Kalevala

Contents of Kalevala

Kalevala (= Country of Kaleva, the accent is on the first syllable) is a kaleidoscope of accounts, which are for a share independent from/to each other. The main character is the bard, magician who plays of the Kantele, the Finnish string instrument. He is the son of Ilmatar, the goddess of the Air and the mother of Water. Kalevala starts with an account of creation, where the sky, the ground, the sun and the moon are born from duck eggs which are deposited on the knee of Ilmatar. In the first song Väinämöinen appears already.

Other important characters in the epopee are the blacksmith Ilmarinen and the warrior. Ilmarinen manufactured the Sampo, a marvellous object, a mill, for Louhi, the mistress of the enemy country of Pohjola (country of north), which in exchange promised his/her daughter. A little later the sampo is removed from Pohjola by the heroes of Kalevala and breaks on this occasion. The sampo brings prosperity and wellbeing, even after it was broken. The battle for this object is a red wire of the epopee.

Six songs are devoted to the adventures of the tragic hero, the slave avenger who, while being unaware of it, allured his sister and throws himself at the end on his own sword. This episode isolated from Kullervo did not form part of the version of Kalevala of 1835.

Beside the accounts of hero, Kalevala contains not-narrative passages, such as policies for the bride and the groom and of the articles on the mixing of beer and the work of iron.

Form of Kalevala

Kalevala is composed of fifty songs (the Finnish word, fi runo , is often translated by rune , but does not correspond directly to the signs of the Germanic old man). These songs are formed by worms Blanc S (a whole of 22.795), which are written in one Kalevala rate/rhythm characteristic and simple: each line is made up of four Trochées and is followed by a second line, which Paraphrase the first for the contents, the nuance or also often reinforces it.

There can not be a final Rime in Kalevala, the rhyme of the beginning or alliteration is frequently used. Finnish lends itself to it marvelously, because this language has only one limited number of consonants (11) with which a word can start. In the translations of Kalevala most of these alliterations are thus condemned to disappear.

In illustration a fragment of first song (R. 289-295):

Vaka vanha Väinämöinen

kulki äitinsä kohussa

kolmekymmentä keseä

yhen verran talviaki,

noilla vienoilla vesillä

utuisilla lainehilla.

And a translation in Dutch (Crumbs the Nobel, uitg. Vrij Geestesleven, 1985):

Väinämöinen, oud in wakker,

wacht nog in schoot DER moeder,

dertig zomers Lang nog wacht hij,

dertig lange winters toeft hij

nog in sluimerstille golven,

in nevelrijke wateren.

The translation of J-L Perret of the same fragment gives:

the farm and old Väinämöinen

Passed in the center of his/her mother

Nearly about thirty summers

And the same number of winters,

In the middle of the quiet waves,

On the covered floods of fog.

The first French translation of the Kalevala was carried out by Louis Léouzon the Duke, in prose, and was published under the title Finland in 1845. It was the second translation ever made of the first Kalevala , after that in Swedish.

There exist from now on three French integral translations of “new” the Kalevala . A translation in prose of Louis Léouzon the Duke (1867) was followed by the metric translation of Jean-Louis Perret (1927) and, more recently, by that of Gabriel Rebourcet (1991) which endeavors to restore the linguistic archaisms of the original.

Versions adapted for the children were also written by Edmée Arma (1944), Madeleine Gilard (Editions the Farandole, 1961) and Anne-Marie Cabrini (Hatier Editions, 1967). The latter, starting from an Italian translation.

The origin of Kalevala

Kalevala is the fruit of voyages of Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884), profession doctor, but particularly interested by the language and the folklore Finnish (it made his doctorate on Finnish popular medicine). The old popular oral tradition still lived with the east (in Karelia) and it is mainly in this area that he undertook to travel often between 1828 and 1834, to gather the material which was going to form the base of its epopee. It fixed its doctor's office at Kajaani, at the border of Karelia.

The first result was called Proto-Kalevala of 1833 (to tell the truth Runokokous Väinämöisestä , together of poems on Väinämöinen). Two years later, true Kalevala appeared (in entirety Kalewala taikka Wanhoja Karjalan Runoja , Kalevala or Old Songs of Karelia). This first version, Old Kalevala of 1835, was composed of 32 songs with 12.078 versified lines and was published by the Finnish Literary Company ( Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura ), whose Lönnrot was one of the founders. The date of completion of this version, the February 28th, has in Finland the statute of Day of Kalevala.

Kalevala succeeded the least known Kanteletar (1840-41), also the result of a search of ground in Karelia. In 1849, Lönnrot completed New Kalevala, which counted 50 songs and: 22795 versified lines, and was thus close to twice also important. The personal capital contribution of the Lönnrot author in this new version was more important than in the original version. New Kalevala makes also watch of much more internal logic.

During the time between 1835 and 1849 Kalevala was already translated and Lönnrot had achieved its goal: to show that, from the center of a small nation, an unmemorable epopee, préchrétienne could be born as well as the Odyssée and the Iliade of the ancient Greeks or the Chant of Nibelungen of the German ones.

Works inspired by Kalevala

The epopee played a big role in the constitution of the Finnish national feeling. It influenced considerably many artists of this country.

Rudolf Steiner and its close relations intellectually, anthroposophic, strongly appreciated Kalevala. The most recent translation in Dutch worms of Kalevala is thus the work of a antroposophic publisher.

Art schools

the painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela, who decorated celebrates it Finnish house of the World Fair of Paris of 1900 with reasons for Kalevala. Its paintings on Kalevala most known are the defense of Sampo ( Sammon puolustus , 1896), the revenge on Joukahainen ( Joukahaisen kosto , 1897), the mother of Lemminkäinen ( Lemminkäisen äiti , 1897) and the curse of Kullervo ( Kullervon kirous , 1899). In 1922 it illustrated the Koru-Kalevala (gold Kalevala).
the sculptor Carl Eneas Sjöstrand

Cinema

Literature

Like literary work, Kalevala also exerted a great influence on the literature. Poets such as Eino Leino were subject to the influence of the epopee from a stylistic point of view. The influence of the epopee extended well beyond the Finnish linguistic field, by the means of translations. English writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien (which based its artificial language Quenya on Finnish) and C.S. Lewis was let inspire by Kalevala. The Song off Hiawatha of the American Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who knew Finnish, is frequently put in connection with the Finnish epopee. In Estonia and Latvia, which just like Finland were at the XIXe century in Russia tsarist, the epopees Kalevipoeg (1853-1862) developed respectively and La¯cˇple¯sis, which just like Kalevala was based on local traditions and had the same function: formation of an national identity of a small nation to discovered itself. Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald, the author of the Estonian epopee (and just like Lönnrot, a doctor), decided only after having seen Kalevala (its translation in German) to versify its work.

the Search of Kalevala , a history as a cartoon of Picsou by Gift Rosa, 1999.

Music

Several works of the Finnish type-setter Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), of which the Destiny of Kullervo , symphony for chorus (1892) and the Continuation Lemminkäinen, the girl of Pohjola ( Pohjolan tytär , 1906), the legends of Kalevala (among which the swan of Tuonela, Tuonelan joutsen , 1893), the symphonic poem Luonnotar (1913).
the funeral March of Kullervo of the type-setter and Finnish leader Robert Kajanus (1856-1933)
the symphonic poem Kullervo of the Finnish type-setter Leevi Madetoja (1887-1947), raises of Sibélius
the opera Kullervo of Aulis Sallinen (1988)
the Kalevala-continuation of Uuno Klami (1933-43).
Kalevala XVII runo , 17th song put in music in 1985 by the Estonian Veljo Tormis at the time of the 150ème birthday of the epopee.
the Myth of Sampo of Einojuhani Rautavaara

Kalevala in translation

Kalevala was translated as of the beginning. The Finnish Literary Company subsidized, also for political reasons, the translation of German and Swedish work: the first language made thus the epopee accessible to the Finnish intelligentsia, which often did not know Finnish. The philologist Matthias Alexander Castrén undertook the first Swedish version (1841). Its German fellow-member Jacob Grimm in translated parts into German. The first translation supplements (and in worms) German was that of Anton Schiefner going back to 1852: it was one of the most influential versions. The Kreutzwald Estonian borrowed the idea to him to put his Kalevipoeg in similar worms. The Schiefner version was re-examined shortly after by Martin Buber and became the basic text of the translation anthroposophic crumb Dutchwoman the Nobel (1985).

Before allemande, there was a French version: it was the translation in prose of Louis Léouzon the Duke of 1845 carrying the title Finland . At the XIXe century still translations in English appeared, in Estonian, Hungarian, Russian and Czech. First Dutch Kalevala was an adaptation for children of 1905.

Meanwhile, Kalevala was translated into 51 languages, of which the Armenian , the Swahili, the Tamil and the Esperanto. At the XXe century several translations and adaptations in Dutch were published, but never Kalevala in worms translates Finnish. On this subject one must mention the name of the priest Henrik Hartwijk, who admittedly translated Kalevala, but whose translation published forever and is lost mainly.

External bonds

Kalevala on sagesse-primordiale.com
Kalevala in entirety (version 1849)
Kalevala in English entirety (translation John Martin Crawford, 1888)
Dutchwomen translations of Kalevala
Kalevala in translation
Kalevala Site of the Finnish Literary Company

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