129-573: Former parties Former parties Former parties The Communist Party of Finland ( Finnish : Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue , SKP ; Swedish : Finlands Kommunistiska Parti ) was a communist political party in Finland . The SKP was a section of Comintern and illegal in Finland until 1944. The SKP was banned by the state from its founding and did not participate in any elections with its own name. Instead, front organisations were used. In
258-579: A Eurocommunist mainstream and a hardline pro-Moscow minority, called the Taistoists after their leader, Taisto Sinisalo . The word "taisto" also means "battle" or "fight"; the double connotation made this slur, originally launched by the largest Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat , stick. Soviet threats to withdraw support were the main reason why the majority did not expel the Taistoists from
387-819: A "j", e.g. vesj [vesʲ] "water", cf. standard vesi [vesi] . The first known written account in Helsinki slang is from the 1890 short story Hellaassa by young Santeri Ivalo (words that do not exist in, or deviate from, the standard spoken Finnish of its time are in bold): Kun minä eilen illalla palasin labbiksesta , tapasin Aasiksen kohdalla Supiksen , ja niin me laskeusimme tänne Espikselle , jossa oli mahoton hyvä piikis . Mutta me mentiin Studikselle suoraan Hudista tapaamaan, ja jäimme sinne pariksi tunniksi, kunnes ajoimme Kaisikseen . There are two main registers of Finnish used throughout
516-612: A Latin-script alphabet derived from the Swedish alphabet, and is phonemic to a great extent. Vowel length and consonant length are distinguished, and there are a range of diphthongs , although vowel harmony limits which diphthongs are possible. Finnish belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family ; as such, it is one of the few European languages that is not Indo-European . The Finnic branch also includes Estonian and
645-611: A Russian nationalist group, held an unsanctioned demonstration in Moscow. The authorities did not break up the demonstration and even kept traffic out of the demonstrators' way while they marched to an impromptu meeting with Boris Yeltsin. On 25 July 1987, 300 Crimean Tatars staged a noisy demonstration near the Kremlin Wall for several hours, calling for the right to return to their homeland, from which they were deported in 1944; police and soldiers looked on. On 23 August 1987,
774-542: A choice between multiple candidates, elected by secret ballot. However, the party delegates at the Plenum watered down Gorbachev's proposal, and democratic choice within the Communist Party was never significantly implemented. Gorbachev also radically expanded the scope of glasnost and stated that no subject was off limits for open discussion in the media. On 7 February, dozens of political prisoners were freed in
903-473: A considerable influence upon the spoken word, because illiteracy is nonexistent and many Finns are avid readers. In fact, it is still not entirely uncommon to meet people who "talk book-ish" ( puhuvat kirjakieltä ); it may have connotations of pedantry, exaggeration, moderation, weaseling or sarcasm (somewhat like heavy use of Latinate words in English, or more old-fashioned or "pedantic" constructions: compare
1032-518: A few minority languages spoken around the Baltic Sea and in Russia's Republic of Karelia . The closest relative of Finnish is either Ingrian , or depending on the definition, Karelian . Finnic languages form a dialect continuum, where for instance Finnish and Estonian are not separated by any single isogloss that would separate dialects considered "Finnish" from those considered "Estonian", despite
1161-405: A language of administration, journalism, literature, and science in Finland, along with Swedish. In 1853 Daniel Europaeus published the first Swedish-Finnish dictionary, and between 1866 and 1880 Elias Lönnrot compiled the first Finnish-Swedish dictionary. In the same period, Antero Warelius conducted ethnographic research and, among other topics, he documented the geographic distribution of
1290-475: A more systematic writing system. Along the way, Finnish lost several fricative consonants in a process of sound change . The sounds [ð] and [θ(ː)] disappeared from the language, surviving only in a small rural region in Western Finland. In the standard language, however, the effect of the lost sounds is thus: Modern Finnish punctuation, along with that of Swedish, uses the colon (:) to separate
1419-869: A new central legislature, the Congress of People's Deputies (although the ban on other political parties was not lifted until 1990). On 1 July 1985, Gorbachev sidelined his main rival by removing Grigory Romanov from the Politburo and brought Boris Yeltsin into the Central Committee Secretariat . On 23 December 1985, Gorbachev appointed Yeltsin First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party , replacing Viktor Grishin . Gorbachev continued to press for greater liberalization . On 23 December 1986 Andrei Sakharov ,
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#17327906538651548-741: A new organization called the Popular Front of Azerbaijan , loosely based on the Estonian Popular Front . On 17 September, when gun battles broke out between the Armenians and Azerbaijanis near Stepanakert , two soldiers were killed and more than two dozen injured. This led to almost tit-for-tat ethnic polarization in Nagorno-Karabakh's two main towns: the Azerbaijani minority was expelled from Stepanakert , and
1677-495: A new supreme legislative body called the Congress of People's Deputies . Frustrated by the old guard's resistance, Gorbachev embarked on a set of constitutional changes to attempt separation of party and state, thereby isolating his Party opponents. Detailed proposals for the new Congress of People's Deputies were published on 2 October 1988, and to enable the creation of the new legislature. The Supreme Soviet, during its 29 November – 1 December 1988, session, implemented amendments to
1806-445: A north–south split as well as an east–west split. The northern dialects of Proto-Finnic, from which Finnish developed, lacked the mid vowel [ ɤ ] . This vowel was found only in the southern dialects, which developed into Estonian , Livonian , and Votian . The northern variants used third person singular pronoun hän instead of southern tämä (Est. tema ). While the eastern dialects of Proto-Finnic (which developed in
1935-511: A public meeting lacking official permission at Ivan Franko State University . On 13 November 1988, approximately 10,000 people attended an officially sanctioned meeting organized by the cultural heritage organization Spadschyna , the Kyiv University student club Hromada , and the environmental groups Zelenyi Svit ("Green World") and Noosfera , to focus on ecological issues. From 14 to 18 November, 15 Ukrainian activists were among
2064-486: A revised delegate list. Authorities attempted to disperse the rally in front of Druzhba Stadium. On 7 July, 10,000 to 20,000 people witnessed the launch of the Democratic Front to Promote Perestroika. On 17 July, a group of 10,000 gathered in the village Zarvanytsia for Millennium services celebrated by Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Bishop Pavlo Vasylyk. The militia tried to disperse attendees, but it turned out to be
2193-625: A seat on the Supreme Soviet, and in the summer he formed the first opposition, the Inter-Regional Deputies Group , composed of Russian nationalists and liberals . Composing the final legislative group in the Soviet Union, those elected in 1989 played a vital part in reforms and the eventual breakup of the Soviet Union during the next two years. On 30 May 1989, Gorbachev proposed that local elections across
2322-555: A separate taxonomic " Finno-Samic " node is controversial. The Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , United States, classifies Finnish as a level III language (of four levels) in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers. Finnish is spoken by about five million people, most of whom reside in Finland. There are also notable Finnish-speaking minorities in Sweden, Norway, Russia, Estonia, Brazil, Canada, and
2451-476: A thousand police to stop the march, with the resulting clashes leaving two Azerbaijanis dead. These deaths, announced on state radio, led to the Sumgait Pogrom . Between 26 February and 1 March, the city of Sumgait (Azerbaijan) saw violent anti-Armenian rioting during which at least 32 people were killed. The authorities totally lost control and occupied the city with paratroopers and tanks; nearly all of
2580-440: A total amount of Finnish-speakers roughly between 7,200 and 15,600. In the latest census , around 1000 people in Russia claimed to speak Finnish natively; however, a larger amount of 14,000 claimed to be able to speak Finnish in total. There are also forms of Finnish spoken by diasporas outside Europe, such as American Finnish , spoken by Finnish Americans , and Siberian Finnish , spoken by Siberian Finns . Today, Finnish
2709-696: A violent protest action in the capital on 28 October, many of Songalia's remaining holdovers within the CPL either resigned or retired in protest of the police brutality of that day. On 20 February 1988, after a week of growing demonstrations in Stepanakert , capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (the ethnically Armenian-majority area within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic ),
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#17327906538652838-458: A year - with the relatively liberal Algirdas Mykolas Brazauskas . In October 1988, Brazauskas bowed to pressure from Sąjūdis members, and legalized the flying of the historic yellow-green-red flag of independent Lithuania, and in November 1988 he passed a law making Lithuanian the country's official language; also, the former national anthem, " Tautiška giesmė ", was later reinstated. Following
2967-508: Is abbreviation of word-final vowels, and in many respects they resemble Estonian. The Tavastian dialects ( hämäläismurteet ) are spoken in Tavastia . They are closest to the standard language, but feature some slight vowel changes, such as the opening of diphthong-final vowels ( tie → tiä , miekka → miakka , kuolisi → kualis ), the change of d to l (mostly obsolete) or trilled r (widespread, nowadays disappearance of d
3096-664: Is one of two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish), and has been an official language of the European Union since 1995. However, the Finnish language did not have an official status in the country during the period of Swedish rule , which ended in 1809. After the establishment of the Grand Duchy of Finland , and against the backdrop of the Fennoman movement , the language obtained its official status in
3225-746: Is popular) and the personal pronouns ( me: meitin ('we: our'), te: teitin ('you: your') and he: heitin ('they: their')). The South Ostrobothnian dialects ( eteläpohjalaismurteet ) are spoken in Southern Ostrobothnia . Their most notable feature is the pronunciation of "d" as a tapped or even fully trilled /r/ . The Central and North Ostrobothnian dialects ( keski- ja pohjoispohjalaismurteet ) are spoken in Central and Northern Ostrobothnia . The Lapland dialects ( lappilaismurteet ) are spoken in Lapland . The dialects spoken in
3354-629: Is spoken in the Norwegian counties of Troms and Finnmark by a minority of Finnish descent. Finnish is typologically agglutinative and uses almost exclusively suffixal affixation . Nouns , adjectives , pronouns , numerals and verbs are inflected depending on their role in the sentence . Sentences are normally formed with subject–verb–object word order, although the extensive use of inflection allows them to be ordered differently. Word order variations are often reserved for differences in information structure . Finnish orthography uses
3483-402: The 1977 Soviet Constitution , enacted a law on electoral reform, and set the date of the election for 26 March 1989. On 29 November 1988, the Soviet Union ceased jamming all foreign radio stations, allowing Soviet citizens – for the first time since a brief period in the 1960s – to have unrestricted access to news sources beyond Communist Party control. In 1986 and 1987, Latvia had been in
3612-581: The Brezhnev doctrine . Gradually this led to a disintegration, and in practice, the party now consisted of two parallel structures, and gradually lost ground in terms of public support. The most hardline leader of the party, Markus Kainulainen , led a group that even opposed Soviet policies after the Perestroika had begun. In 1985–1986, a large number of Taistoists, hundreds of party organizations with thousands of members, were expelled. They regrouped as
3741-511: The Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union lasted until 24 January 1989. For the next month, selection among the 7,531 district nominees took place at meetings organized by constituency-level electoral commissions. On 7 March, a final list of 5,074 candidates was published; about 85% were Party members. In the two weeks prior to the 1,500 district polls, elections to fill 750 reserved seats of public organizations, contested by 880 candidates, were held. Of these seats, 100 were allocated to
3870-763: The Finnish Civil War . The Social Democratic Party of Finland had supported the losing side, and several of its leaders were exiled in Soviet Russia . Some of these exiles founded the Communist Party of Finland in Moscow . The SKP was illegal in Finland until 1944, and members could be imprisoned . After the Continuation War , the SKP dominated the Finnish People's Democratic League , which
3999-615: The Finnish Diet of 1863. Finnish also enjoys the status of an official minority language in Sweden . Under the Nordic Language Convention , citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Finnish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. However, concerns have been expressed about
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4128-683: The Freedom Monument , shouting, "Soviet Russia out! Free Latvia!" Security forces confronted the marchers, and several police vehicles were overturned. The Jeltoqsan ('December') of 1986 were riots in Alma-Ata , Kazakhstan , sparked by Gorbachev's dismissal of Dinmukhamed Kunaev , the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and an ethnic Kazakh , who was replaced with Gennady Kolbin , an outsider from
4257-729: The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the Prague Spring in 1968. Gorbachev abandoned the oppressive and expensive Brezhnev Doctrine , which mandated intervention in the Warsaw Pact states, in favor of non-intervention in the internal affairs of allies – jokingly termed the Sinatra Doctrine in a reference to the Frank Sinatra song " My Way ". Poland was the first republic to democratize following
4386-605: The NKVD performed secret killings in Kurapaty. Initially the Front had significant visibility because its numerous public actions almost always ended in clashes with the police and the KGB . Spring 1989 saw the people of the Soviet Union exercising a democratic choice, albeit limited, for the first time since 1917, when they elected the new Congress of People's Deputies. Just as important
4515-702: The Politburo on 11 March 1985, just over four hours after his predecessor Konstantin Chernenko died at the age of 73. Gorbachev, aged 54, was the youngest member of the Politburo. His initial goal as general secretary was to revive the stagnating Soviet economy , and he realized that doing so would require reforming underlying political and social structures. The reforms began with personnel changes of senior Brezhnev-era officials who would impede political and economic change. On 23 April 1985, Gorbachev brought two protégés, Yegor Ligachev and Nikolai Ryzhkov , into
4644-670: The Romanian language and return to the Latin alphabet. The transition from "movement" (an informal association) to "front" (a formal association) was seen as a natural "upgrade" once a movement gained momentum with the public, and the Soviet authorities no longer dared to crack down on it. On 26 April 1988, about 500 people participated in a march organized by the Ukrainian Cultural Club on Kyiv's Khreschatyk Street to mark
4773-557: The Russian SFSR . Demonstrations started in the morning of 17 December 1986, with 200 to 300 students in front of the Central Committee building on Brezhnev Square . On the next day, 18 December, protests turned into civil unrest as clashes between troops, volunteers, militia units, and Kazakh students turned into a wide-scale confrontation. The clashes could only be controlled on the third day. On 6 May 1987, Pamyat ,
4902-643: The Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union . It also brought an end to the Soviet Union's federal government and General Secretary (also President ) Mikhail Gorbachev 's effort to reform the Soviet political and economic system in an attempt to stop a period of political stalemate and economic backslide . The Soviet Union had experienced internal stagnation and ethnic separatism. Although highly centralized until its final years,
5031-651: The Spitak earthquake struck, killing an estimated 25,000 to 50,000 people. When Gorbachev rushed back from a visit to the United States, he was so angered with being confronted by protesters calling for Nagorno-Karabakh to be made part of the Armenian Republic during a natural disaster that on 11 December 1988, he ordered that the entire Karabakh Committee be arrested. In Tbilisi , the capital of Soviet Georgia , many demonstrators camped out in front of
5160-558: The Theater Square , by 22 February, there were 100,000, the next day 300,000, and a transport strike was declared, by 25 February, there were close to a million demonstrators—more than a quarter of Armenia's population. This was the first of the large, peaceful public demonstrations that would become a feature of communism's overthrow in Prague, Berlin, and, ultimately, Moscow. Leading Armenian intellectuals and nationalists, including
5289-532: The Ural Mountains region and/or the bend of the middle Volga . The strong case for Proto-Uralic is supported by common vocabulary with regularities in sound correspondences, as well as by the fact that the Uralic languages have many similarities in structure and grammar. Despite having overlapping geographical distributions, Finnic languages and Sami languages are not closely related, and the hypothesis of
Communist Party of Finland - Misplaced Pages Continue
5418-411: The Uralic language family, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland, alongside Swedish . In Sweden , both Finnish and Meänkieli (which has significant mutual intelligibility with Finnish ) are official minority languages . Kven , which like Meänkieli is mutually intelligible with Finnish,
5547-709: The nuclear launch codes —to Yeltsin, who was now the first president of the Russian Federation . That evening, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the Russian tricolor flag . The following day, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union's upper chamber, the Soviet of the Republics, formally dissolved the Union. The events of the dissolution resulted in its 15 constituent republics gaining full independence which also marked
5676-482: The revolutions of 1989 in which Soviet-imposed socialist regimes of the Warsaw Pact were toppled peacefully ( with the notable exception of Romania ), which in turn increased pressure on Gorbachev to introduce greater democracy and autonomy for the Soviet Union's constituent republics. Under Gorbachev's leadership, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1989 introduced limited competitive elections to
5805-513: The stem of a word and its grammatical ending in some cases, for example after acronyms , as in EU:ssa 'in the EU'. (This contrasts with some other alphabetic writing systems, which would use other symbols, such as e.g. apostrophe, hyphen.) Since suffixes play a prominent role in the language, this use of the colon is quite common. In the 19th century Johan Vilhelm Snellman and others began to stress
5934-409: The 100 human-, national- and religious-rights advocates invited to discuss human rights with Soviet officials and a visiting delegation of the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (also known as the Helsinki Commission). On 10 December, hundreds gathered in Kyiv to observe International Human Rights Day at a rally organized by the Democratic Union. The unauthorized gathering resulted in
6063-450: The 14,000 Armenian residents of Sumgait fled. Gorbachev refused to make any changes to the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, which remained part of Azerbaijan. He instead sacked the Communist Party Leaders in both Republics in response – on 21 May 1988, Kamran Baghirov was replaced by Abdulrahman Vezirov as First Secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party . From 23 July to September 1988, a group of Azerbaijani intellectuals began working for
6192-409: The 1920s, the communists took part in the Socialist Workers' Party of Finland (1920–1923) and the Socialist Electoral Organisation of Workers and Smallholders (1924–1930). Both of them were also banned. In 1944, a new front, the Finnish People's Democratic League was formed. The SKP controlled these fronts but they always had a prominent minority of non-communist socialists. In 1918, the Reds lost
6321-423: The 2,250 CPD seats were filled. In district races, run-off elections were held in 76 constituencies on 2 and 9 April and fresh elections were organized on 14 and 20 April to 23 May, in the 199 remaining constituencies where the required absolute majority was not attained. While most CPSU-endorsed candidates were elected, more than 300 lost to independent candidates such as Yeltsin, the physicist Andrei Sakharov and
6450-464: The 48th anniversary of the secret protocols of the 1939 Molotov Pact , thousands of demonstrators marked the occasion in the three Baltic capitals to sing independence songs and attend speeches commemorating Stalin's victims. The gatherings were sharply denounced in the official press and closely watched by the police but were not interrupted. On 14 June 1987, about 5,000 people gathered again at Freedom Monument in Riga , and laid flowers to commemorate
6579-611: The 542-member Supreme Soviet passed the measure 254–85 (with 36 abstentions). The decision required a constitutional amendment, ratified by the full congress, which met 12–25 December. It also passed measures that would allow direct elections for presidents of each of the 15 constituent republics. Gorbachev strongly opposed such a move during debate but was defeated. The vote expanded the power of republics in local elections, enabling them to decide for themselves how to organize voting. Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia had already proposed laws for direct presidential elections. Local elections in all
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#17327906538656708-400: The Armenian minority was expelled from Shusha . On 17 November 1988, in response to the exodus of tens of thousands of Azerbaijanis from Armenia, a series of mass demonstrations began in Baku 's Lenin Square, lasting 18 days and attracting half a million demonstrators in support of their compatriots in that region. On 5 December 1988, the Soviet police and civilian militiamen moved in, cleared
6837-432: The CPSU, 100 to the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions , 75 to the Communist Youth Union ( Komsomol ), 75 to the Committee of Soviet Women, 75 to the War and Labour Veterans' Organization, and 325 to other organizations such as the Academy of Sciences . The selection process was done in April. In the 26 March general elections, voter participation was an impressive 89.8%, and 1,958 (including 1,225 district seats) of
6966-404: The Communist Party of Finland (Unity) (SKPy) which later evolved into the current Communist Party of Finland (1994) . The dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s led to ideological conflicts: bitter internal disputes plagued the party. Bad stock-market investments made during Arvo Aalto 's term of office resulted in financial bankruptcy in 1992. The SKP never recovered. A majority of
7095-482: The Estonian Popular Front and legalized the flying of the old blue-black-white flag of Estonia, and agreed to a new state language law that made Estonian the official language of the Republic. On 2 October, the Popular Front formally launched its political platform at a two-day congress. Väljas attended, gambling that the Front could help Estonia become a model of economic and political revival, while moderating separatist and other radical tendencies. On 16 November 1988,
7224-404: The Finnish dialects. The most important contributions to improving the status of Finnish were made by Elias Lönnrot . His impact on the development of modern vocabulary in Finnish was particularly significant. In addition to compiling the Kalevala , he acted as an arbiter in disputes about the development of standard Finnish between the proponents of western and eastern dialects, ensuring that
7353-439: The Latvian Popular Front and legalized flying the former carmine red-and-white flag of independent Latvia, and on 6 October he passed a law making Latvian the country's official language. The Popular Front of Lithuania, called Sąjūdis ("Movement"), was founded in May 1988. On 19 October 1988, Gorbachev replaced Ringaudas Songaila , the "old guard" leader of the Communist Party of Lithuania - who had been in office for nearly
7482-445: The Politburo as full members. He kept the "power" ministries favorable by promoting KGB Chief Viktor Chebrikov from candidate to full member and appointing Minister of Defence Marshal Sergei Sokolov as a Politburo candidate. The freedom of speech brought by Gorbachev's reforms allowed nationalist movements and ethnic disputes within the Soviet Union to be expressed and grow into dominant political movements. It also led indirectly to
7611-712: The Regional Soviet voted to secede and join with the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia . This local vote in a small, remote part of the Soviet Union made headlines around the world; it was an unprecedented defiance of republican and national authorities. On 22 February 1988, in what became known as the " Askeran clash ", thousands of Azerbaijanis marched towards Nagorno-Karabakh, demanding information about rumors of an Azerbaijani having been killed in Stepanakert. They were informed that no such incident had occurred, but refused to believe it. Dissatisfied with what they were told, thousands began marching toward Nagorno-Karabakh, killing (or injuring?) 50. Karabakh authorities mobilised over
7740-419: The SKP was the Communist Youth League of Finland (SKNL, 1925–1936). After World War II , young communists were active in the SKDL's Democratic Youth League of Finland (SNDL). The SNDL was member of World Federation of Democratic Youth . Finnish language Finnish ( endonym : suomi [ˈsuo̯mi] or suomen kieli [ˈsuo̯meŋ ˈkie̯li] ) is a Finnic language of
7869-451: The Soviet Union by the Act of 11 March 1990 with its Baltic neighbors and the Southern Caucasus republic of Georgia joining it over the next two months. During the failed 1991 August coup , communist hardliners and military elites attempted to overthrow Gorbachev and stop the failing reforms. However, the turmoil led to the central government in Moscow losing influence, ultimately resulting in many republics proclaiming independence in
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#17327906538657998-594: The Soviet Union, which were variously suppressed or tolerated. The CTAG ( Latvian : Cilvēktiesību aizstāvības grupa , lit. 'Human Rights Defense Group') Helsinki-86 was founded in July 1986 in the Latvian port town of Liepāja . Helsinki-86 was the first openly anti-Communist organization in the U.S.S.R., and the first openly organized opposition to the Soviet regime, setting an example for other ethnic minorities' pro-independence movements. On 26 December 1986, 300 Latvian youths gathered in Riga's Cathedral Square and marched down Lenin Avenue toward
8127-425: The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR adopted a declaration of national sovereignty under which Estonian laws would take precedence over those of the Soviet Union. Estonia's parliament also laid claim to the republic's natural resources including land, inland waters, forests, mineral deposits, and to the means of industrial production, agriculture, construction, state banks, transportation, and municipal services within
8256-403: The Ukrainian Cultural Club hosted its own observances in Kyiv at the monument to St. Volodymyr the Great , the grand prince of Kyivan Rus . On 16 June 1988, 6,000 to 8,000 people gathered in Lviv to hear speakers declare no confidence in the local list of delegates to the 19th Communist Party conference, to begin on 29 June. On 21 June, a rally in Lviv attracted 50,000 people who had heard about
8385-473: The United States. The majority of the population of Finland (90.37% as of 2010 ) speak Finnish as their first language . The remainder speak Swedish (5.42%), one of the Sámi languages (for example Northern , Inari , or Skolt ), or another language as their first language. Finnish is spoken as a second language in Estonia by about 167,000 people. The Finnic varities found in Norway's Finnmark (namely Kven ) and in northern Sweden (namely Meänkieli ) have
8514-414: The adjacent park harboring Aleea Clasicilor (The " Alley of Classics [of Literature]"). On 15 January 1988, in a tribute to Mihai Eminescu at his bust on the Aleea Clasicilor, Anatol Șalaru submitted a proposal to continue the meetings. In the public discourse, the movement called for national awakening, freedom of speech, the revival of Moldovan traditions, and for the attainment of official status for
8643-505: The anniversary of Stalin 's mass deportation of Latvians in 1941. The authorities did not crack down on demonstrators, which encouraged more and larger demonstrations throughout the Baltic States. On 18 November 1987, hundreds of police and civilian militiamen cordoned off the central square to prevent any demonstration at Freedom Monument, but thousands lined the streets of Riga in silent protest regardless. On 17 October 1987, about 3,000 Armenians demonstrated in Yerevan complaining about
8772-463: The beginning of Yeltsin's rebranding as a rebel and rise in popularity as an anti-establishment figure. The following four years of political struggle between Yeltsin and Gorbachev played a large role in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. On 11 November, Yeltsin was fired from the post of First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party . In the years leading up to the dissolution, various protests and resistance movements occurred or took hold throughout
8901-474: The border created between Sweden and Finland in 1809 when Russia annexed Finland. This caused the speakers of Meänkieli to be isolated from the developments of standard Finnish and instead be influenced by the Swedish language. However, it is still mutually integible with Finnish, and is thus sometimes considered a dialect of the Finnish language. The Kven language is spoken in Finnmark and Troms , in Norway. Its speakers are descendants of Finnish emigrants to
9030-409: The colloquial language) ei kö teillä ole e(i) ks teil(lä) oo "don't you (pl.) have (it)?" (compare eiks to standard Estonian confirmatory interrogative eks ) Dissolution of the Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration № 142-Н of
9159-471: The condition of Lake Sevan , the Nairit chemicals plant, and the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant , and air pollution in Yerevan. Police tried to prevent the protest but took no action to stop it once the march was underway. The following day 1,000 Armenians participated in another demonstration calling for Armenian national rights in Karabakh and the proposed unification of both Nakhchivan and Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. The police tried to physically prevent
9288-643: The country was made up of 15 top-level republics that served as the homelands for different ethnicities. By late 1991, amid a catastrophic political crisis, with several republics already departing the Union and Gorbachev continuing the waning of centralized power, the leaders of three of its founding members , the Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian SSRs, declared that the Soviet Union no longer existed . Eight more republics joined their declaration shortly thereafter. Gorbachev resigned on 25 December 1991 and what
9417-576: The country, scheduled for November 1989, be postponed until early 1990 because there were still no laws governing the conduct of such elections. This was seen by some as a concession to local Party officials, who feared they would be swept from power in a wave of anti-establishment sentiment. On 25 October 1989, the Supreme Soviet voted to eliminate special seats for the Communist Party and other official organizations in union-level and republic-level elections, responding to sharp popular criticism that such reserved slots were undemocratic. After vigorous debate,
9546-404: The country. One is the "standard language" ( yleiskieli ), and the other is the " spoken language " ( puhekieli ). The standard language is used in formal situations like political speeches and newscasts. Its written form, the "book language" ( kirjakieli ), is used in nearly all written texts, not always excluding even the dialogue of common people in popular prose. The spoken language, on
9675-695: The detention of local activists. The Belarusian Popular Front was established in 1988 as a political party and cultural movement for democracy and independence, similar to the Baltic republics' popular fronts. The discovery of mass graves in Kurapaty outside Minsk by historian Zianon Pazniak , the Belarusian Popular Front's first leader, gave additional momentum to the pro-democracy and pro-independence movement in Belarus. It claimed that
9804-478: The difference between saying "There's no children I'll leave it to" and "There are no children to whom I shall leave it"). More common is the intrusion of typically literary constructions into a colloquial discourse, as a kind of quote from written Finnish. It is quite common to hear book-like and polished speech on radio or TV, and the constant exposure to such language tends to lead to the adoption of such constructions even in everyday language. A prominent example of
9933-445: The effect of the standard language is the development of the consonant gradation form /ts : ts/ as in metsä : metsän , as this pattern was originally (1940) found natively only in the dialects of the southern Karelian isthmus and Ingria . It has been reinforced by the spelling "ts" for the dental fricative [θː] , used earlier in some western dialects. The spelling and the pronunciation this encourages however approximate
10062-756: The enactment of the April Novelization , as agreed upon following the Polish Round Table Agreement talks from February to April between the government and the Solidarity trade union. The Polish Solidarity Union, as established through the 1980 August Accords, presented Lech Wałęsa as their candidate, who became the first democratically elected president of Poland. The elections in Poland inspired other Eastern European Soviet Nations to pursue peaceful democratic transitions, and soon
10191-607: The end of 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. This was also the year that CNN became the first non-Soviet broadcaster allowed to beam its TV news programs to Moscow. Officially, CNN was available only to foreign guests in the Savoy Hotel , but Muscovites quickly learned how to pick up signals on their home televisions. That had a major effect on how Soviets saw events in their country and made censorship almost impossible. The month-long nomination period for candidates for
10320-696: The first group release since the Khrushchev Thaw in the mid-1950s. On 10 September, Boris Yeltsin wrote a letter of resignation to Gorbachev. At the 27 October plenary meeting of the Central Committee, Yeltsin, frustrated that Gorbachev had not addressed any of the issues outlined in his resignation letter, criticized the slow pace of reform, and servility to the general secretary. In his reply, Gorbachev accused Yeltsin of "political immaturity" and "absolute irresponsibility". Nevertheless, news of Yeltsin's insubordination and "secret speech" spread, and soon samizdat versions began to circulate. That marked
10449-530: The following days and months. The secession of the Baltic states was recognized in September 1991. The Belovezha Accords were signed on 8 December by President Boris Yeltsin of Russia , President Kravchuk of Ukraine , and Chairman Shushkevich of Belarus , recognizing each other's independence and creating the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to replace the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan
10578-551: The formal. However, in signalling the former in writing, syncope and sandhi – especially internal – may occasionally amongst other characteristics be transcribed, e.g. menenpä → me(n)empä . This never occurs in the standard variety. he mene vät ne mene e "they go" loss of a number contrast on verbs in the 3rd person ( menee is 3rd person singular in the formal language) ( minä) o le n mä o o n "I am" or "I will be" and no pro-drop (i.e., personal pronouns are usually mandatory in
10707-523: The future first president of independent Armenia Levon Ter-Petrossian , formed the eleven-member Karabakh Committee to lead and organize the new movement. On the same day, when Gorbachev replaced Baghirov with Vezirov as First Secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party, he also replaced Karen Demirchian with Suren Harutyunyan as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia , however, Harutyunyan quickly decided to run before
10836-446: The future status of Finnish in Sweden, for example, where reports produced for the Swedish government during 2017 show that minority language policies are not being respected, particularly for the 7% of Finns settled in the country. The Uralic family of languages, of which Finnish is a member, are hypothesized to derive from a single ancestor language termed Proto-Uralic , spoken sometime between 8,000 and 2,000 BCE (estimates vary) in
10965-461: The grammatical and phonological changes also include the most common pronouns and suffixes, which amount to frequent but modest differences. Some sound changes have been left out of the formal language. For example, irregular verbs have developed in the spoken language as a result of the elision of sonorants in some verbs of the Type III class (with subsequent vowel assimilation ), but only when
11094-470: The language, which he based on Swedish, German, and Latin. The Finnish standard language still relies on his innovations with regard to spelling, though Agricola used less systematic spelling than is used today. Though Agricola's intention was that each phoneme (and allophone under qualitative consonant gradation ) should correspond to one letter, he failed to achieve this goal in various respects. For example, k , c , and q were all used for
11223-471: The largest gathering of Ukrainian Catholics since Stalin outlawed the Church in 1946. On 4 August, which came to be known as "Bloody Thursday", local authorities violently suppressed a demonstration organized by the Democratic Front to Promote Perestroika. Forty-one people were detained, fined, or sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest. On 1 September, local authorities violently displaced 5,000 students at
11352-421: The lawyer Anatoly Sobchak . In the first session of the new Congress of People's Deputies (from 25 May to 9 June), hardliners retained control but reformers used the legislature as a platform for debate and criticism, which was broadcast live and uncensored. This transfixed the population since nothing like such a freewheeling debate had ever been witnessed in the Soviet Union. On 29 May, Yeltsin managed to secure
11481-510: The leading rebel republic. On 5 July 1988, when a contingent of troops was sent in to remove demonstrators by force from Yerevan's Zvartnots International Airport , shots were fired and one student protester was killed. In September, further large demonstrations in Yerevan led to the deployment of armored vehicles. In the autumn of 1988 almost all of the 200,000 Azerbaijani minority in Armenia
11610-415: The main cultural and political centres. The standard language, however, has always been a consciously constructed medium for literature. It preserves grammatical patterns that have mostly vanished from the colloquial varieties and, as its main application is writing, it features complex syntactic patterns that are not easy to handle when used in speech. The colloquial language develops significantly faster, and
11739-861: The major conclusion of the Revolutions of 1989 and the end of the Cold War . In the aftermath of the Cold War , several of the former Soviet republics have retained close links with Russia and formed multilateral organizations such as the CIS, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and the Union State , for economic and military cooperation. On
11868-489: The march and after a few incidents, dispersed the demonstrators. In 1988, Gorbachev started to lose control of two regions of the Soviet Union, as the Baltic republics were now leaning towards independence, and the Caucasus descended into violence and civil war. On 1 July 1988, the fourth and last day of a bruising 19th Party Conference, Gorbachev won the backing of the tired delegates for his last-minute proposal to create
11997-411: The modern-day eastern Finnish dialects, Veps, Karelian, and Ingrian) formed genitive plural nouns via plural stems (e.g., eastern Finnish kalojen < * kaloi -ten ), the western dialects of Proto-Finnic (today's Estonian, Livonian and western Finnish varieties) used the non-plural stems (e.g., Est. kalade < * kala -ten ). Another defining characteristic of the east–west split
12126-624: The most part, the dialects operate on the same phonology and grammar. There are only marginal examples of sounds or grammatical constructions specific to some dialect and not found in standard Finnish. Two examples are the voiced dental fricative found in the Rauma dialect , and the Eastern exessive case . The Southwest Finnish dialects ( lounaissuomalaismurteet ) are spoken in Southwest Finland and Satakunta . Their typical feature
12255-422: The most prominent Soviet dissident , returned to Moscow shortly after receiving a personal telephone call from Gorbachev telling him that after almost seven years his internal exile for defying the authorities was over. At the 28–30 January Central Committee plenum , Gorbachev suggested a new policy of demokratizatsiya throughout Soviet society. He proposed that future Communist Party elections should offer
12384-575: The nationalist wind and on 28 May, allowed Armenians to unfurl the red-blue-orange First Armenian Republic flag for the first time in almost 70 years to mark the 1918 declaration of the First Republic. On 15 June 1988, the Armenian Supreme Soviet adopted a resolution formally approving the idea of Nagorno-Karabakh's unification as part of the republic. Armenia, formerly one of the most loyal republics, had suddenly turned into
12513-419: The need to improve the status of Finnish. Ever since the days of Mikael Agricola, written Finnish had been used almost exclusively in religious contexts, but now Snellman's Hegelian nationalistic ideas of Finnish as a fully-fledged national language gained considerable support. Concerted efforts were made to improve the status of the language and to modernize it, and by the end of the century Finnish had become
12642-453: The original pronunciation, still reflected in e.g. Karelian /čč : č/ ( meččä : mečän ). In the spoken language, a fusion of Western /tt : tt/ ( mettä : mettän ) and Eastern /ht : t/ ( mehtä : metän ) has resulted in /tt : t/ ( mettä : metän ). Neither of these forms are identifiable as, or originate from, a specific dialect. The orthography of informal language follows that of
12771-616: The other hand, is the main variety of Finnish used in popular TV and radio shows and at workplaces, and may be preferred to a dialect in personal communication. Standard Finnish is prescribed by the Language Office of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland and is the language used in official communication. The Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish ( Nykysuomen sanakirja 1951–61), with 201,000 entries,
12900-419: The other hand, the Baltic states and all of the other former Warsaw Pact states became part of the European Union (EU) and joined NATO , while some of the other former Soviet republics like Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova have been publicly expressing interest in following the same path since the 1990s, despite Russian attempts to persuade them otherwise. Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by
13029-457: The party leadership or membership. The events of the Prague Spring followed by the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia had strong repercussions for the SKP. With the SKP's leadership strongly denouncing the Soviet intervention, internal disputes became fiercer than ever. While a de facto Eurocommunist majority held sway, the Taistoist minority decisively stood by the Soviet Union and
13158-553: The party members, with other member-organizations of SKDL, formed the Left Alliance in 1990. SKPy, originally the faction of the party expelled in 1985–1986, outlasted its parent and registered itself as the Communist Party of Finland in 1997, but has failed to regain the former Communist Party's parliamentary representation. In the elections of 2007 it won 0.7% of the vote; in April 2011 , it won just 0.3%. The youth wing of
13287-483: The party membership to be approximately 40,000 (1.44% of the working age population). with the SKP's main rival for domination of the political left being the Social Democratic Party of Finland . The competition was very bitter in trade unions and other leftist organizations. The SKP received substantial financial support from the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Internally, SKP was divided, with
13416-447: The phoneme / k / . Likewise, he alternated between dh and d to represent the allophonic [ ð ] (like th in English this ), between dh and z to represent / θː / (like th in thin , but longer in duration), and between gh and g to represent the allophonic [ ɣ ] . Agricola did not consistently represent vowel length in his orthography. Others revised Agricola's work later, striving for
13545-799: The region in the 18th and 19th centuries. Kven is an official minority language in Norway. The Eastern dialects consist of the widespread Savonian dialects ( savolaismurteet ) spoken in Savo and nearby areas, and the South-Eastern dialects now spoken only in Finnish South Karelia . The South Karelian dialects ( eteläkarjalaismurteet ) were previously also spoken on the Karelian Isthmus and in Ingria . The Karelian Isthmus
13674-731: The republic's legislature in November 1988 calling for Georgia's independence and in support of Estonia's declaration of sovereignty. Beginning in February 1988, the Democratic Movement of Moldova (formerly Moldavia) organized public meetings, demonstrations, and song festivals, which gradually grew in size and intensity. In the streets, the center of public manifestations was the Stephen the Great Monument in Chișinău, and
13803-587: The republics had already been scheduled to take place between December and March 1990. The six Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe, while nominally independent, were widely recognized as the Soviet satellite states (along with Mongolia ). All had been occupied by the Soviet Red Army in 1945, had Soviet-style socialist states imposed upon them, and had very restricted freedom of action in either domestic or international affairs. Any moves towards real independence were suppressed by military force – in
13932-652: The second anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, carrying placards with slogans like "Openness and Democracy to the End". Between May and June 1988, Ukrainian Catholics in western Ukraine celebrated the Millennium of Christianity in Kyivan Rus in secret by holding services in the forests of Buniv, Kalush , Hoshi, and Zarvanytsia. On 5 June 1988, as the official celebrations of the Millennium were held in Moscow,
14061-401: The second syllable of the word is short. The result is that some forms in the spoken language are shortened, e.g. tule-n → tuu-n ('I come'), while others remain identical to the standard language hän tulee "he comes", never * hän tuu ). However, the longer forms such as tule can be used in spoken language in other forms as well. The literary language certainly still exerts
14190-486: The square by force, and imposed a curfew that lasted ten months. The rebellion of fellow Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh had an immediate effect in Armenia itself. Daily demonstrations, which began in the Armenian capital Yerevan on 18 February, initially attracted few people, but each day the Nagorno-Karabakh issue became increasingly prominent and the numbers swelled. On 20 February, a 30,000-strong crowd demonstrated in
14319-636: The status of official minority languages, and thus can be considered distinct languages from Finnish. However, since these languages are mutually intelligible , one may alternatively view them as dialects of the same language . No language census exists for Norway, neither for Kven, standard Finnish, or combined. As of 2023, 7,454 first- or second-generation immigrants from Finland were registered as having Norwegian residency, while as of 2021, 235 Finns were registered as foreigners studying at Norwegian higher education. Great Norwegian Encyclopedia estimates Kven speakers at 2,000-8,000. Altogether, this results in
14448-625: The territory of Estonia's borders. At the same time the Estonian Citizens' Committees started registration of citizens of the Republic of Estonia to carry out the elections of the Congress of Estonia . The Latvian Popular Front was founded in June 1988. On 4 October, Gorbachev replaced Boris Pugo , the "old guard" leader of the Communist Party of Latvia , with the more liberal Jānis Vagris. In October 1988 Vagris bowed to pressure from
14577-465: The travel journal, the words are those of a Finnish bishop whose name is unknown. The erroneous use of gelen (Modern Finnish kielen ) in the accusative case, rather than kieltä in the partitive, and the lack of the conjunction mutta are typical of foreign speakers of Finnish even today. At the time, most priests in Finland spoke Swedish . During the Middle Ages, when Finland
14706-422: The two standard languages being not mutually intelligible. Finnish demonstrates an affiliation with other Uralic languages (such as Hungarian and Sami languages ) in several respects including: Several theories exist as to the geographic origin of Finnish and the other Uralic languages. The most widely held view is that they originated as a Proto-Uralic language somewhere in the boreal forest belt around
14835-499: The use of Finnish through parish clerk schools, the use of Swedish in church, and by having Swedish-speaking servants and maids move to Finnish-speaking areas. The first comprehensive writing system for Finnish was created by Mikael Agricola , a Finnish bishop, in the 16th century. He based his writing system on the western dialects . Agricola's ultimate plan was to translate the Bible , but first he had to develop an orthography for
14964-465: The vanguard of the Baltic states in pressing for reform. In 1988, Estonia took over the lead role with the foundation of the Soviet Union's first popular front and starting to influence state policy. The Estonian Popular Front was founded in April 1988. On 16 June 1988, Gorbachev replaced Karl Vaino , the "old guard" leader of the Communist Party of Estonia , with the comparatively liberal Vaino Väljas . In late June 1988, Väljas bowed to pressure from
15093-492: The vicinity of the Ural Mountains . Over time, Proto-Uralic split into various daughter languages , which themselves continued to change and diverge, yielding yet more descendants. One of these descendants is the reconstructed Proto-Finnic , from which the Finnic languages developed. Current models assume that three or more Proto-Finnic dialects evolved during the first millennium BCE. These dialects were defined geographically, and were distinguished from one another along
15222-626: The western dialects preferred by Agricola retained their preeminent role, while many originally dialect words from Eastern Finland were introduced to the standard language, thus enriching it considerably. The first novel written in Finnish (and by a Finnish speaker) was Seven Brothers ( Seitsemän veljestä ), published by Aleksis Kivi in 1870. The dialects of Finnish are divided into two distinct groups, Western and Eastern. The dialects are largely mutually intelligible and are distinguished from each other by changes in vowels, diphthongs and rhythm, as well as in preferred grammatical constructions. For
15351-403: The western parts of Lapland are recognizable by retention of old "h" sounds in positions where they have disappeared from other dialects. One form of speech related to Northern dialects, Meänkieli , which is spoken on the Swedish side of the border is recognized in Sweden as its own distinct language, having its own standardized language separate from Finnish. This form of speech developed from
15480-496: Was a prescriptive dictionary that defined official language. An additional volume for words of foreign origin ( Nykysuomen sivistyssanakirja , 30,000 entries) was published in 1991. An updated dictionary, The New Dictionary of Modern Finnish ( Kielitoimiston sanakirja ) was published in an electronic form in 2004 and in print in 2006. A descriptive grammar (the Large grammar of Finnish , Iso suomen kielioppi , 1,600 pages)
15609-464: Was evacuated during World War II and refugees were resettled all over Finland. Most Ingrian Finns were deported to various interior areas of the Soviet Union. Palatalization , a common feature of Uralic languages, had been lost in the Finnic branch, but it has been reacquired by most of these languages, including Eastern Finnish, but not Western Finnish. In Finnish orthography, this is denoted with
15738-537: Was expelled by Armenian nationalists, with over 100 killed in the process. That, after the Sumgait pogrom earlier that year, which had been carried out by Azerbaijanis to ethnic Armenians and led to the expulsion of Armenians from Azerbaijan, was for many Armenians considered an act of revenge for the killings at Sumgait. On 25 November 1988, a military commandant took control of Yerevan as the Soviet government moved to prevent further ethnic violence. On 7 December 1988,
15867-470: Was founded in 1944 as an umbrella organization of the radical left. The Cold War era was the high point of Communists in Finland. Between 1944 and 1979, support of the Finnish People's Democratic League was in the range of 17%–24%. Communists participated in several cabinets, but Finland never had a communist Prime Minister or President . In the mid-1960s, the U.S. State Department estimated
15996-454: Was left of the Soviet parliament voted to dissolve the union. The process began with growing unrest in the country's various constituent national republics developing into an incessant political and legislative conflict between them and the central government. Estonia was the first Soviet republic to declare state sovereignty inside the Union on 16 November 1988. Lithuania was the first republic to declare full independence restored from
16125-545: Was published in 2004. There is also an etymological dictionary, Suomen sanojen alkuperä , published in 1992–2000, and a handbook of contemporary language ( Nykysuomen käsikirja ). Standard Finnish is used in official texts and is the form of language taught in schools. Its spoken form is used in political speech, newscasts, in courts, and in other formal situations. Nearly all publishing and printed works are in standard Finnish. The colloquial language has mostly developed naturally from earlier forms of Finnish, and spread from
16254-546: Was the last republic to leave the Union, proclaiming independence on 16 December. All the ex-Soviet republics, with the exception of Georgia and the Baltic states, joined the CIS on 21 December, signing the Alma-Ata Protocol . Russia, as by far the largest and most populous republic, became the USSR's de facto successor state . On 25 December, Gorbachev resigned and turned over his presidential powers—including control of
16383-595: Was the uncensored live TV coverage of the legislature's deliberations, where people witnessed the previously feared Communist leadership being questioned and held accountable. This example fueled a limited experiment with democracy in Poland , which quickly led to the toppling of the Communist government in Warsaw that summer and in turn sparked uprisings that overthrew governments in the other five Warsaw Pact countries before
16512-543: Was the use of the reflexive suffix -(t)te , used only in the eastern dialects. The birch bark letter 292 from the early 13th century is the first known document in any Finnic language . The first known written example of Finnish itself is found in a German travel journal dating back to c. 1450 : Mÿnna tachton gernast spuho sommen gelen Emÿna daÿda (Modern Finnish: " Minä tahdon kernaasti puhua suomen kielen, [mutta] en minä taida; " English: "I want to speak Finnish, [but] I am not able to"). According to
16641-562: Was under Swedish rule , Finnish was only spoken . At the time, the language of international commerce was Middle Low German , the language of administration Swedish , and religious ceremonies were held in Latin . This meant that Finnish speakers could use their mother tongue only in everyday life. Finnish was considered inferior to Swedish, and Finnish speakers were second-class members of society because they could not use their language in any official situations. There were even efforts to reduce
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