The Finnish National Epic

Tänään on Perjantai. Today is Friday. I actually wrote this on Monday (maanantai), but didn't get to posting it until today . . . . . . .

This morning began with the class called “Kalevala Mythology.” The Kalevala is a piece of work, 50 poems (runes), gathered by Elias Lönnrot, who took 11 journeys by foot and reindeer to Karelia and surrounding areas. It was first published in 1833. In short, it is the national epic of the Finnish people. In “long,” I will describe below :)
First of all, the Finnish people have an off sense of humor. Their sense of humor reminds me of that inside joke everyone talks about, but you “weren’t there,” thus making you the only one not laughing with a confused look on your face. Smile and nod, just smile and nod. This Finnish sense of humor can also be found, in short form, with the word Kalevala. If you were to transpose the first letter e with the last letter a, you would come up with the word Kalavale. At first glance it seems to mean nothing more than just a misspelled word. However, if you were to know Finnish (which I am learning as of this moment) you would see that kala and vale are actually two words in one – see BOTTOM NOTE at the bottom of the page). Kala actually means fish and Vale is a lie. So, our Prof was saying that the Finns often get a kick out of calling Kalevala, Kalavale because they can call the epic a Fish Lie, for reasons explained below. Even though the Prof gave some explanations to why they found that funny makes sense, but I still don’t find it quite hilarious or even mildly funny.
Okay, so back to the fact that the Finnish people say that Kalevala is their national epic story that helps them have a past identity to grasp hold of (mainly because their history is quite skewed due to being ruled for so many years by Sweden and then by Russia). First of all, it was vital to the Finnish Language. Not only did Elias Lönnrot compile a literary piece of work in Finnish, but he also was the forerunner in creating a standard Finnish grammar and vocabulary. Now, Finnish Nationalism began growing in the 19th century when Russia took it from Sweden and was made a Grand Duchy (of Russia). Thus, when Kalevala was published, it fueled the fire of Finnish Nationalism even more. Finnish Nationalism demanded that the Finnish language have the same status as the Swedish language. Even after Sweden no longer ruled over Finland, Swedish was still seen by many politicians, “educated” people, and the rich as the proper language to speak. The Finnish language was spoken by the common folk.
More to come about Kalevala’s “innards” in the following days or weeks (there is a play in March -- it will be in Finnish however, but I will still probably attend) . . . But here is a famous picture you often see when you encounter Kalevala. The man with the beard is Väinämöinen, the main character that eventually has to leave Kalevala, because a new God is coming . . . Jesus (christian influence here). The ugly bird like thing is Louhi, the woman of Pohjola (more explanation about her later).


BOTTOM NOTE: Many times the Finnish language puts many words together without any spaces (e.g. the longest word in the Finnish language epäjärjestelmällistämättömyydellänsäkäänkohän; a million dollars to the one who can say that ten times fast! When our Finnish, Prof Milla, wrote the “word” I just couldn’t see it even being pronounced . . . well she did quite well and said it relatively fast. Really, Finns only use it when they are in deep distress. Personally, I believe just attempting to say the word would put me in deep distress! Here are two shorter versions of a long word: viikonpaivat – days of the week & yhdeksänsataa - kahdeksankymmentäkaksi – 982 – I am actually not sure if the hyphen is actually present in the wording of 982; oh well.)