Anna Laakkonen

I defended my doctoral dissertation in the field of Finnish history at the University of Eastern Finland in September 2025. In my dissertation, I study how Finns operated as part of the Soviet press in Soviet Karelia during the 1920s and 1930s. In addition to press activities, my research also addressed ethnic relations in Soviet Karelia, changes in the language used in propaganda, the relationship between Moscow and Soviet Karelia, and the mechanisms of Stalin’s terror. My doctoral dissertation was completed in close collaboration with the researchers of the Finns in Russia 1917–1964 project at the National Archives of Finland.

From 2024 to 2025, I worked as a ERC research assistant in the international project The Age of Civil Wars in Europe, which investigates the transnational connections of European civil wars. The project is coordinated by University College Dublin and funded by the European Research Council.

Currently, I am writing a non-fiction book about Finnish journalists in Soviet Karelia, based on my dissertation. The project is funded by The Committee for Public Information, the Karelian Cultural Society, and the Association of Finnish Nonfiction Writers.

I will begin a two-year postdoctoral research project titled Punalippu (Red Flag), Glasnost, and the History of the Finns in April 2026. I study how the history of the Finns in the Soviet Union was remembered and written about in the Finnish-language newspaper Punalippu, which was published in Petrozavodsk, the capital of Soviet Karelia, during the years of glasnost. The project is funded by the Kone Foundation.