This dissertation examines the Russian summer house (dacha) communities in southeastern Finland as a site of diverse social interactions from the end of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century. It covers the period from the 1880s to the mid-1920s because it seeks to address how Finnish-Russian social, economic and cultural contacts were significant in the political context of Finnish nationalists' resistance to Russian authority and Finland's transition to independent statehood after the Russian empire's collapse. This project investigates why the dacha, entrenched in Russian thought as a symbol of Russian middle-class status, also became a physical and mental meeting place for Russians and Finns from various social backgrounds. Dacha communities in Finland were heavily concentrated in the Karelian Isthmus, a region within a few hours reach by train from St. Petersburg, Russia's imperial capital. This meant that interaction between dacha-goers from Russia and Finnish-speaking inhabitants formed an integral part of the social landscape. These summer house settlements therefore offer a lens through which to examine how social boundaries were created, sustained, and destabilized. This case study is illuminating because Finns and Russians came into contact with each other in a space that was generally seen as part of the personal, private sphere; yet, these contacts also resonated in the public context of community. By examining intercultural exchanges in a specific spatial setting, and asking how imperial imaginings of particular places intersected with everyday social realities, this project prompts us to reconsider issues of nationality, identity, and state-building from an alternate perspective that than of Russian authorities' efforts to control recalcitrant minorities.
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