East Karelia in the context of "Finnish Karelia"

The Continuation War, also known as the Second Soviet–Finnish War, was a conflict fought by Finland and Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union during World War II. It began with a Finnish declaration of war on 25 June 1941 and ended on 19 September 1944 with the Moscow Armistice. The Soviet Union and Finland had previously fought the Winter War from 1939 to 1940, which ended with the Soviet failure to conquer Finland and the Moscow Peace Treaty. Numerous reasons have been proposed for the Finnish decision to invade, with regaining territory lost during the Winter War regarded as the most common. Other justifications for the conflict include Finnish President Risto Ryti's vision of a Greater Finland and Commander-in-Chief Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim's desire to annex East Karelia.

On 22 June 1941, the Axis invaded the Soviet Union. Three days later, the Soviet Union conducted an air raid on Finnish cities which prompted Finland to declare war and allow German troops in Finland to begin offensive warfare. By September 1941, Finland had regained its post–Winter War concessions to the Soviet Union in Karelia. The Finnish Army continued its offensive past the 1939 border during the invasion of East Karelia and halted it only around 30–32 km (19–20 mi) from the centre of Leningrad. It participated in besieging the city by cutting the northern supply routes and by digging in until 1944. In Lapland, joint German–Finnish forces failed to capture Murmansk or cut the Kirov (Murmansk) Railway. The Soviet Vyborg–Petrozavodsk offensive in June and August 1944 drove the Finns from most of the territories that they had gained during the war, but the Finnish Army halted the offensive in August 1944.

Olonets Karelia (Finnish: Aunuksen Karjala, shortened. Aunus; Karelian: Anuksen Karjala, shortened. Anus; Russian: Олонецкая Карелия, romanized: Olonetskaja Karelija) is a historical and cultural region and the southern portion of East Karelia, which is currently part of Russia. Olonets Karelia is located between the other historical regions of Ladoga Karelia, to its west, White Karelia, to its north, the River Svir, to its south and Lake Onega on its eastern side. Olonets Karelia is home to its own dialect of the Karelian language, which is known as Livvi Karelian or sometimes as 'Olonets Karelian'.

The largest city in the Olonets Karelia region is Petrozavodsk, followed by Kondopoga, Segezha and Medvezhyegorsk.

The Karelian Labour Commune was an autonomous region of Russia established in 1920 following the successes of the Red Army's incursion into the Republic of Uhtua, to undermine and discredit the separatist movements and to make Finland give up on attempting to liberate East Karelia shortly before the beginning of negotiations for the Treaty of Tartu and during the Kinship Wars. Edvard Gylling and Yrjö Sirola, former members of the executive organ of the rebel Reds in the Finnish Civil War 1918, the Finnish People's Delegation, met with Vladimir Lenin in the Kremlin to propose autonomy for East Karelia within Russia. The Commune was founded on 8 June 1920 and was disestablished on 25 July 1923 and succeeded by the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, following the end of the Kinship Wars.