Lönnrot, Elias

(1802-1884)

   A Finnish folklore collector and philologist, Lönnrot created the Kalevala, a history of the ancient Finns based on epic poems of Finnish folklore.Lonnrot's work may be understood both as an outgrowth of the nation-building movement in 19th-century Finland and as a manifestation of national romanticism.Lonnrot's family made many sacrifices to allow him to get an education, and he eventually received a medical degree; his thesis was written about Finnish folk medicine. While serving as a medical officer in Karelia, Lonnrot made a number of trips in order to collect the traditional songs of people there as well as in neighboring areas. He also studied the relationships between various Finnic languages, including Finnish, Ingrian, Karelian, and Estonian.

   Lonnrot did not discover the existence of Finnish oral folk poetry, but he studied materials that had already been collected and collected additional songs himself. Of the main divisions of such poetry—the lyric, magic, and epic songs—he focused on the epic poems as he set out to create a coherent poetic history of the ancient Finns. His purpose was to prove that the Finns had a national poetic heritage every bit as good as that of their neighbors, and even one that in beauty and heroism could rival that of the ancient Greeks.

   The Kalevala was published in two versions, the old Kalevala (1835) and the new Kalevala (1849), which is almost twice as long as the first version. Lonnrot used mostly traditional songs, but he arranged them in a sequence of his own making and occasionally composed segments himself. The epic begins with the creation of the world and the peopling of the land of Kaleva and then tells about the exploits of such heroes as Vainamoinen, Ilmarinen, and Lemminkainen, as well as the tragic figures Kullervo and Aino. The story is organized in quests of various kinds, but particularly for brides, and features such magical objects as the sampo, made by the people of the land of Kaleva as a bride prize. The story ends with the departure of the ancient heroes and the coming of Christianity. Lonnrot also published a companion compilation of lyric poetry, the Kanteletar (1840-1841).