigenous European peoples of the region are the now mostly Eastern Orthodox Izhorians and Votians, as well as the Ingrian Finns who descend from the Lutheran Finnish immigrants who settled in the area in the 17th century, when Finland proper and Ingria were both parts of the Swedish Empire.

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 Ingrians, understood as the inhabitants of Ingria regardless of ethnicity, can hardly be said to have been a nation, although the Soviet Union recognized their "nationality"; as an ethnic group, the Ingrians proper, Izhorians, are close to extinction together with their language. This notwithstanding, many people still recognize their Ingrian heritage.

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.

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. 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.

In 1945, after the Second World War, Estonian Ingria, then in the Soviet Union, became part of the Russian SFSR. Since Estonia reclaimed its independence in 1991, this territory has been disputed. As Russia does not recognize the Peace Treaty of Tartu, the area currently remains under Russian control.

Free Ingria (1988–present)

The first who began to propagate the idea of the revival of Ingria was the ideologist of Peterburgian vedism Viktor Bezverkhy. In the mid-1990s, the “Movement for the Autonomy of St. Petersburg” and the group “Independent Petersburg” began their activities too.

The goal of the public movement “Free Ingria” is the declared unification of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region into a single subject of the federation, giving the new region the name Ingria or Ingria. Some activists are calling for the creation of an independent Ingria as the fourth Baltic republic if Moscow refuses the real federalization of Russia, and this statement became more common after 2022. The process during which the construction of a new regional Ingrian identity should be carried out was called “practicing local history” by supporters of the movement.

Despite the fact that the borders of the historical Ingria regions are 3 times smaller than Leningrad Oblast, the founders of this organization, for unstated reasons, extend “the borders of “their” Ingria to the entire territory of the Leningrad region and consider St. Petersburg as part of it”. This predetermines “the political superficiality and marginal format of the Ingrian movement as a whole”. According to the Russian historian Daniel Kotsiubinsky, the Ingrian idea of the network movement is to replace the image of St. Petersburg as a city with a certain “country” of Finno-Ugric-Scandinavian ethnicity, culture and history.