Transcending violence: Artistic interpretations of the myths of Kullervo from the Kalevala to Tero Saarinen

Abstract

The tragic stories of the hero Kullervo are some of the most represented mythical narratives in all the Finnish arts. The brutal violence of the narrative and Kullervo’s disturbed mind have been too problematic to be represented by artistic means, and the hero has been defined as the popular but troubled child of Finnish literature, theatre, music, dance and visual arts. Working on Kullervo, Finnish artists offered deep reflections on the social, cultural, personal or psychological origins of violence. Kullervo has been interpreted as a hero or an antihero, the natural result of a violent society or family, a tragic warrior or a sorcerer using the power of spell and sound, as a nationalist model for Finnish revolt against russification, as metaphor for artists’ necessity of breaking norms, or as a complex character that choose to be violent, even if he has better alternatives. This article aims to reveal how the interpretations of the myth and personality of Kullervo had radically changed due to the changes in the historical, cultural and artistic contexts and in the semiosphere. In the last paragraph, I shall reflect on how this fascinating and problematic research topic deals with: a) Juri Lotman’s theories about the relation between symbols, myths and different cultural context, and b) Eero Tarasti’s recent reflections and writings on existential semiotics and semiotics of transcendence. The methods and theories of Eero Tarasti’s zemic model offer several theoretic frameworks to analyse the changes in the interpretations of Kullervo’s story.