February 28 in Finland: commemoration of the first edition of Kalevala (February 28, 1835)
The triptych Aino which illustrates the first songs of the Kalevala
(Gallen-Kallela , The Aino triptych , 1891)
Small visit to Finland, "big brother" Estonia the time of this post. The Baltic Sea separates the two countries so close by distance (80 kilometers), but also by language, in fact, the Finnish and Estonian are among the Finno-Ugric languages and thus have the same roots.
February 28 is commemorated annually in Finland equal to the national holiday - Itsenäisyyspäivä - which commemorates the country's independence, the December 6, 1917 . On 28 February, we celebrate the day Kalevala to commemorate the first edition of this book. The Kalevala (the "Foodland heroes") is a long poem divided into fifty to 22,795 songs, composed by Elias Lönnrot the mid-nineteenth century from Finnish folk songs for all ages and all genres. February 28, 1835, Elias Lönnrot, a country doctor in Finland 33 years, published a collection of 32 songs inspired by the traditional tales of Karelia, as the
Kalevala (the Land of Heroes
).
Unusually in the history, the 32 songs of the Kalevala became the basis legendary Finnish culture. Two major Finnish artists, the painter Akseli Callen-Kallela (1865-1931) and the composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), have drawn much of their inspiration.
" Here a desire seized me
The idea came to me in mind
From start to recite
modulate words sacred
to sing the song of family
Old stories of our race ... "
"February 28, 1835: Elias Lönnrot publishes first Kalevala Karelian or the old songs of the Finnish people of yesteryear. This February 28, 1835, Elias Lönnrot hoisted the people Suomi beyond its territories and its memory even up to all mankind: the sum that publishes poetry, he has harvested from men who speak their language, obscure village bards, the mourners, sorcerers that at the dawn of the nineteenth century, he went to listen with his colleagues, between lakes and forests. Figured in the limbo of human thought, sung for pleasure and need, including a people and necessary to its essence, these songs did not like them - and the epic that is born has no equivalent in human heritage [...]"
in 1928 that Elias Lönnrot had the idea to compile the legends of ancient Finland. He traveled
Finland and Karelia during the next seven years, visiting even the smallest villages. Then he compared and adapted these stories into a heroic epic which he called the Kalevala
. This collection has expanded to encompass nearly 23,000 verses in 1849.
In reality, the Kalevala
originates in part in ancient mythology and partly in the imagination of Elias Lönnrot itself. In his eagerness to want to write an epic comparable to Homer's Iliad, Lönnrot wrote entirely new poems from fragments of information he gathered during his travels. The Kalevala
tells a quarrel between two peoples:
Kaleva from Southern Finland and Pohjola
from northern Finland and Lapland. The Kalevala
has not only been translated into over 45 languages, but he probably also formed the basis of JRR Tolkien. For example, the story of Kullervo
has been widely used in the Silmarillion including the sword that speaks when anti-hero uses it to commit suicide.
It was translated into French by Jean Louis Perret in 1927. The prose translation that was used in general in these records is that of L. Léouzon The Duke (1867)
.
To read the story (the fifty songs) of the Kalevala in its entirety, click here
Forging of the Sampo.
Fresco National Museum of Finland painted by Akseli Gallen-Kallela in 1928
Defending sampo (Gallen-Kallela, 1896)
Kullervo swears revenge on the wife of Ilmarinen
(Gallen-Kallela, The curse of Kullervo , 1899)
Lönnrot Elias, the man to whom we owe the
Kalevala, was a veritable fount of knowledge: it was explorer, physician, poet and linguist.
What prompted him to write
the Kalevala is the design, he shared with the German scholar JG Herder (1744-1803) that a nation can exist without a well defined cultural identity. The Grand Duchy of Finland had been annexed by Russia in 1809 and did not become independent until the Russian Revolution in 1917.
his lifetime Lönnrot became famous thanks to
Kalevala but also in its dictionaries and newspapers he ran. Today he is considered one of the fathers of Finnish writing. The small country house
Paikkari where he was born is ownership of the Finnish National Board of Antiquities. She is now a museum and is located in the town of Sammatti about 75 km west of Helsinki.
Paikkari Cottage, birthplace of Elias Lönnrot
Elias Lönnrot
