The SKVR Database of Ancient Poems of the Finnish People in Kalevala Meter and the Semantic Kalevala

Abstract

The Folklore Archives are the central holdings for oral tradition research in Finland. The actual collection of folklore began in Finland in the first half of the nineteenth century with poems and charms in the Kalevala meter. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the press also participated by publishing appeals to collectors, and these calls were invariably met with great enthusiasm. Towards the end of the nineteenth century a network of collectors was established, guidelines for collection were prepared, and folklore collection was encouraged in general. At the turn of the century, the Kalevala-meter poems and charms were joined by collections of folktales, in the 1930s legends were added, and gradually all fields of agrarian folklore, proverbs and riddles, the belief tradition, and laments were included. In 1900 the archive of the Finnish Literature Society still had only approximately 200,000 items of folklore, and today the archive holds approximately four million folklore items. In 1937 the Society's folklore collections were consolidated into a research institution known as the Folklore Archives of the Finnish Literature Society.1 Various organizations and educational establishments also responded and took an active interest in folklore collecting.