Free Ingria () is a Saint-Petersburg based informal social movement of regionalists and separatists, also called political Ingrians or practicing local historiansâÂÂ.
It has existed since 1998. The movement declares as its goal either broad autonomy or complete independence of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast. It is in confrontation with the national movement of ethnic Ingrians, according to whose activists the political Ingrians âÂÂshamelessly used the historical word Ingrians for their own political purposes, and have nothing to do with the present IngriansâÂÂ.
The first who began to propagate the idea of the revival of Ingria was the ideologist of Peterburgian vedism Viktor Bezverkhy. In the mid-1990s, the âÂÂMovement for the Autonomy of St. Petersburgâ and the group âÂÂIndependent Petersburgâ began their activities too.
Supporters of autonomy defended the city's right to a special status within Russia and criticized regionalists for unrealistic goals. While the separatists appealed to the Republic of Northern Ingria, which existed in 1919âÂÂ1920. Discussions died down in the early 2000s, when it became clear that the disputants had no real opportunity to fight for either autonomy or independence. At the same time, in the early 2000s, the society of practicing local historians âÂÂIngriaâÂÂ, which arose in 1998, existed mainly in a virtual format, was reformatted into the informal social movement âÂÂIngriaâÂÂ, which later changed its name to âÂÂFree IngriaâÂÂ.
The political activity of the movement during these years remained in line with federal protest activity. On May 1, 2016, âÂÂpolitical Ingriansâ took part in various protests with slogans like: âÂÂIt's time to return this land to ourselves!âÂÂ, âÂÂIngria is our history!â and âÂÂGive me the archaeological museum on Cape Okhtinsky!â That is, all the demands were purely cultural and historical, and not political in nature. Supporters of the movement did not take part in election campaigns and did not try to get in touch with current politicians on the issue of unifying St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region into a single subject of the federation. The movement was focused on educational and ethnocultural events.
In 2016, FSB officers detained Artem Chebotarev, the administrator of the âÂÂFree Ingriaâ public page on the VKontakte social network. In the summer of 2017 access to the now defunct Free Ingria website was blocked in Russia. In November 2017, the police detained movement activist Mikhail Voitenkov, accusing him of illegal possession of weapons.
With the start of Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the rhetoric of the movement's speakers has become more radical. Representatives of âÂÂFree Ingriaâ openly declared their support for Ukraine and became one of the founding members of the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum.
In 2023, movement coordinators Pavel Mezerin and Maxim Kuzakhmetov were declared to be foreign agents.
In January 2024 one of the members of the organization, Denis Ugyumov, registered a pro-independence NGO in Lithuania under the name "New Age of Democracy Foundation".
in July 2023, it was announced the creation of a volunteer armed formation as part of the International Legion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - the âÂÂFree Ingriaâ platoon. It was assumed that movement coordinators Pavel Mezerin and Denis Ugryumov would go to the front, however, only one person joined the armed group. On November 1, 2023, that person left the front line due to a conflict with representatives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who did not want to consider Free Ingria as a separate unit.
Members of the organizations cause serious discontent among ethnic Ingrians. Local residents are very worried because in the eyes of the public they are considered shocking and eccentric ideologists of separatism, although in reality they have nothing to do with the activities of Free Ingria.
In 2022, in accordance with the order of the prosecutor's office, the national flag of the Ingrians was removed from a Finnish school in St. Petersburg. In 2023, for the first time since 1989, during the celebration of Juhannus, the administration of Leningrad Oblast banned the raising of the national flag of the Ingrians. According to Ingrian activist and journalist Pjukkenen: âÂÂOver the past few years, an alarming trend has emerged - the flag began to be used by political radicals (not related to Ingrian Finns) in combination with dubious political slogans. The result was disastrous: during meetings with Inkerin Liitto activists, government officials more than once reproached the Finns for the fact that society is using an allegedly âÂÂseparatist flag,â and sometimes even advised to create some new version of the flag.âÂÂ
The position of the Ingrian Finns is also supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria.
The goal of the public movement âÂÂFree Ingriaâ is the declared unification of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region into a single subject of the federation, giving the new region the name Ingria. Some activists are calling for the creation of an independent Ingria as the fourth Baltic republic if Moscow refuses the real federalization of Russia, and this statement became more common after 2022. The process during which the construction of a new regional Ingrian identity should be carried out was called âÂÂpracticing local historyâ by supporters of the movement.
Despite the fact that the borders of the historical Ingria regions are 3 times smaller than Leningrad Oblast, the founders of this organization, for unstated reasons, extend âÂÂthe borders of âÂÂtheirâ Ingria to the entire territory of the Leningrad region and consider St. Petersburg as part of itâÂÂ. This predetermines âÂÂthe political superficiality and marginal format of the Ingrian movement as a wholeâÂÂ. According to the Russian historian Daniel Kotsiubinsky, the Ingrian idea of the network movement is to replace the image of St. Petersburg as a city with a certain âÂÂcountryâ of Finno-Ugric-Scandinavian ethnicity, culture and history.