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Kalevala - Kalevala Day (February 28)

 

The Kalevala is the Finnish national epic, compiled by Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884) from ancient oral poetry. The material, old ballads and lyrical songs depicting "the sons of Kalevala", were published in two editions, first in 1835 with 35 cantos, and the enlarged edition with 50 cantos in 1849. Lönnrot's aim was to arrange the mythological and other poems into a single volume, comparable to the Icelandic Edda, and tell about the past heroes like Homer did in Iliad and Odyssey. The Kalevala itself is based principally on poems collected from the Finnish-speaking regions beyond the eastern frontier of Finland. Between 1831 and 1835 Lönnrot undertook three collection journeys to Archangel Karelia and arranged his materials into an epic whole. The revised Kalevala was elaborated with the new material that Lönnrot and other collectors had amassed since 1835.

Dear my kinsman, friend fraternal,
You my fairest foster-brother!
Come and sing with me in concord,
Let us sing and say together,
Since together we have got here
Coming from two different quarters!
Seldom do we see each other,
Rarely reap the fruits of friendship,
Here within these barren borders,
In these careful Northern confines.

(...)
transl. by Cid Erik Tallqvist

The compilation of a "national epic" was part of a patriotic movement. The Swedish poet Esaias Tegnér (1782-1846) had showed a model with his Frithiofs saga and Johan Ludvig Runeberg (1804-77) had translated into Swedish selections from Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic's Serbian folk poems. In Poland Mickiewicz composed the epic Pan Tadeusz (1834). However, in Finland the impact of the Kalevala, as an example of the heroic past of the people, was far deeper that in any other country. It has often been said that Lönnrot's poem had a triggering effect on the development of Finnish national awareness in the 19th century. Lönnrot believed that the epic poems he had found, were fragments of a great masterpiece. Lönnrot's achievement launched a vogue called Karelianism and became part of the emerging Finnishness.

The Kalevala begins with an account of the Creation – from a broken egg – and ends with an interpretation of the Virgin Birth. In the second edition of the Kalevala the blundering expeditions, centered around the mysterious Sampo, its manufacure, its theft, and loss in a battle, arise in the forefront. At the beginning of the arrangement of the material, Lönnrot believed that the events of the old poems rested more or less on historical facts. Later he let an aesthetic principle guide his work. From the beginning, Lönnrot kept records of folk poems and his own compositions so that no shadow over the genuine folk origins of the finished epic could fall, as in the case of J. Macpherson's Song of Ossian. Modern reseach has shown that the texts, however, were based on genuine material.

The central characters in The Kalevala, or Old Poems from Karelia telling the Ancient History of the Finnish People, are the old and wise Väinämöinen, skilled smith Ilmarinen, adventurer-warrior Lemminkäinen, Louhi, the female ruler of Pohjola, and the tragic hero Kullervo. In the center of the song cycle is the magic-laden conflict between Kalevala and Pohja or Pohjola (Northland); the latter is ruled by the enchantress Louhi, who commands storms and deep cold. Like Orpheus, Väinämöinen is the master of the universal magic of music, he can gain power over persons and things by knowing their genealogy or origins. The epic ends with decline of paganism: maid Marjatta gives birth to a son who is baptized king of Karelia and Väinämöinen departs the land of heroes.

The Sampo, the magic mill, which has some similarities with the miraculous Celtic cauldron of plenty and regeneration, is the most fascinating mystery of the epic. It is the ultimate source of prosperity, a kind of primitive Philosophers's Stone. Ilmarinen, the smith, who resembles in some respects Vulcanus (Hepaestus), the god of fire, makes the Sampo to have a wife. Väinämoinen, his consultant, tells him: "If you can forge the Sampo / brighten the bright-lid / you'll get the maid for your pay / for your work the lovely girl." Ilmarinen pushes the raw stuffs in the fire, works several days, the smoke thickens to the clouds, and finally sees the Sampo being born.

When in the Middle-Eastern folk tale 'Aladdin and His Wonder Lamp' the genie fulfills three wishes for the lamp's owner, Ilmarinen's Sampo is a three-sided magic device, which provides properity to the people. "And then the new Sampo ground / and the bright-lid rocked; / ground a binful at twilight – / one binful to eat / another it ground to sell / and a third to store at home." The Sampo has been interpreted in many ways: a world pillar or world tree, a chest containing a treasure, or a mint stolen by Vikings from Byzantium as the poet Paavo Haavikko has suggested. Haavikko's scenario for Rauta-aika (The Age of Iron), a four-part television film (1982), was loosely based on the Kalevala. A modern word that could be used to define the Sampo is "hilavitkutin".

After its appearance, the Kalevala quickly attracted attention abroad, and scholars first studied it as genuine folk poetry. In his lecture in 1845 German philologist Jakob Grimm considered that the oldest layer of material in the epic was mythical, while the heroic poetry represented a later development. Such characters as Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen, had also much similarities with many other mythological gods. In an  attempt to kill the Swan of Tuonela, Lemminkäinen is drowned in the river of Tuonela, but his mother restores him to life. A belief in resurrection links him with the ancient Egyptian myth of Osiris, which evolved long before the Christian era.

The Kalevala's hypnotic metre, basically a trochaic tetrameter, inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha (1855). Longfellow was a polyglot but he never learned enough Finnish to read the epic in the original language. He worked from several translations, of which the most important were the German and Swedish translations of the Kalevala. "I have tried to do for our old Indian legends what the unknown Finnish poets had done for theirs," Longfellow said, "and in doing this I have employed the same meter, but of course have not adopted any of their legends."

W.B. Yeats thought that the Kalevala was an especially good source for the ancient world view, and C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien both drew from it in their own works. The heroes of Kalevala and their stories have also connections to the Arthurian legends. Legends of the origins of bears and tales of bear hunts show a close connection between humans and bears; there are also numerous refernces to bears in Shakespeare's plays.

Tolkien discovered the Kalevala through W.F. Kirby's English translation in 1911. He tried to turn one of its stories into a short story, but never finished it. However, this piece became the original germ of the Silmarillion (1977), in which it was eventually developed into the story of Túrin Turambar. Tolkien never visited Finland and he didn't have any Finnish friends. But he wrote knowingly in a manuscript draft in 1914-1915 that Finns have always been fond of ballads and they have been handed on and sung day after day from father to son and son to grandson down to the present day.

The question of whether the heroes of the epic should be seen as gods or historical figures was taken up again in 1950 by professor Martti Haavio in his study Väinämöinen. He saw that because the Kalevala combines primitive beliefs and international myths and legens, it is impossible to give an absolute answer.

Since its publication the Kalevala has been translated into some 45 languages and inspired many Finnish artists, the most prominent among them the painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela and the composer Jean Sibelius, althougth the majority of Sibelius's work is without specific literary refence. Among the Finnish poets Eino Leino is considered the most distinguished inheritor of the Kalevala. Five separate translations have been published in English – three in the United States, two in Great Britain. L. Sprague De Camp and Fletcher Pratt took their Incomplete Enchanter sequence to the Kalevala world in Wall of Serpents (1960). Emil Petaja (1915-2000) wrote a series of science fiction books inspired by the epic, such as Saga of Lost Earths (1966), The Star Mill (1966), The Stolen Sun (1967), Tramontane (1967), and The Time Twister (1968). Michael Scott Rohan's The Winter of the World makes Louhi one of the chief powers behind the threatening ice age. Ian Watson's The Book of Mana offers a science-fantasy reworking of numerous Kalevala strands.

For further reading: Sampo by Juha Hurme (2024); Tolkien ja Kalevala by Jyrki Korpua (2022); 'Heirs of Lönnrot: From Longfellow to Tolkien' by Tom Shippey, in Northern Myths, Modern Identities: the Nationalisation of Northern Mythologies since 1800, edited by Simon Halink (2019); Kalevalan maailma by Juha Pentikäinen (2019); Kalevalan naiset ja tiedon yöpuoli: Lönnrotin jalanjäljissä kohti Kalevalan naisten tarinoita by Tiina Piilola (2017); A Study Guide for Elias Lönnrot's "Kalevala" (Epics for Students) (2011); Nature in the Kalevala: Nature and Wildlife in Finnish Folklore by Hannu Hautala,  Reijo Heikkinen (2012); Mythic Images and Shamanism: A Perspective on Kalevala Poetry by Anna-Leena Siikala (2002); The Kalevala and the World's Traditional Epics, edited by Lauri Honko (2002); A History of Finland's Literature, ed. by George C. Schoolfield (1998); Finland: A Cultural Encyclopedia, ed. by Olli Alho (1997); Finland: a cultural outline by Veikko Kallio (1994); The Uses of Tradition, ed. by Michael Branch and Celia Hawkesworth (1994); Religion, Myth, and Folklore in the World's Epics, ed. by Lauri Honko (1990); Kalevala Mythology by Juha Y. Pentikäinen (1989); The Kalevala: An Epic Poem After Oral Tradition by Elias Lönnrot, transl. by Keith Bosley, foreword by Albert B. Lord (1989); Studies in Finnish Folklore by Felix J. Oinas (1985); Finnish Folk Poetry, ed. by Matti Kuusi et al. (1977); Folklore and Nationalism in Modern Finland by William A. Wilson (1976); Epic of the North by John I. Kolehmainen (1973); Väinämöinen, Eternal Sage by Martti Haavio (1952); Sammon arvoitus by E.N. Setälä (1932); Kalevala, the Land of (the) Heroes, transl. by W.F. Kirby (1907) - See also Otto Ville Kuusinen underlined that Kalevala was born in Russian Carelia, not in the Western Finland. 

Editions:

  • Kalewala, taikka wanhoja Karjalan runoja Suomen kansan muinosista ajoista, 1-2, 1835 (enlarged edition in 1849)
  • Kalevala, 1849
    - The Kalevala (translated by John Martin Crawford, 1888) / Kalevala: The Land of the Heroes (translated by W. F. Kirby, 1907) / Kalevala or Poems of the Kaleva District (a prose translation with foreword and appendices by Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr., 1963) / Old Kalevala and Certain Antecedents (prose translation with foreword and appendice by Francis Peabody Magoun, jr., 1969) / Kalevala: An Epic Poem after Oral Tradition (translated from the Finnish with an introduction and notes by Keith Bosley and a foreword by Albert B. Lord, 1989) / The Kalevala: Epic of the Finnish People (translated by Eino Friberg, 1989)
  • Kalevala: lyhennetty laitos, 1862 (tärkeämmillä selityksillä koulujen tarpeeksi varustanut E. Lönnrot)
Illustrated editions:
  • Kalevala: Suomen urostarina = Finnsche National-Epos = Finsk national-dikt = Epopée finnois. 3. häftet / kuvittanut = in Zeichnungen vorgestellt von = framställd i teckningar af = illustrée par R. W. Ekman, 1860
  • Kalevala, 1922 (illustrated by Akseli Gallen-Kallela)
  • Kalevala, 1938 (illustrated by Matti Visanti)
  • Kuva-Kalevala, 1952-53 (illustrated by Aarno Karimo)
  • Kalevala, 1956 (illustrated by A. Stronk)
  • Kalevala, 1985 (illustrated by Björn Landström)
  • Kalevala, 1998 (illustrated by Jukka Salminen)
  • Kalevala, 1999 (illustrated by Hannu Väisänen)


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