The Search of Kalevala

the Search of Kalevala is a history in Cartoon of Keno Don Rosa. She puts in scene Balthazar Picsou with her nephews Donald Duck, Riri, Fifi and Loulou; also appear Géo Trouvetou and Miss Tick. She is held mainly in Finland.

Synopsis

In search of its material of shoeshiner, Picsou finds an old ackowledgement of debt written on a page of a book of some Elias Lönnrot, the author of the Kalevala . As soon as its nephews Castors Juniors told him the history of the Sampo, Picsou wants to find this object which manufactures parts of Or from nothing.

Once in Finland, the heroes penetrate in the world of Kalevala, the principal text of the Finnish Mythologie.

Data sheet

History n°D 99078.
Editor: Egmont.
Title of the first publication: Sammon salaisuus (Finnish).
Title in English: The Quest for Kalevala .
Title in French: the Search of Kalevala .
33 boards.
Author and draftsman: Keno Gift Rosa.
First publications: album Sammon salaisuus ja muita Gift Rosan parhaita , Finland, November 1999.
First publication in the United States: Uncle Scrooge n°334, October 2004.
First publication in France: Picsou Magazine n°344, September 2000.

A 34e final board exists and was published in a Finnish de luxe edition in November 1999. Death brings back its hat to Picsou. It benefits from it to ask him the secrecy which would enable him to carry something with him after its death.

References to Carl Barks

The references to the stories of Carl Barks are fewer than in the other stories of Gift Rosa. Nevertheless, the recall of the youth of Picsou is a clear recall of what Barks told: the first work of Picsou was shoeshiner of shoes in the streets of Glasgow. Don Rosa continues this fact by evoking a Finnish customer, Elias Lönnrot.

What makes give up Picsou in Sampo is evoked in a way coloured by the Väinämöinen hero:

“Es you ready to accompany me? (...)

to give up your own Kalevala

Where a lost love still awaits you”.

It is about Goldie, the tenancière of bar of Dawson City, in the Yukon, and which he knew during the Gold rush of the Klondike.

This history in the work of Gift Rosa

the Search of Kalevala is a homage of Gift Rosa to the Finnish readers, fan of Donald Duck. It is particular by its number of pages: 33 pages instead of the 24 usual ones for the long stories ordered by the Egmont editor. The research task provided was important: Don Rosa read Kalevala, could consult the documents of Lönnrot thanks to the assistance of the Company of Finnish literature, wrote the dialogs of the characters of Kalevala while following the rate of eight syllables per line (the French translation is in Alexandrin S).

Two drawings of this history were used on the block-layer as stamps emitted on March 13rd, 2001 by the Finnish post office. This block commemorated the fifty years of the magazine of cartoon, Aku Ankka (which is the name of Donald Duck in Finnish). The two images are Donald running in the streets of Helsinki (board 27) and Väinämöinen releasing Picsou (board 31).

On the history of the characters of the universe of Donald Duck, Don Rosa again illustrates the major feelings of Picsou for Goldie and Donald for his nephews, each one at the time of two essential scenes of the intrigue.

Historical and cultural references

The history interferes the universes Donald Duck and Picsou with that with the Kalevala for its parts concerning the Sampo:

Väinämöinen which inspires Picsou at the beginning of its search,
Illmarinen, the blacksmith of Sampo, which Géo Trouvetou will incarnate,
Tuoni, the lord of Darkness,
Louhi, the witch which calls for the aid Miss Tick,
and Iku-Turso, the monster called by Louhi.

Part of the history proceeds in Helsinki, whose Don Rosa drew, inter alia:

the station decorated with the gigantic statues of Emil Wikström,
the statue of the Three Blacksmiths,
the Tuomikirkko cathedral.

The notes that the old man plays on his kantele are those of the introduction of the Finlandia of Jean Sibelius.

External bonds

Article of Jukka Heiskanen, writer-in-chief of Aku Ankka appeared in Uncle Scrooge n°334.
the 34e board translated into English

Random links: