{"id":1411,"date":"2026-06-21T14:57:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T11:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capitals.uralic.org\/?p=1411"},"modified":"2026-07-18T15:30:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T12:30:04","slug":"upper-michigans-tv6-coverage-of-2nd-finno-ugric-open-forum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitals.uralic.org\/et\/news\/upper-michigans-tv6-coverage-of-2nd-finno-ugric-open-forum\/","title":{"rendered":"2nd Finno-Ugric Open Forum Held In Hancock"},"content":{"rendered":"

On June 18, the 2nd Finno-Ugric Open Forum was successfully held in Hancock (Michigan), as part of the Juhannus Summer Solstice week \u2013 main events of Hancock\u2019s Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture 2026 year. The Forum in Hancock continued the tradition that began in Narva (Estonia) which held the Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture title in 2025.<\/span><\/p>\n

The main objective of the Forum is to openly discuss important and urgent issues facing Finno-Ugric peoples and the Finno-Ugric movement today. Given its location in North America, the special theme of this year\u2019s Forum was \u201cBuilding Transatlantic Bridges\u201d. Among else, the Forum sought answers for the following questions:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 What can Finno-Ugric cooperation offer to the Finnish American community?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 How can Finno-Ugric communities and diasporas in North America participate in international Finno-Ugric cooperation?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 What can Finno-Ugric peoples and diasporas in Europe learn from Finnish America?<\/span><\/p>\n

The Forum was opened by James Kurtti (Copper Country Finns & Friends, Honorary Consul of Finland in Michigan\u2019s Upper Peninsula), followed by Chris Salani (Hancock High Schools \u2013 venue of the Forum), Oliver Loode (URALIC Centre \u2013 Estonia) and Tommy Flanagan (Finlandia Foundation National).\u00a0 Participants of the Forum were also greeted via video by Alar Karis, President of the Republic of Estonia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leena-Kaisa Mikkola, Ambassador of Finland to the United States, delivered the Keynote Speech of the Forum.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first panel, entitled \u201cState of the Finno-Ugric World\u201d, was moderated by Oliver Loode (Estonia), with Vitaly Romashkin (Erzya \/ USA), Alexandra Kellner (Finland), Anti Lillak (Estonia), Rune Bjerkli (Kven \/ Norway) and Bog\u00e1ta Tim\u00e1r (Estonia\/Hungary) as panelists.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second panel: \u201cTradition, Internet, and Identity: Who Owns Finno-Ugric Culture in the Digital Age?\u201d was moderated by\u00a0Atte Huhtala (Finland), with Britt-Kathleen Mere (Estonia), Gage \u201cTouko\u201d Ker\u00e4nen (USA), Mirjami Sipil\u00e4 (Finland), Artem Medvedev (Udmurtia \/ USA) and Petter-Anne Hutchings (USA) as panelists.<\/span><\/p>\n

The last panel \u201cTransatlantic dimension of Finno-Ugric cooperation\u201d was moderated by Aleksi Palokangas (Finland), who was joined by James Kurtti (USA), Thomas Flanagan (USA), Oliver Loode (Estonia) and Nate Kilponen-Fix (USA).<\/span><\/p>\n

The 2nd Finno-Ugric Open Forum was organized by URALIC Centre (Estonia), in partnership with Sukukansojen yst\u00e4v\u00e4t ry (Finland), H\u00f5imul\u00f5imed NGO (Estonia), Copper Country Finns & Friends and Hancock High Schools. The Forum was made possible thanks to a grant from Finlandia Foundation National (FFN). We are also grateful to the Estonian American National Council (EANC) for its support.<\/span><\/p>\n

Below is the link to the Youtube Livestream of the Forum. In time we will publish shorter clips of key speeches and statements from the Forum.<\/span><\/p>\n

2nd Finno-Ugric Open Forum: YouTube Livestream<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On June 18, the 2nd Finno-Ugric Open Forum was successfully held in Hancock (Michigan), as part of the Juhannus Summer Solstice week \u2013 main events of Hancock\u2019s Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture 2026 year. The Forum in Hancock continued the tradition that began in Narva (Estonia) which held the Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture title in 2025. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1370,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitals.uralic.org\/et\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitals.uralic.org\/et\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitals.uralic.org\/et\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitals.uralic.org\/et\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitals.uralic.org\/et\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1411"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/capitals.uralic.org\/et\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1419,"href":"https:\/\/capitals.uralic.org\/et\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411\/revisions\/1419"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitals.uralic.org\/et\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitals.uralic.org\/et\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitals.uralic.org\/et\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitals.uralic.org\/et\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}