Kalevala is a name that means a lot to the inhabitants of the Karelian-Finnish lands. Under this name you can find a village, cinemas, hotels, streets, not only in Finland, but also in Russia. This name is so great that it is almost the main national treasure in Finnish culture and literature, which has no analogues in the world. Just what does it mean?

"Kalevala" is a literary epic, described in 50 runes, in poetic form. This work It is best known in the Scandinavian lands, now Finland and part of the Republic of Karelia. This work consists of several storylines, which are connected to each other, perhaps only by a temporary period. The stories described in it tell how heaven and earth were created, as well as several heroic deeds of the main mythological characters. This epic is performed in the traditional Finnish genre.

In essence, Kalevala is folk collection ancient tales and myths about a fictitious state. The fact is that the creator of the collection, whose name is Elias, said that the name “Kalevala” was given to the country where all the events take place. But what is noteworthy is that it very accurately describes all the actions, however, any information about the local people, politics, political system and other historical important points. But it’s worth pointing out right away that this is not a fairy tale, where only exploits should be described, it’s historical work, which is intended to explain the essence of Finnish-Karelian culture, many rituals and the vision of the idea of ​​​​the creation of the world.

The history of the creation of the Karelian-Finnish epic

The history of creation is as interesting as the contents of the collection. Elias Lönnrot, a doctor and linguist who studied the culture of ancient peoples, began writing Kalevala. He had to do a lot of work and painstaking work over the collection, because he had to search all over Finland and Karelia in order to collect all 50 runes and dozens more holiday rituals, songs, spells, and so on. The main difficulty was finding the carriers of this knowledge, because not everyone was aware of folk literary culture, and most of the songs were generally considered lost forever.

So, it took Alice quite a bit over 20 years to search and process all the material. He had to translate ancient writings and restore manuscripts that time had not spared. And only in 1835, on February 28, the Karelian Finnish epic“Kalevala”, however, immediately after its release, the author stated that the collection was not complete and he would soon release the second part. Of course, it’s difficult to call the release a speedy one, but in 1849 the world saw the second complete collection, which is still available today. After release, many countries began to translate into their languages, Russia was no exception, and the fully translated epic was provided by L.P. Belsky in 1888. The translation was published in the pages of the Pantheon of Literature magazine, and a year later its own publication appeared.

Heroes of Kalevala

“Kalevala” is very rich in serious and colorful characters who often appear throughout all the runes. Most of them never even intersect, but each makes its own fateful contribution to the creation of the world and heaven. The action of all runes takes place on the territory of two states, namely Pohjola and Kalevala. For ease of understanding, it is worth dividing all the characters into main and secondary ones. Here is a list and a small description of the main characters:

• Väinämäinen is the most main character, who is a sorcerer and the son of the daughter of the wind. He is capable of subjugating absolutely anything to his will, and is also one of those who created heaven and earth. He is the founder of the Kalevala clan.
• Joukahainen is also a wizard, but not as powerful, but very brave. He had the courage to challenge Väinämäinen, but did not have the strength to win the fight.
• Aino is the sister of a young self-taught sorcerer, Joukahainen, who also knew how to cast magic and turn into animals. At one fateful moment, she turned into a fish and was even able to escape from the elder Väinämäinen.
• Ilmarinen is a famous blacksmith who knew how to forge magical things. One of his best creations is the Sampo mill, which made people happy and rich.
• Kullervo is a hero who, because of his uncle, became an orphan and his slave. All his life the hero went towards revenge and justice. He also had a number of terrible and tragic experiences happen to him.
• Lemminkäinen is one of the three heroes who was extremely self-confident, for which he paid with his life, but was later resurrected by his own mother.

In addition to these characters, there are several minor ones who also influence the course of events and the fate of the main characters, but they are given little space in the collection:

• Kylliki is Lemminkäinen's carefree wife. One day, the girl left her family and broke her family oath, taking advantage of the snake’s absence.
• Lovhi is an evil and insidious sorceress, as well as the mistress of the state of Pohjela, she is also called the mistress of the North. Throughout the entire story, where she appears, she plots intrigues against the main heroes and sends terrible diseases to the neighboring country.
• Untamo is the same insidious uncle Kullervo who deprives the hero of his parents. He is also the lord of dreams.

In addition to these heroes, there are also those whose names are not mentioned, but they also make their contribution to the development of history. Usually these are residents, relatives of the main characters, magical spirits, and so on.

Summary of the epic

As the creator of the collection of all runes and legends says, in “Kalevala” there is no general plot, but several motives that are either intertwined with each other or not at all. As mentioned above, the epic takes place on the territory of two countries: Pohjola and Kalevala. It is not yet known what political relations the residents of the two states have, but the hostility between the rulers is noticeable. But first things first.

The first ten runes originate in unknown lands, namely, how these lands were created (the creation of the world) and one powerful sorcerer named Väinämöinen appears before the reader. He is the main character of the entire epic, because he appears most often and is also with the creator of heaven and earth. these powers were transferred to him from his mother Ilmatar, who is the natural daughter of air. The sorcerer is going to marry beautiful girl Aino, but she refuses, which infuriates Väinämöinen. Her brother Joukahainen comes to the girl’s defense, however, the young wizard is inferior in strength to the greatest sorcerer and loses the battle.

Further songs tell about the unusual blacksmith Ilmarinen and the creation of Sampo - a mill that has magical properties and could make everyone richer and happier. And one of the runes is dedicated to the creation of iron and precious metals.

In the next song, the story returns to the main sorcerer, who no longer appears as a great magician who creates worlds and fights. He also went in search, not of adventure, but of magical things to give as a gift. new lover, ruler of the neighboring state of Lovkhi. But while Väinämöinen was looking for words and objects, his love is confessed to his loyalty to another, namely, that same blacksmith. And several runes are dedicated to wedding songs and rituals.

In the 26th rune, fun and dancing abruptly give way to a sad and cruel story about the hero Kullervo. A lot of changes happen in his life: he loses his parents, becomes the personal slave of his uncle Untamo, falls in love with a girl, and after a very close relationship finds out that it was his sister. What follows is a description of his path of revenge, which is filled with suffering and bitterness. As soon as Kullervo took revenge on the last offender, his uncle, he commits suicide.

The sad story gives way to the heroic adventures of the three main characters: the powerful sorcerer Väinämöinen, the self-confident sorcerer Lemminkäinen and the great blacksmith Ilmarinen, who decide to find the lost mill in the depths of Pohjola. There are no brutal battles here, because the characters win with the help of ingenuity and magic. They create musical instrument, capable of putting all residents to sleep, which gives them the opportunity to easily find and take Sampo.

Having learned about this, the ruler of the state begins to send various troubles and diseases to them. Then it was decided that another tool should be made from the mill that could defeat Lovkhi and return the Sun and Moon from her captivity.

The very last rune describes the birth of a child, who was immediately born very wise and strong. Seeing such abilities in him, Väinämöinen insists that the child be killed, saying that he will only bring trouble. But the child very maturely and wisely answers the sorcerer that he is only turning around and leaving the country in disgrace. And this child becomes the rightful ruler of Karelia.

Kalevala Epic Day in Finland

Every year in Finland and the Republic of Karelia they celebrate the “Day of the Folk Epic Kalevala,” which is dedicated to the common culture between the Karelian-Finnish peoples. The Finnish government also named this day “National Flag Day of Finland.” These two holidays are accompanied by a very bright and cheerful “Kalevala Carnival”, where processions of people in folk clothes take place, as well as theatrical performances. The very first holiday began to be celebrated in 1860 and now every year on February 28th. This day was chosen because it was on this day that Elias Lönnrot published the first part of the epic.

What else is worth knowing about the Karelian-Finnish epic

There are also a number of very interesting facts about “Kalevala” that are worth knowing:

• In the USSR, the film “Sampo” was shot, based on runes from the epic;
• The Soviet Union also staged a theatrical performance in the ballet genre, which was also called “Sampo”, and was staged for the first time in 1959 on March 27;
• In the Republic of Karelia there is a village called Kalevala, and local residents say that there is a tall pine tree under which the creator of the collection worked;
• In 1851, at one of the Swedish exhibitions, a painting based on the epic appeared, the artist was Johan Blakstadius;
• Writer Alexis Kivi became the first to stage a theatrical play based on “Kalevala” (in 1860), and it was dedicated more to the unfortunate hero Kullervo.

The influence of this work is so great that after its release it inspired creative people to create various plays, paintings, songs, and so on. The name of Elias Lönnrot is also highly revered for his invaluable contribution to the culture of the Karelian-Finnish people.

Epic is literary genre, as independent as lyrics and drama, telling about the distant past. It is always voluminous, extended over a long period of time in space and time, and extremely eventful. "Kalevala" is Karelian-Finnish epic poetry. Over the course of fifty folk songs (runes), the heroes of the Kalevala are sung. There is no historical basis in these songs. The adventures of the heroes are purely fabulous in nature. The epic also does not have a single plot, as in the Iliad, but summary"Kalevala" will be presented here.

Processing of folklore

The Karelian folk epic began to be processed and recorded only in the nineteenth century. The famous Finnish doctor and linguist Elias Lönnrot collected various options epic songs, made a selection, trying to connect the individual parts with each other in a plot. The first edition of "Kalevala" was published in 1835, and only almost fifteen years later - the second. The Finnish epic was translated into Russian in 1888 and published in the “Pantheon of Literature” by the poet L. P. Belsky. Public opinion was unanimous: “Kalevala” is literature and a pure source of new information about the religious pre-Christian ideas of the Karelian and Finnish peoples.

The name of the epic was given by Lönnrot himself. Kalevala was the name of the country in which folk heroes live and perform exploits. Only the name of the country is a little shorter - Kaleva, because the suffix la in the language denotes the place of residence: those living in Kaleva. It was there that the people settled their heroes: Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, Lemminkäinen - all three were sung as the sons of this fertile land.

Composition of the epic

The poem of fifty runes was made up of various individual songs - there were lyrical, epic, and even magical ones. Lönnrot wrote down most of it directly from the peasants' lips, and some had already been written down by folklore collectors. The most song-filled lands were found in Russian Karelia, in the Olonets province and in the Arkhangelsk regions, on the banks of Ladoga and in Finnish Karelia, where people’s memory has preserved very, very much.

The runes do not show us historical realities; not a single war with other nations is reflected there. Moreover, neither the people, nor society, nor the state are shown, as in Russian epics. In the runes, the family rules everything, but even family relationships do not set goals for heroes to accomplish feats.

Bogatyrs

The ancient pagan views of the Karelians give the heroes of the epic not only physical strength, and not even so much of it, but magical powers, the ability to conjure, cast spells, and make magical artifacts. Bogatyrs have the gift of werewolfism, they can turn anyone into anything, travel, instantly moving to any distance, and control the weather and atmospheric phenomena. Even a brief summary of “Kalevala” will not be complete without fabulous events.

The songs of the Karelian-Finnish epic are diverse, and it is impossible to fit them into a single plot. The Kalevala, like many other epics, opens with the creation of the world. The sun, stars, moon, sun, earth appear. The daughter of the wind gives birth to Väinämöinen, who will be the main character of the epic, who will develop the land and sow barley. Among the many and varied adventures of the hero, there is one that can claim to be the beginning of the main, albeit thread-like, plot.

Wonderful boat

Väinämöinen meets by chance the maiden of the North, as beautiful as day. In response to an offer to become his wife, she agrees on the condition that the hero builds a magic boat for her from fragments of a spindle. The inspired hero set to work so eagerly that he could not hold the ax and injured himself. The blood did not subside, I had to visit a healer. It tells the story of how iron came about.

The healer helped, but the hero never returned to work. He raised his wind grandfather with a spell, who found and delivered the most skilled blacksmith, Ilmarinen, to Pohjola, the country of the North. The blacksmith obediently forged the magic mill Sampo for the Maiden of the North, bringing happiness and wealth. These events contain the first ten runes of the epic.

Treason

In the eleventh rune, a new heroic character appears - Lemminkäinen, completely displacing previous events from the songs. This hero is warlike, a real sorcerer and a great lover of women. Having introduced the listeners to a new hero, the narrative returned to Väinämöinen. What the loving hero had to endure to achieve his goal: he even descended into the underworld, allowed himself to be swallowed by the giant Viipunen, but still obtained the magic words that were needed to build a boat from a spindle, on which he sailed to Pohjola to get married.

Not so. During the hero's absence, the northern maiden fell in love with the skilled blacksmith Ilmarinen and married him, refusing to fulfill her word to Väinämöinen. Not only the wedding, with all its customs and traditions, is described here in great detail, and even the songs that were sung there are given, clarifying the duty and responsibility of the husband to his wife and the wife to her husband. This plot line ends only in the twenty-fifth song. Unfortunately, the very brief content of “Kalevala” does not contain the exceptionally lovely and numerous details of these chapters.

Sad story

Further, six runes tell about the daring adventures of Lemminkäinen in the northern region - in Pohjola, where Severnaya reigns, not only no longer a maiden, but also spiritually spoiled, with an unkind, acquisitive and selfish character. With the thirty-first rune begins one of the most piercing and deeply sensual stories, one of the best parts of the entire epic.

Over the course of five songs, the sad fate of the beautiful hero Kullervo is told, who, out of ignorance, seduced his own sister. When the whole situation was revealed to the heroes, both the hero himself and his sister could not bear the sin committed and died. This is very sad story, written (and, apparently, translated) elegantly, heartfeltly, with a great feeling of sympathy for the characters so severely punished by fate. The epic "Kalevala" gives many such scenes where love for parents, for children, for native nature is glorified.

War

The following runes tell how three heroes (including an unlucky blacksmith) united in order to take away the magical treasure - Sampo - from the evil Northern Maiden. The heroes of "Kalevala" did not give up. Fighting couldn’t solve anything here, and it was decided, as always, to resort to sorcery. Väinämöinen, like our Novgorod guslar Sadko, built himself a musical instrument - the kantele, enchanted nature with his play and put all the northerners to sleep. Thus, the heroes kidnapped Sampo.

The Mistress of the North pursued them and intrigued them until Sampo fell into the sea. She sent monsters, pestilence, and all sorts of disasters to Kaleva, and in the meantime Väinämöinen made a new instrument, which he played even more magically than he returned the sun and moon stolen by the mistress of Pohjola. Having collected the fragments of Sampa, the hero did a lot of good for the people of his country, many good deeds. It's quite a long adventure together three heroes"Kalevala" is almost finished. Retelling this story cannot in any way replace reading a work that has inspired many artists to create great works. This needs to be read in its entirety to truly enjoy it.

Divine baby

So, the epic has come to its last rune, which is very symbolic. This is practically an apocrypha on the birth of the Savior. The virgin from Kaleva - Maryatta - gave birth to a divinely wonderful son. Väinämöinen was even frightened by the power that this two-week-old child possessed, and advised him to be killed immediately. To which the infant shamed the hero, reproaching him for injustice. The hero listened. He finally sang a magic song, boarded a wonderful shuttle and left Karelia to a new and more worthy ruler. This is how the Kalevala epic ends.

Left a reply Guest

The poem is based on Karelian-Finnish folk epic songs (runes), which in the 18th century. collected and edited by Elias Lönnrot.

Ilmatar, daughter of the air, lived in the airy spaces. But soon she became bored in the skies, and she went down to the sea. The waves swept up Ilmatar, and from the waters of the sea the daughter of the air became pregnant.

Ilmatar carried the fetus for 700 years, but childbirth did not occur. She prayed to the supreme deity of the sky, the thunderer Ukko, to help her get rid of the burden. After some time, a duck flew past, looking for a place for a nest. Ilmatar came to the duck’s aid: she offered her her big knee. The duck made a nest on the knee of the daughter of the air and laid seven eggs: six gold, the seventh iron. Ilmatar, moving her knee, dropped the eggs into the sea. The eggs broke, but did not disappear, but underwent transformation:

The mother came out - the ground was damp;
From the egg, from the top,
The high vault of heaven rose,
From the yolk, from the top,
The bright sun appeared;
From the protein, from the top,
A clear month has appeared;
From the egg, from the motley part,
The stars appeared in the sky;
From the egg, from the dark part,
Clouds appeared in the air.

And time goes by,
Year runs forward after year,
When the young sun shines,
In the brilliance of the new moon.

Ilmatar, the mother of the waters, the maiden of creation, sailed the sea for another nine years. In the tenth summer she began to change the earth: with the movement of her hand she erected capes; where she touched the bottom with her foot, there were depths, where she lay down sideways, a flat shore appeared, where she bowed her head, bays were formed. And the earth took its present appearance.

But the fruit of Ilmatar - the prophetic singer Väinämöinen - was not born. For thirty years he wandered in his mother's womb. Finally, he prayed to the sun, moon and stars to give him a way out of the womb. But the sun, month and stars did not help him. Then Väinämöinen himself began to make his way to the light:

Touched the fortress gates,
He moved his ring finger,
He opened the bone castle
Small toe of the left leg;
In my arms he crawls from the threshold,
On my knees through the entryway.
He fell into the blue sea,
He grabbed the waves with his hands.

Väinö was born as an adult and spent another eight years at sea until he finally made it to land.

Väinämöinen lived for many years on bare, treeless land. Then he decided to develop the region. Väinämöinen called Sampsa Pellervoinen, the sowing boy. Sampsa sowed the land with grass, bushes and trees. The earth was dressed with flowers and greenery, but only one oak tree could not sprout.

Then four maidens came ashore from the sea. They cut the grass and collected it in a large stack. Then the monster-hero Tursas (Iku-Turso) rose from the sea and set fire to the hay. Väinämöinen placed the acorn in the resulting ash and from the acorn grew a huge oak tree, blocking the sky and the sun with its crown.

Väinö thought about who could cut down this giant tree, but there was no such hero. The singer begged his mother to send him someone to fell the oak tree. And then a dwarf came out of the water, grew into a giant, and with the third swing he cut down a wonderful oak tree. Whoever picked up its branch found happiness forever, whoever picked it up became a sorcerer, whoever cut off its leaves became cheerful and joyful. One of the wonderful oak chips floated into Pohjola. The maiden of Pohjola took it for herself so that the sorcerer could make enchanted arrows out of it.

The earth was blooming, birds were fluttering in the forest, but the barley did not sprout and the bread did not ripen. Väinämöinen approached the blue sea and found six grains at the edge of the water. He picked up the grains and sowed them near the Kalevala River. The titmouse told the singer that the grains would not sprout, since the land for arable land had not been cleared. Väinämöinen cleared the land, cut down the forest, but left a birch tree in the middle of the field so that the birds could rest on it. The eagle praised Väinämöinen for his concern and, as a reward, delivered fire to the cleared area. Väinö sowed the field, offering a prayer to the earth, to Ukko (as the lord of rain), so that they would take care of the ears of corn and the harvest. Shoots appeared on the field and the barley ripened.

-Finnish poetic epic. Consists of 50 runes (songs).

The Kalevala is based on Karelian folk epic songs. The processing of the original folklore material was carried out by the Finnish linguist and doctor Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884), who plotted individual folk epic songs, made a certain selection of variants of these songs, and smoothed out some irregularities. The processing was carried out by Lönnrot twice: in 1835 the first edition of “Kalevala” was published, in 1849 - the second.

Folk songs (runes)

The name "Kalevala", given to the poem by Lönnrot, is the epic name of the country in which the Finnish people live and act. folk heroes. Suffix la means place of residence, so Kalevala- this is the place of residence of Kalev, the mythological ancestor of the heroes Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, Lemminkäinen, sometimes called his sons. Lönnrot provided the material for compiling an extensive poem of 50 songs (runes). folk songs(runes), partly epic, partly lyrical, partly magical, recorded from the words of Karelian and Finnish peasants by Lönnrot himself and the collectors who preceded him. The ancient runes (songs) were best remembered in Russian Karelia, in Arkhangelsk (Vuokkiniemi - Voknavolok parish) and Olonets provinces - in Repole (Reboly) and Himola (Gimola), as well as in some places in Finnish Karelia and on the western shores of Lake Ladoga, up to Ingria.

In Kalevala there is no main plot that would connect all the songs (as, for example, in the Iliad or Odyssey). Its content is extremely varied. It opens with the legend about the creation of the earth, sky, stars and the birth of the Finnish protagonist, Väinämöinen, by the daughter of air, who arranges the earth and sows barley. The following tells about the various adventures of the hero, who meets, among other things, the beautiful maiden of the North: she agrees to become his bride if he miraculously creates a boat from the fragments of her spindle. Having started work, the hero wounds himself with an ax, cannot stop the bleeding and goes to an old healer, to whom he tells a legend about the origin of iron. Returning home, Väinämöinen raises the wind with spells and transports the blacksmith Ilmarinen to the country of the North, Pohjola, where he, according to the promise made by Väinämöinen, forges for the mistress of the North a mysterious object that gives wealth and happiness - the Sampo mill (runes I-XI).

The following runes (XI-XV) contain an episode about the adventures of the hero Lemminkäinen, a warlike sorcerer and seducer of women. The story then returns to Väinämöinen; his descent into the underworld, his stay in the womb of the giant Viipunen, his gain from last three the words necessary to create a wonderful boat, the hero’s sailing to Pohjola in order to receive the hand of the northern maiden; however, the latter preferred the blacksmith Ilmarinen to him, whom she marries, and the wedding is described in detail and wedding songs are given, outlining the duties of the wife and husband (XVI-XXV).

Further runes (XXVI-XXXI) are again occupied by the adventures of Lemminkäinen in Pohjola. The episode about the sad fate of the hero Kullervo, who out of ignorance seduced his own sister, as a result of which both brother and sister commit suicide (runes XXXI-XXXVI), belongs in depth of feeling, sometimes reaching true pathos, to the best parts of the entire poem.

Further runes contain a lengthy story about common enterprise three Finnish heroes - the extraction of the Sampo treasure from Pohjola, about the making of the Väinämöinen kantele, by playing which he enchants all of nature and lulls the population of Pohjola to sleep, about the taking away of the Sampo by the heroes, about their pursuit by the sorceress-mistress of the North, about the fall of the Sampo into the sea, about the benefits rendered Väinämöinen to his native country through Sampo fragments, about his struggle with various disasters and monsters sent by the mistress of Pohjola to Kalevala, about the hero’s marvelous playing on a new kantela, created by him when the first one fell into the sea, and about the return of the sun and moon to them, hidden by the mistress of Pohjola (XXXVI-XLIX).

The last rune contains a folk apocryphal legend about the birth of a miraculous child by the virgin Maryatta (the birth of the Savior). Väinämöinen gives advice to kill him, since he is destined to surpass the Finnish hero in power, but the two-week-old baby showers Väinämöinen with reproaches of injustice, and the ashamed hero, singing in last time a wondrous song, leaves forever in a shuttle from Finland, giving way to the baby Maryatta, the recognized ruler of Karelia.

Philological and ethnographic analysis

It is difficult to indicate a common thread that would connect the various episodes of the Kalevala into one artistic whole. E. Aspelin believed that its main idea was to glorify the change of summer and winter in the North. Lönnrot himself, denying the unity and organic connection in the runes of Kalevala, admitted, however, that the songs of the epic are aimed at proving and clarifying how the heroes of the country of Kalevala subjugate the population of Pohjola and conquer the latter. Julius Kron claims that Kalevala is imbued with one idea - the creation of Sampo and its acquisition into the ownership of the Finnish people - but admits that the unity of plan and idea is not always noticed with the same clarity. The German scientist von Pettau divides the Kalevala into 12 cycles, completely independent of each other. The Italian scientist Comparetti, in an extensive work on Kalevala, comes to the conclusion that it is not possible to assume unity in the runes, that the combination of runes made by Lönnrot is often arbitrary and still gives the runes only a ghostly unity; finally, that from the same materials it is possible to make other combinations according to some other plan. Lönnrot did not discover the poem, which was hidden in the runes (as Steinthal believed) - he did not open it because such a poem did not exist among the people. Runes in oral transmission, even though they were connected by singers several at a time (for example, several adventures of Väinämöinen or Lemminkäinen), just as little represent an integral epic as Russian epics or Serbian youth songs. Lönnrot himself admitted that when he combined runes into an epic, some arbitrariness was inevitable. Indeed, as shown by checking Lönnrot’s work with versions recorded by himself and other rune collectors, Lönnrot chose such retellings that were most suitable for the plan he had drawn, fused runes from particles of other runes, made additions, for greater coherence of the story he added individual verses, and the last rune (50) can even be called his composition, although based on folk legends. For his poem, he skillfully utilized the entire wealth of Karelian songs, introducing, along with narrative runes, ritual, spell, and family songs, and this gave Kalevala significant interest as a means of studying the worldview, concepts, life and poetic creativity of the Finnish common people.

Characteristic of the Karelian epic is the complete absence of a historical basis: the adventures of the heroes differ purely fabulous character; no echoes of historical clashes between the Finns and other peoples were preserved in the runes. In Kalevala there is no state, people, society: it knows only the family, and its heroes perform feats not in the name of their people, but to achieve personal goals, like heroes of wonderful fairy tales. The types of heroes are in connection with the ancient pagan views of the Finns: they perform feats not so much with the help physical strength, how much through conspiracies, like shamans. They can accept different type, turn other people into animals, be miraculously transported from place to place, cause atmospheric phenomena - frost, fog, etc. The closeness of the heroes to the deities of the pagan period is also felt. It should also be noted that the Finns attach great importance to song words and music. A prophetic person who knows the runes-spells can work miracles, and the sounds extracted from the kantele by the wonderful musician Väinämöinen conquer all of nature.

In addition to ethnographic, Kalevala is also of high artistic interest. Its advantages include: the simplicity and brightness of the images, a deep and vivid sense of nature, high lyrical impulses, especially in the depiction of human grief (for example, the longing of a mother for her son, children for their parents), healthy humor that permeates some episodes, and successful characterization of the characters. If you look at Kalevala as a whole epic (Cronus’s view), then there will be many shortcomings in it, which, however, are characteristic of more or less all oral folk epic works: contradictions, repetitions of the same facts, too large dimensions of some particulars in relation to to the whole. The details of some upcoming action are often set out in extreme detail, and the action itself is told in a few minor verses. This kind of disproportion depends on the memory properties of one or another singer and is often found, for example, in Russian epics.

However, there is also historical facts intertwined with geographical ones, partially confirming the events described in the epic. To the north of the current village of Kalevala there is Lake Topozero - the sea through which the heroes sailed. They settled along the shores of the lake Sami- the people of Pohjola. The Sami were strong sorcerers(Old woman Louhi). But the Karelians were able to push the Sami far to the north, subjugate the population of Pohjola and conquer the latter.

Kalevala Day

“Day of the Folk Epic Kalevala” is a national holiday celebrated on February 28. Every year in Finland and Karelia the “Kalevala Carnival” takes place, in the form of a street costume procession, as well as theatrical performances based on the plot of the epic.

Kalevala in art

Using the name

• In Kostomuksha there is Kalevala Street.
• In Petrozavodsk there is a cinema "Kalevala", a chain of bookstores "Kalevala" and street "Kalevala".
• In Syktyvkar there is an indoor market "Kalevala".
• "Kalevala" is a Russian folk metal band from Moscow.
• "Kalevala" is a song by Russian rock bands Mara and Chimera.
• In the Republic of Karelia there is the Kalevala national district and the urban village of Kalevala.

Literature

• Complete Russian translation by L. P. Belsky (Kalevala: Finnish folk epic / Complete poetic translation, with a preface and notes by L. P. Belsky. St. Petersburg: N. A. Lebedev Printing House, Nevsky Prospect, 8., 1888. 616 p.).
• German translations of the Kalevala: Schiffner (Helsingfors, 1852) and Paul (Helsingfors, 1884-1886).
• French translation: Leouzon Le Duc (1867).
• English translation: I. M. Crawford (New York, 1889).
• Small excerpts in Russian translation are given by J. K. Grot (“Sovremennik”, 1840).
• Several runes in Russian translation were published by G. Gelgren (“Kullervo” - M., 1880; “Aino” - Helsingfors, 1880; runes 1-3 Helsingfors, 1885).
• Yiddish translation of the eighteen runes: H. Rosenfeld, Kalevala, the Folk Epic of the Finns (New York, 1954).
• Translation into Hebrew (in prose): trans. Sarah Tovia, “Kalevala, the land of heroes” (Kalevala, Eretz ha-giborim), Tel Aviv, 1964 (subsequently reprinted several times).

Of the numerous studies about Kalevala (not counting Finnish and Swedish), the main ones are:

• Jacob Grimm, “Ueber das finnische Epos” (“Kleine Schriften” II).
• Moritz Eman, “Main Features from the Ancient Epic of the Kalevala” (Helsingfors, 1847).
• V. Tettau, “Ueber die epischen Dichtungen de finnischen Volker, besonders d. Kalewala" (Erfurt, 1873).
• Steinthal, "Das Epos" (in "Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie" V., 1867).
• Jul. Krohn, “Die Entstehung der einheitlichen Epen im allgemeinen” (in Zeitschrift far Völkerpsychologie, XVIII, 1888).
• His, “Kalewala Studien” (in German translation from Swedish, ibid.).
• Eliel Aspelin, “Le Folklore en Finlande” (“Melusine”, 1884, no. 3).
• Andrew Lang, "Custom and Myth" (pp. 156-179).
• Radloff, in the preface to the 5th volume of “Proben der Volkslitteratur der nurdlichen Turk-Stämme” (St. Petersburg, 1885, p. XXII).
• About the wonderful Finnish book by J. Kron “History of Finnish Literature. Part I. Kalevala”, published in Helsingfors (1883), see article by Mr. Mainov: “ A new book about the Finnish folk epic" (in "J. M. N. Pr." 1884, May).
• An independent processing of the extensive materials collected by J. Kron and other Finnish scientists for the criticism of “Kalevala” is represented by the thorough work of the famous Italian scientist Domenico Comparetti, published in a German translation: “Der Kalewala oder die traditionelle Poesie der Finnen” (Halle, 1892).

see also

Notes

Literature

• // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional ones). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
• "Kalevala" - a monument of world culture: Bibliographic index. Comp. N. Prushinskaya. Sun. Art. E.Karhu. Petrozavodsk, 1993.

Links

• Text of Kalevala in Russian, translation by L. P. Belsky, edition 1985.
• Text of the Kalevala in Russian, translated by Eino Kiuru and Armas Mishin
• Kalevala on the website of the Finnish Literary Society: Introduction, Contents of Kalevala, Kalevala - Finnish national epic, The many faces of Kalevala, Translations of Kalevala (Retrieved February 16, 2012)
• History of recording (creation) of Kalevala (Retrieved February 16, 2012)
• (Retrieved February 16, 2012)
• Electronic copy of the first edition of the Kalevala (1835) (fin.) (Retrieved February 16, 2012)

Wikimedia Foundation.

2010.
Kalevala is not an epic, it is Karelo - a Finnish epic, this is a collection that includes many myths, legends, tales, songs. There is no main plot in Kalevala. It opens with the legend about the creation of the earth, sky, stars and the birth of the Karelian main character, Väinämöinen, by the daughter of air, who arranges the earth and sows barley. The following tells about the various adventures of the hero who meets the beautiful maiden of the North: she agrees to become his bride if he miraculously creates a boat from the fragments of her spindle. Having started work, the hero wounds himself with an ax, cannot stop the bleeding and goes to an old healer, to whom he tells a legend about the origin of iron. Returning home, Väinämöinen raises the wind with spells and transports the blacksmith Ilmarinen to the country of the North, Pohjola, where he, according to the promise given by Väinämöinen, forges for the mistress of the North a mysterious object that gives wealth and happiness - the Sampo mill (runes I-XI). The following runes ( XI-XV) contain an episode about the adventures of the hero Lemminkäinen, a warlike sorcerer and seducer of women. The story then returns to Väinämöinen; his descent into the underworld is described, his stay in the womb of the giant Viipunen, his acquisition from the latter of the three words necessary to create a wonderful boat, the hero’s sailing to Pohjola in order to receive the hand of the northern maiden; however, the latter preferred the blacksmith Ilmarinen to him, whom she marries, and the wedding is described in detail and wedding songs are given, outlining the duties of wife and husband (XVI-XXV). The runes (XXVI-XXXI) again tell about the adventures of Lemminkäinen in Pohjola. The episode about the sad fate of the hero Kullervo, who out of ignorance seduced his own sister, as a result of which both, brother and sister, commit suicide (runes XXXI-XXXVI), belongs in the depth of feeling, sometimes reaching true pathos, to the best parts of the entire poem. Further runes contain a lengthy story about the common enterprise of three Karelian heroes - about how the treasures of Sampo were obtained from Pohjola (Finland), how Väinämöinen made a kantele and, by playing it, charmed all of nature and put the population of Pohjola to sleep, how Sampo was taken away by the heroes. The story is told about the persecution of the heroes by the sorceress-mistress of the North, about the fall of Sampo into the sea, about the benefits rendered by Väinämöinen to his native country through the fragments of Sampo, about his struggle with various disasters and monsters sent by the mistress of Pohjola to Kalevala, about the hero’s marvelous playing on the new kantele created to them when the first fell into the sea, and about the return to them of the sun and moon hidden by the mistress of Pohjola (XXXVI-XLIX). The last rune contains a folk apocryphal legend about the birth of a miraculous child by the virgin Maryatta (the birth of the Savior). Väinämöinen gives advice to kill him, since he is destined to surpass the power of the Karelian hero, but the two-week-old baby showers Väinämöinen with reproaches of injustice, and the ashamed hero, having sung a wondrous song for the last time, leaves forever in a shuttle, giving way to the baby of Maryatta, the recognized ruler of Karelia.

Answer from Lyudmila Mironova[guru] Answer from Holloisy Shpyn
[guru]

Answer from Lyudmila Mironova[guru] The Baltic legend Kalevala tells about the difficult difficult life of an ordinary ordinary Baltic Alexander Imelyanenko
[newbie]

Answer from Lyudmila Mironova[guru] With Alexander Imelyanenko
5

Answer from Lyudmila Mironova[guru] Anna Otyakovskaya Alexander Imelyanenko
Malikat Ismailova
The following runes (XI-XV) contain an episode about the adventures of the hero Lemminkäinen, a warlike sorcerer and seducer of women. The story then returns to Väinämöinen; his descent into the underworld is described, his stay in the womb of the giant Viipunen, his acquisition from the latter of the three words necessary to create a wonderful boat, the hero’s sailing to Pohjola in order to receive the hand of the northern maiden; however, the latter preferred the blacksmith Ilmarinen to him, whom she marries, and the wedding is described in detail and wedding songs are given, outlining the duties of the wife and husband (XVI-XXV).
The runes (XXVI-XXXI) again tell about the adventures of Lemminkäinen in Pohjola. The episode about the sad fate of the hero Kullervo, who out of ignorance seduced his own sister, as a result of which both brother and sister commit suicide (runes XXXI-XXXVI), belongs in the depth of feeling, sometimes reaching true pathos, to the best parts of the entire poem.
Further runes contain a lengthy story about the common enterprise of the three Karelian heroes - about how Sampo’s treasures were obtained from Pohjola (Finland), how Väinämöinen made a kantele and, by playing it, charmed all of nature and put the population of Pohjola to sleep, how Sampo was taken away by the heroes. The story is told about the persecution of the heroes by the sorceress-mistress of the North, about the fall of Sampo into the sea, about the benefits rendered by Väinämöinen to his native country through the fragments of Sampo, about his struggle with various disasters and monsters sent by the mistress of Pohjola to Kalevala, about the hero’s marvelous playing on the new kantele created to them when the first fell into the sea, and about the return to them of the sun and moon hidden by the mistress of Pohjola (XXXVI-XLIX).