Who wrote the Kalevala?

Elias Lönnrot was born in Sammatti on April 9th, 1802. His family was poor and his father worked as the village tailor. Lönnrot learned to read at the age of five and books became his huge passion. According to one story, Elias once asked his mother for bread when he was hungry, but she had none to give him. The boy replied:
“Oh really? Then I’ll just read.”

The family was Finnish-speaking, but Lönnrot learned Swedish at school. At the time, Swedish was the language of the intellectuals. With the help of benefactors, Lönnrot was given the chance to attend school, and in 1822 he was admitted to the Academy of Turku (university), where he began studying medicine. At the university he also studied Latin, Greek, history, and literature, as was common at the time. He wrote his first thesis on Väinämöinen, and his medical thesis focused on folk medicine.

Lönnrot became interested in oral folk poetry while working as a private tutor during his studies. He tutored the children of J. A. Törngren, a professor of medicine who lived at Laukko manor near Tampere. In the spring of 1828, Lönnrot set out from Laukko on his first trip to collect oral poems. In his travel diary, he wrote that he wanted to get to know the people of his own country and the different dialects of Finnish, as well as to collect beautiful folk poems. Between 1828 and 1844, Lönnrot made a total of eleven trips, during which he collected poems from different parts of Karelia and Finland. He travelled on foot, skis, and by horse-drawn carriage.

Elias Lönnrot was a folklore collector

These trips were often arduous due to demanding conditions and Lönnrot felt both homesick and lonely. He set out on his seventh trip in 1836–1837 in the company of another collector, J. F. Cajan, but the two men went their separate ways along the route. Lönnrot continued alone and confided his feelings to Cajan (Lönnrot’s letter on January 1st, 1837):

“You cannot even imagine how ghastly the world seemed to me when I left Uhtuva. I cannot even describe how sad I felt, neither with words nor with a song”. – – I could not stop crying for two or three days.”

However, the demanding work of collecting poems was eased by Lönnrot’s extensive social networks. During his travels, Lönnrot usually stayed in vicarages and with other educated people.

Lönnrot worked as a district doctor in Kajaani, in northeastern Finland, for 30 years. However, he took several leaves of absence so that he could travel to Karelia to collect folk poems. His work as a doctor also benefited his work as a folklore collector, as it allowed him to get to know people from all walks of life, including the rural poor.

Lönnrot was one of the founders of the Finnish Literature Society (Finnish: SKS) in 1831, and he also served as the Society’s first secretary. The Finnish Literature Society provided financial support for Lönnrot’s travels and published the first edition of the Kalevala. The Kalevala manuscripts and the extensive collection of materials – including the transcribed folk poems – are preserved in the Society’s archives.

Elias Lönnrot married Maria Piponius in 1849, at the age of 47 – an age considered rather late for marriage at the time. They had five children, but only one of them, their daughter Ida, lived to adulthood. Lönnrot died at the age of 81 on 19 March 1884 at his home in Lammi, Sammatti.

Finland was part of the Russian empire, and Swedish was the language of the educated elite. Interest in folk poetry and the Finnish language was linked to a broader national awakening: a desire to trace the roots of the people and to demonstrate that Finnish culture was as rich and valuable as that of other European nations. Lönnrot’s work was both scholarly and ideological – he believed that the foundations of national identity lay in the wisdom of the people and in their language.

When Lönnrot compiled and wrote the Kalevala, he distanced himself from the role of the author of the epic and instead he compared himself to the oral poetry singers. As he wrote: “Itse loime loitsijaksi, laikahtime laulajaksi” – that is, “I considered myself a good singer, just as they did.” In this sense, Lönnrot can indeed be seen as a singer of sorts. During his journeys he recorded and experienced thousands of poems and became thoroughly familiar with their performance and chanting. For this reason, he has been called “the singing scribe”.

Lönnrot’s method has been characterized as editorial work on poetic texts. His ambition to use folk poems as comprehensively as possible was almost encyclopaedic.

Learn more about the life of Elias Lönnrot in this timeline!