The fall of the Soviet Union resulted in an intense political activity in a number of former Soviet republics. In the case of the Republic of Karelia the change was a result of general political crises rather than the activities of local opposition forces, political dissidents or nationalists.

When the first non-governmental voluntary associations were established in the mid-1980s, the initiative came often from a younger generation of party functionaries who were committed to Gorbachev's reform politics. In Karelia, the organizations of the ethnic minorities promoted openly alternative cultural and civic identities, demanding for a greater freedom for organization and new alternative self-identification But, in "multicultural" Karelia hegemonic blocks could not be built on ethnic based slogans.

The autonomous Republic of Karelia was formed on November 13, 1991.

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