A Hundred Years of Finnish Folklore Research: A Reappraisal

Abstract

ALMOST every description of the background of Finnish folklore research begins with a reference to romanticism. Johann Gottfried von Herder in Germany and Henrik Gabriel Porthan in Finland are the towering figures of the scene toward the end of the 18th century, when the era of the Enlightenment gives way to a new understanding of the non-literate but creative layers of mankind, the poor peasants of the Western civilized world and the happy savages of non-Western cultures. It is true that some students at the University in Turku were interested in Herder and other Romanticists and that Porthan's penetrating analyses of Finnish folk poetry paved the way not only for enthusiasm about but also practical work on folklore materials. But it would come close to overstatement to say that two or three philosophers and scholars at the end of the 18th century planted in the Finnish soil the idea of collecting folklore, an idea which then won the support of younger academic cohorts and led to ever-increasing interest in folk poetry during the 19th century and the publication of the famous folk epic, the Kalevala, in 1835. Such a sketch of the development is typical of a history of learning in total isolation from everything else that is taking place in the society. Actually, the development was much more dramatic. The motivation for folklore collection did not stem from romantic dreams only, nor from an admiration for the peasant way of life nor the inherent beauty of folk poetry. When Henrik Gabriel Porthan died in 1804 his nation was largely dormant, unaware of itself, little more than a bundle of provinces of the Swedish Crown. Much of the nationalism that later historians have found in the works of Porthan is by implication only: his treatises on Finnish history and folklore do not contain high-flown dreams of the magnificent past of the nation. As a matter of fact Porthan was only discovered and identified as a national hero after he had lain in his grave for six decades (his statue was unveiled in Turku in 1864). At the time of Porthan's death there was hardly such a concept as Finland in the consciousness of civilized Europeans. Madame de Stail, the French writer and admirer of the North, travelled in 1812 through Southern Finland and wrote: 'There is no centre, no competition, nothing to say and not much to do in this North-Swedish and North-Russian countryside, and eight months of the year the entire living nature is sound asleep.' But half a century later such a characterization would not have been possible. The peace treaty of Hamina in 1809 brought about a structural change-and a nation. The era of imperial Sweden was past, and Finland became an autonomous Duchy under Russian rule. It preserved its constitu-