Kalevala Centenary

Abstract

ON February 28, the Finnish people celebrated the centenary of the completion by Elias Lonnrott of the first edition of the Kalevala, the Finnish national folk-epic. The celebrations culminated in a great gathering in the recently completed Fair Hall at Helsingfors, at which a large number of scholars and delegates from foreign countries were present. Great Britain was represented by Mr. Robert Nichols, Dr. Margaret Murray (Royal Anthropological Institute) and Miss Agnes Dawson (Folk-Lore Society). It was at one time the fashion to compare the Kalevala with the Homeric poems; but in fact this great collection of the legends and folk-lore of Finland is unique in European literature, both as a picture on an enormous canvas of a very primitive stage of society and as a mosaic of pagan magic, pagan religious belief and heroic legend. In this respect it surpasses anything that can be found in the pagan element of Germanic or Scandinavian saga. It consists of a large number of ballads which Lonnrott collected among the peasantry of Karelia, the eastern province of Finland, and wove into a composite whole. It has played an important part in fostering Finnish national aspirations, and has been a fertile source of inspiration in literature, art and music. Since Lonnrott's day much further material of a similar character has been collected. The esteem in which this body of literature is held as a national possession was marked in the present celebrations by a special session of the Diet at which a sum of approximately £9,000 was voted for the further study of the ancient history, culture and literature of the Finnish people, and by the presence of more than 4,000 people when M. Mamtere, Minister of Education, opened an exhibition, at which a large collection of pictures by Gallen Kalicia, Finland's greatest painter of Kalevala subjects, was the centre of attraction.