The association was established by
Karelian local governments, parishes and provincial organizations on 20 April 1940, immediately after the
Winter War. The chief aim was to attend to the interests of Karelians who had lost their homes. By the 1960s, the organization started to focus on preservation of the
Karelian culture, by that point most of the economic and social problems faced by resettled Karelians were addressed. The Karelian Association has close ties to the
Finnish government and the
European Union. The organization had an official
magazine Karjala Lehti, which stopped being published in September 2022, but there are plans to restart printing in 2023. In 2023, Karjalan Liitto was contacted by a
Karelian nationalist organisation, which wanted to cooperate with the movement in order to
return Karelia back to Finland. The movement refused the offer, seeing it as a Russian
information attack. == Goals ==