Kalevala. The Finnish national epic by Elias Lönnrot. First edition, 1835.
Author
Elias Lönnrot
Original title
Kalevala (or Kalewala, first edition, 1835)
Translator
John Addison Porter
John Martin Crawford
William Forsell Kirby
Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr.
Eino Friberg
Keith Bosley
Country
Grand Duchy of Finland
Language
Finnish
Genre
Epic poetry
National epic
Publisher
J. C. Frenckell ja Poika, among others
Publication date
1835: Old Kalevala
1849: New Kalevala
Published in English
1888
1907
1963
1989
Pages
Old Kalevala: vol 1, 208pp; vol 2, 334pp
New Kalevala: ~500pp
Dewey Decimal
894.5411
LC Class
PH324 .E5
Original text
Kalevala (or Kalewala, first edition, 1835) at Finnish Wikisource
Translation
Kalevala at Wikisource
The Kalevala (IPA:[ˈkɑleʋɑlɑ]) is a 19th-century compilation of epic poetry, compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology,[1] telling an epic story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and retaliatory voyages between the peoples of the land of Kalevala called Väinölä and the land of Pohjola and their various protagonists and antagonists, as well as the construction and robbery of the epic mythical wealth-making machine Sampo.[2]
The Kalevala is regarded as the national epic of Karelia and Finland[Note 1] and is one of the most significant works of Finnish literature with J. L. Runeberg's The Tales of Ensign Stål and Aleksis Kivi's The Seven Brothers.[4][5][6] The Kalevala was instrumental in the development of the Finnish national identity and the intensification of Finland's language strife that ultimately led to Finland's independence from Russia in 1917.[7][8] The work is known internationally and has partly influenced, for example, J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium (i.e. Middle-earth mythology).[9][10]
The first version of the Kalevala, called the Old Kalevala, was published in 1835, consisting of 12,078 verses. The version most commonly known today was first published in 1849 and consists of 22,795 verses, divided into fifty folk stories (Finnish: runot).[11] An abridged version, containing all fifty poems but just 9732 verses, was published in 1862.[12] In connection with the Kalevala, there is another much more lyrical collection of poems, also compiled by Lönnrot, called Kanteletar from 1840, which is mostly seen as a "sister collection" of the Kalevala.[13]
^Asplund, Anneli; Sirkka-Liisa Mettom (October 2000). "Kalevala: the Finnish national epic". Archived from the original on 23 November 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
^Kalevala, the national epic of Finland – Finnwards
^Tolkien, J.R.R. (2015). "On 'The Kalevala' or Land of Heroes". In Flieger, Verlyn (ed.). The Story of Kullervo (1st US ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-544-70626-2.
^Kansalliskirjailija on kansakunnan peili (in Finnish)
^Tosi ja taru Vänrikki Stoolin tarinoissa (in Finnish)
^Suomalaiset klassikkokirjat – Oletko lukenut näitä 10 kirjaa? (in Finnish)
^Vento, Urpo. "The Role of The Kalevala" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 17 August 2010.
^William A. Wilson (1975) "The Kalevala and Finnish Politics" Journal of the Folklore Institute 12(2/3): pp. 131–55
^Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (1981). The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-31555-7.
^Sander, Hannah (27 August 2015). "Kullervo: Tolkien's fascination with Finland". BBC News. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
^Kalevala Society. "Kalevala, the national epic". Archived from the original on 23 March 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
^"The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kalevala (1862)". www.gutenberg.org. Retrieved 6 December 2020.[permanent dead link]
^Bosley, Keith (March 2000). "Finland's Other Epic: The Kanteletar". thisisFINLAND. Retrieved 5 November 2021.
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The Kalevala (IPA: [ˈkɑleʋɑlɑ]) is a 19th-century compilation of epic poetry, compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology...
both the Finnish language, which he especially liked, and the epic poem Kalevala, a 19th century compilation of Finnish mythology by Elias Lönnrot, which...
trochaic tetrameter that has been called the Kalevala meter. The Finnish and Estonian national epics, Kalevala and Kalevipoeg, are both written in this meter...
of the two main polarities in the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, along with Kalevala or Väinölä. C. Ganander (1789), characterised Pohjola as 'the...
p. 316. ISBN 1566195705. Bonser, Wilfrid (1928). "The Mythology of the Kalevala, with Notes on Bear-Worship among the Finns". Folklore. 39 (4): 344–358...
sea. The Sampo is a pivotal element of the plot of the Finnish epic poem Kalevala, compiled in 1835 (and expanded in 1849) by Elias Lönnrot based on Finnish...
Kalevala Day (Finnish: Kalevalan päivä), known as Finnish Culture Day by its other official name, is celebrated each 28 February in honor of the Finnish...
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This is a summary of the cantos of the Kalevala. The Kalevala is considered the national epic of Finland. It was compiled and edited from the songs of...
Runic song, also referred to as Rune song, Runo song, or Kalevala song, is a form of oral poetry and national epic historically practiced among the Baltic...
origins of many natural phenomena. From this material Lönnrot edited the Kalevala as well as the Kanteletar. The wealth of folk poetry collected in the 19th...
A list of translations of the Finnish national epic Kalevala in chronological order by language. The epic has appeared in 61 translated languages. Based...
(Finnish pronunciation: [ˈkulːerʋo]) is an ill-fated character in the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic compiled by Elias Lönnrot. Growing up in the...
The Kalevala House (Finnish: Kalevalatalo) was a planned huge building designed by Eliel Saarinen for the Kalevala Society [fi] in Helsinki, Finland in...
but Ahto is used in the Finnish epic Kalevala as to avoid confusion with Ahti Saarelainen, the hero. In the Kalevala the compiler Elias Lönnrot conflated...
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Virgil's Aeneid, the Old English Beowulf, Dante's Divine Comedy, the Finnish Kalevala, the German Nibelungenlied, the French Song of Roland, the Spanish Cantar...
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