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Revision as of 12:12, 25 May 2006

The Kalevala is an epic poem which Elias Lönnrot compiled from Finnish folk lore in the 19th century. It is commonly called the Finnish national epic and is traditionally thought of as one of the most significant works of Finnish-language literature. The Kalevala is credited with some of the inspiration for the national awakening that ultimately led to Finland's independence from Russia in 1917.

The name can be interpreted as the "lands of Kaleva" (by the Finnish suffix -la/lä for place). The epic consists of 22,795 verses, divided into fifty cantos or "chapters".

Kalevala. The national epic of Finland John Martin Crawford, 1888


Complilation

Main article: Elias Lönnrot

Elias Lönnrot (1802-84) was a scholar and a district health officer in Kainuu, an eastern region of the then-autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. The son of a tailor in the village of Sammatti, he entered the University in Turku (the successor of which is the University of Helsinki) in 1822 and started his poem collection journeys in 1827. He made a total of eleven field trips during a period of fifteen years.

The poetry

Finnish folk poetry was first written down in the 1670s, followed by a few collectors during the next centuries. In the 19th century, collecting became more extensive and systematic. Altogether, almost two million verses were collected during this time. Of these, about 1,250,000 have been published and some 500,000 remain unpublished in the archives of the Finnish Literature Society and the collections in Estonia and the Republic of Karelia and other parts of Russia. By the end of the 19th century this pastime and the cumulating cultural orientation towards eastern lands had become a fashion called Karelianism.

Lönnrot and his contemporaries (e.g. A.J. Sjögren and D.E.D. Europaeus) collected most of the poem variants (one poem might have up to two hundred variants) scattered across the regions of Karelia and Ingria amongst the rural people. They carefully noted the name of the poem singer, his or her age, the place of performance and the date in their records. During his fourth field trip in September 1833 Lönnrot got the idea that the poems might represent a wider continuity when poem entities were performed to him along with comments in normal speech connecting them.

The poetry was usually sung to tunes built on a pentachord, sometimes assisted by the kantele (a kind of five-string zither). The rhythm could vary but the tunes were arranged in either two or four lines consisting of five beats each. Sometimes the poems were performed antiphonally, sometimes they were a part of a "singing-match" between knowers of the tradition. Despite the vast geographical distances and cultural spheres separating the individual singers, the poetry was always sung in the same metre, the so-called archaic trochaic tetrametre. Its other formal features are alliteration and parallelism and inversion into chiasmus.

The chronology of this oral tradition is uncertain. The seemingly oldest themes (the beginning of the world) have been interpreted to have their roots in distant pre-history while the seemingly latest events (e.g. the arrival of Christianity) seem to be from the Iron Age.

Of the tens of poem singers who contributed to the Kalevala, significant ones include:

  • Arhippa Perttunen (1769-1840)
  • Matro
  • Ontrei Malinen (1780-1855)
  • Vaassila Kieleväinen
  • Soava Trohkimainen

Lönnrot’s contribution to Kalevala

Lönnrot arranged the collected poems into a coherent whole. In this process he merged poem variants and characters together and left out verses that did not fit in or composed lines of his own in order to connect certain passages into a logical plot. He even invented a few names which could be used for a character throughout the whole story. It has been estimated that the Kalevala comprises: one third of word for word recordings by the collectors, 50% of material that Lönnrot adjusted slightly, 14% of verses he wrote himself based on poem variants and 3% of verses purely of his own invention.

Publishing

The first version of Lönnrot's compilation, Kalewala, taikka Wanhoja Karjalan Runoja Suomen kansan muinoisista ajoista (The Kalevala, or old Karelian poems about ancient times of the Finnish people), also known as simply the "old Kalevala", came out in two volumes in 1835-1836. (Lönnrot signed the preface on February 28, 1835.) The old Kalevala consisted of 12,078 verses or thirty-two poems.

Lönnrot continued to collect new material, which he integrated into a second edition, Kalevala (the Kalevala), published in 1849. This "new Kalevala" contains fifty poems, and is the standard text of the Kalevala read today.

Of the five translations into English, Keith Bosley's translation from 1998 is often recognised as the leading version. So far the Kalevala has been translated into forty-eight languages, including e.g. Fulfulde.

A notable partial translation of the German version (by Franz Anton Schiefner published in 1852) was made by Prof. John Addison Porter in 1868 and published by Leypoldt & Holt. An article on this version is available here.

Translations

In chronological order by language.

Language Year Translator Remark
Swedish 1841 M. A. Castrén old Kalevala (original of 1835)
1864-1868 Karl Collan new Kalevala (original of 1849)
1884 Rafaël Hertzberg free translation
1944 Olaf Homén abridged Swedish edition
1948 Björn Collinder entire Kalevala
1999 Lars Huldén och Mats Huldén entire Kalevala
French 1845 and 1867 Louis Léouzon le Duc
1927 Jean Louis Perret
1991 Gabriel Rebourcet entire Kalevala translated using old french vocabulary
German 1852 Franz Anton Schiefner
1885-1886 H. Paul
1967 Lore Fromm, Hans Fromm
English 1868 John Addison Porter Partial translation, via. Franz Anton Schiefner's version
1888 John Martin Crawford Full translation, via. Franz Anton Schiefner's version
1907 William Forsell Kirby First translation directly from Finnish
1963 Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr. prose translation
1989 Eino Friberg editing and introduction by George C. Schoolfield
1998 Keith Bosley
Hungarian 1871 F. Barna
1909 B. Vikar
Russian 1889 Leonid Petrovic Belsky
Estonian 1891-1898 M. J. Eisen
Czech 1894-1895 J. Holecek
Ukrainian 1901 E. Timcenko
Danish 1907 Ferdinand Ohrt selected parts
1994 Hilkka and Bent Søndergaard
Italian 1909 I. Cocchi
1910 Paolo Emilio Pavolini
Japanese 1937 Kakutan Morimoto
1976 Tamotsu Koizumi
Hebrew 1954 Saul Tschernichovsky
Romanian 1959 Iulian Vesper
Chinese 1962 Shih Hêng
1985 Sun Yong
Esperanto 1964 Johan Edvard Leppäkoski
Turkish 1965 Hilmi Ziya Ülken
1982 Lale and Muammar Obuz
Norwegian 1967 Albert Lange Fliflet "i attdiktning ved" (nynorsk)
Fulani 1983 Alpha A. Diallo
Dutch 1985 Maria Mies le Nobel
Tulu 1985 Amrith Someshwar
Latin 1986 Tuomo Pekkanen
Vietnamese 1986 Cao Xuân Nghiêp
1991 Hoàng Thái Anh
1994 Búi Viêt Hòa's
Hindi 1990 Vishnu Khare
Arabic 1991 Sahban Ahmad Mroueh
Slovenian 1991 Jelka Ovaska Novak Partial translation
1997 Jelka Ovaska Novak Full text translation
Swahili 1991 Jan Knappert
Bulgarian 1992 Nino Nikolov
Greek 1992 Maria Martzouk
Faroese 1993 Jóhannes av Skarði
Tamil 1994 R. Sivalingam (Uthayanan)
Catalan 1997 Ramon Garriga-Marguès, Pirkko-Merja Lounavaara
Spanish 1997 Ramon Garriga-Marguès, Pirkko-Merja Lounavaara

The Storyline

"Aino-Taru" (The Aino Story) by Akseli Gallen-Kallela 1891

Cantos 1 – 10: The first Väinämöinen cycle; Creation of the world; the first man; Väinämöinen’s and Joukahainen’s encounter; Joukahainen promises his sister’s hand to Väinämöinen in exchange for his life; Aino (Joukahainen’s sister) walks into the sea; Joukahainen’s revenge; the wounded Väinämöinen floats into Pohjola (Northland); Väinämöinen encounters the Maid of the North and promises the Mistress of the North the Sampo in exchange for her daughter; Väinämöinen forces the smith Ilmarinen into Pohjola where he forges the Sampo.

Cantos 11 – 15: The first Lemminkäinen cycle; Lemminkäinen steals the maid Kyllikki of the Island; she forgets her vow; Lemminkäinen travels to Pohjola to propose to the Maid of the North; deeds Lemminkäinen must accomplish: ski for the Demon’s elk, bridle the Demon’s horse and shoot the Swan of Tuonela (the land of the dead); a herdsman kills Lemminkäinen and throws his body into the River of Tuonela; Lemminkäinen’s mother awakens him into life.

Cantos 16 – 25: The second Väinämöinen cycle: Väinämöinen' travels to Tuonela and to meet Antero Vipunen in order to get spells for boat building and sails to Pohjola; Ilmarinen and Väinämöinen compete for the hand of the Maid of the North; Ilmarinen accomplishes the needed deeds with the help of the Maid: ploughing the viper-field, quelling of the wolves of Tuonela and catching the pike out of the River of Tuonela; the wedding of Ilmarinen and the Maid of the North.

Cantos 26 - 30: The second Lemminkäinen cycle; Lemminkäinen is resentful for not having been invited to the wedding; he travels to Pohjola and wins the duel with the Master of Northland; an army is conjured to get back at Lemminkäinen; at his mother’s advice he flees to the Island; returning home he sees that his house is burned down; he goes to Pohjola with his companion Tiera to get revenge but the Mistress of the North freezes the seas and Lemminkäinen has to return home.

"Sammon puolustus" (The defence of the Sampo) by Akseli Gallen-Kallela 1895

Cantos 31 – 36: The Kullervo cycle; Untamo kills his brother Kalervo’s people except for the wife who begets Kullervo; Kullervo is sold as a slave to Ilmarinen; after being tormented by Ilmarinen’s wife, he exacts revenge and the wife gets killed; Kullervo runs away and finds his family unharmed near Lapland; Kullervo seduces a maiden and later finds out she is his sister; Kullervo destroys Untamola (the realm of Untamo) and upon returning home finds everyone killed; Kullervo kills himself.

Cantos 37 – 38: The Ilmarinen cycle; Ilmarinen forges himself a wife out of gold and silver but finds her to be cold and destroys her; Ilmarinen then robs the sister of the Maid of the North from Pohjola and tells Väinämöinen of the carefree life of Pohjola because of the Sampo.

Cantos 39 – 49: The plunder of the Sampo (third Väinämöinen cycle); Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen sail to get the Sampo; they kill a great pike out of whose jaw bone the first kantele is made; Väinämöinen lulls everyone in the hall of Pohjola to sleep with his singing and the Sampo is stolen; the Mistress of the Northland conjures a great army, turns herself into an eagle and fights for the Sampo; the Sampo falls into the sea; the Mistress of the North sends the people of Kaleva diseases and a bear to kill their cattle; she hides the sun and the moon and steals fire from Kaleva; Väinämöinen and Ilmarinen restore fire and Väinämöinen forces the Mistress to return the Sun and the Moon to the skies.

Canto 50: The Marjatta cycle; Marjatta gets impregnated from a berry and begets a son; Väinämöinen orders the killing of the boy; the boy starts to speak and reproaches Väinämöinen for ill judgement; he is then baptized king of Karelia; Väinämöinen sails away.

Characters

The main character of the Kalevala is Väinämöinen, a shamanistic hero with the magical power of songs and music. He is born of the primal Maiden of the Air and contributes to the creation of the world. Many of his travels resemble shamanistic journeys, especially the one where he visits the belly of a ground-giant, Antero Vipunen, to find the words of boat generation. He plays the kantele, a Finnish stringed instrument that is played like a zither. One of his kanteles is made of the jawbone of a giant pike. His search for a wife is a central element in many stories; he never finds one, though. For example one of the brides, Joukahainen's sister Aino, drowns herself instead of marrying him. He is also part of the group who steals the Sampo, a magical mill, from the people of the north.

Other characters, some of whom have their own chapters, are Seppo Ilmarinen, a heroic artificer-smith (comparable to the Germanic Weyland) who crafted the sky dome, the Sampo and more; Louhi the Hag of the North, a shamanistic matriarch of a people rivaling those of Kalevala who at one stage pulls the sun and the moon from the sky; Väinämöinen's young rival, Joukahainen, who promises his sister Aino to him when he loses a singing contest; vengeful, self-destructive Kullervo who is born as a slave, goes into berserk rage and commits suicide; and handsome but arrogant Lemminkäinen, whose mother has to rescue his corpse from the river of Death which runs through Tuonela, and bring him to life, echoing the myth of Osiris.

Some of the chapters describe ancient creation myths, a long wedding ceremony, and the right words for magical spells of healing and craftsmanship.

Contents

  1. Birth of Väinämöinen.
  2. Väinämöinen's Sowing.
  3. Väinämöinen and Joukahainen.
  4. The Fate of Aino.
  5. Väinämöinen's Lamentation.
  6. Väinämöinen's Hapless Journey.
  7. Väinämöinen's Rescue.
  8. Maiden of the Rainbow.
  9. Origin of Iron.
  10. Ilmarinen Forges the Sampo.
  11. Lemminkäinen's Lament.
  12. Kyllikki's Broken Vow.
  13. Lemminkäinen's Second Wooing.
  14. Death of Lemminkäinen.
  15. Lemminkäinen's Restoration.
  16. Väinämöinen's Boat-building.
  17. Väinämöinen Finds the Lost-word.
  18. The Rival Suitors.
  19. Ilmarinen's Wooing.
  20. The Brewing of Beer.
  21. Ilmarinen's Wedding-feast.
  22. The Bride's Farewell.
  23. Osmotar the Bride-adviser
  24. The Bride's Farewell.
  25. Väinämöinen's Wedding-songs.
  26. Origin of the Serpent.
  27. The Unwelcome Guest.
  28. The Mother's Counsel
  29. The Isle of Refuge.
  30. The Frost-fiend.
  31. Kullervoinen Son of Evil.
  32. Kullervo As A Sheperd.
  33. Kullervo and the Cheat-cake.
  34. Kullervo Finds His Tribe-folk.
  35. Kullervo's Evil Deeds.
  36. Kullervoinen's Victory and Death.
  37. Ilmarinen's Bride of Gold.
  38. Ilmarinen's Fruitless Wooing.
  39. Väinämöinen's Sailing.
  40. Birth of the Kantele.
  41. Väinämöinen's Kantele-songs.
  42. Capture of the Sampo.
  43. The Sampo Lost In the Sea.
  44. Birth of the Second Harp.
  45. Birth of the Nine Diseases
  46. Otso the Honey-eater, telling of a bear hunt.
  47. Louhi Steals Sun, Moon, and Fire.
  48. Capture of the Fire-fish.
  49. Restoration of the Sun and Moon.
  50. Marjatta; Väinämöinen's Departure.

Influence of the Kalevala

The Kalevala Day is celebrated in Finland on the 28th of February, which is how Lönnrot dated his first version of Kalevala in 1835.

The effect of the Kalevala upon later art in Finland has been tremendous, inspiring composer Jean Sibelius, modern poet Paavo Haavikko, painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela, and many others.

Besides the local Estonian legends, Kalevala was a major source of inspiration for, and shares several analogous characters with, the Estonian national epic Kalevipoeg (compiled and written by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald, first version completed 1853).

There are several English translations of the Kalevala. The older translations e.g. by John Martin Crawford (1888) and W.F. Kirby (1907), as well as the Eino Friberg translation (1988), follow the original rhythm (Kalevala meter) of the poems (which may sound cumbersome to English ears). Poet Keith Bosley has written another version (1989) in a more fluid linguistic style.

There was a Finnish progressive rock band called Kalevala in the seventies. They made three albums, that are not available as CDs yet.

Finnish rock band Amorphis based several concept albums on the Kalevala using the original translation as lyrics.

J.R.R. Tolkien claimed the Kalevala as one of his sources for the writings which became the Silmarillion. For example, the story of Kullervo has been extensively used in the Silmarillion (including the sword that speaks when the anti-hero uses it for a suicide) as the basis of Túrin Turambar in Narn i Chîn Húrin. Echoes of Kalevalan characters, Väinämöinen in particular, can also be found in the wizards of The Lord of the Rings. The epic was an inspiration for Longfellow's 1855 poem, The Song of Hiawatha, which is written in the same metre (trochaic tetrameter), and also inspired the British science fiction writer Ian Watson to write the Books of Mana duology: Lucky's Harvest and The Fallen Moon.

The Finnish cartoonist Mauri Kunnas drew a children's cartoon version of the Kalevala, called Koirien Kalevala (The Canine Kalevala). This, in turn, inspired the American cartoonist Keno Don Rosa (who enjoys widespread popularity in Finland) to draw a Donald Duck story based on Kalevala, called The Quest for Kalevala.

In 2003, the Finnish Progressive Rock ("Prog") quarterly Colossus and Musea Records convinced 30 prog groups from all over the world to compose musical pieces based on assigned parts of the Kalevala. The result was a three-disc, multilingual, four-hour epic of the same name, and is doubtless one of the most ambitious musical projects ever.

Historic interpretations of Kalevala

Several interpretations for the themes in Kalevala have been put forward. Some parts of the epic have been perceived as ancient conflicts between Finnics and Samis. In this context, the country of Kalevala could be understood as Southern Finland and Pohjola as Lapland. However, the place names in Kalevala seem to transfer the Kalevala further south, which has been interpreted as support for theories of a Finnic migration from the South that came to push the Samis further to the north. Some scholars locate the lands of Kalevala to East Karelia, where most of the Kalevala stories were written down. In 1961 a small town of Uhtua in the Soviet Republic of Karelia, was renamed "Kalevala", perhaps to promote that theory.

Proponents of a Southern Kalevala argue that the name Kaleva probably was first recorded in an atlas of al Idrisi in the year 1154, where a town of qlwny (or tlwny) is recorded. This is probably present-day Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, known in old East Slavic sources as Kolyvan. The Finnish word Kalevan ("of Kaleva") has almost the same meaning as Kalevala. The Saari (literally "the island") might be the island of Saaremaa in Estonia, while the people of Väinölä might have some resemblance with the Livonian tribe of Veinalensis in present-day Latvia, mentioned in the 13th century chronicle connected to Henry of Livonia. Ancient Finns, Estonians and Livonians spoke similar Finnic dialects and are thought to share common ancestry.

See also

References

  • Bosley, Keith. Oxford World’s Classics: The Kalevala. Introduction. Oxford University Press 1999. ISBN 0-19-283570-X

Sample

  • Download recording - "Vaka vanha Väinämöinen" Finnish poetry from the Kalevala from the Library of Congress' California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties Collection; performed by John Soininen on November 5, 1939 in Berkeley, California

Articles and Papers

Books

Movies

Online versions of the Kalevala

Online versions of the Kalevala in other languages

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