Kalevala is the pride of Finland, its National treasure, recognized as a unique folk epic that has no analogues in world literature.

The history of the creation of the epic "Kalevala"

The basis of the Karelian-Finnish epic was formed by runes - folk epic songs, most of which were recorded in Karelia. The collected folklore material was processed and brought together by the Finnish linguist and physician Elias Lönnrot. In addition to 50 runes, wedding songs and rituals, charms and spells are included in the Kalevala. Elias Lönnrot worked on the creation of the Kalevala for 20 years. The result of his work was published on February 28, 1835. The first circulation of "Kalevala" was very small, only 500 copies. By the way, in these books the name of the author was not indicated anywhere, only the preface to the poem was modestly signed with the initials of Lönnrot: “E. L.". Perhaps the author was modest, because he considered his work not quite finished - after the first publication of Kalevala, he continued his work, polishing the work, smoothing out inaccuracies and roughness. The final version of the epic was published fourteen years later, in 1849.

The runes that make up the epic do not have a single storyline, the narrative jumps from one to another, it contains inconsistencies and inconsistencies. “Kalevala” is the name of one of the two countries (the second country is called Pohjola) in which the heroes of the epic live and travel: Vainämöinen, Aiio, Ilmyarinen, Lemminkäinen, Kullervo.

The epic opens with a legend about the creation of the world and the birth of the protagonist of the Kalevala, Vainämöinen, the son of Ilmatar (daughter of air) and his failed attempt to marry Aino, the sister of the self-taught shaman Joukahainen, who lost the battle to him. Further, the runes tell about the hero's journey for the bride to the country of Pohjola - a kind of "lower world" into which the sun sinks. There are no battle scenes in this part of the story, Vainämöinen appears to the reader as a singer-caster who, with the help of knowledge and magic, overcomes the difficulties that stand in his way, and thanks to the blacksmith Ilmärinen, creates the Sampo mill for his beloved.

Then the narrative jumps to a description of the adventures of the hero Lemminkäinen, a sorcerer and a favorite of women, then returns to the description of the protagonist's wanderings: his journey to the underworld for magic words, sailing on a wonderful boat to Pohjola and an unsuccessful matchmaking - the bride, for whom Vainämöinen tried so hard, preferred to him the blacksmith who created the magic Sampo mill. The epic describes in detail the wedding of the northern maiden and the blacksmith Ilmyarinen, it includes wedding ceremonies and songs. Further, Lemminkäinen appears in Pohjola, and the plot again tells of his wanderings.

The image of Kullervo stands somewhat apart in the epic - a brave strongman, whose fate is very tragic: because of the discord between two families, he finds himself in slavery, unknowingly enters into a close relationship with his sister, takes revenge on the perpetrators of incest, returns home, finds all his relatives dead and commits suicide. Vainyamöinen reads an instructive speech over the body of the hero and, together with Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen, goes after Sampo. Having lulled the inhabitants of the "lower world" by playing the kantele, they steal a magic windmill, but the way home turns out to be very dangerous. The enraged mistress of Pohjola arranges various intrigues for them, and in the battle with her, Sampo breaks into pieces and falls into the sea. Next comes the story of the long struggle of the magicians: Louhi - the mistress of the "lower world" and Vainämöinen, as well as the confrontation between Kalevala and Pohjola.

In the last, fiftieth rune, Maryatta eats a lingonberry and becomes pregnant. She is having a boy. Vainämöinen dooms the baby to death, but he delivers a diatribe against an unfair trial. The boy is christened and named the King of Karelia, and Vainämöinen gets into the boat and goes to the open sea.

"Kalevala" in art

Despite the fact that the Kalevala epic was published in late XIX century, and to this day it does not cease to excite the minds and win the hearts creative people. His stories are quite common in the works of artists. The most famous is the cycle of paintings by the Finnish painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela.

This epic was filmed twice, in 1959 and in 1982, based on the "Kalevala", the ballet "Sampo" was written. It was written by the Karelian composer Gelmer Sinisalo in 1959. In addition, Tolkinen was inspired by the plots of the Finnish epic to write his "Silmarllion", and the Finnish melodic metal band Amorphis often uses the lyrics of "Kalevala" for their songs.

"Kalevala" also exists in Russian, thanks to children's writer Igor Vostryakov, who first retold it in prose for children, and in 2011 published a poetic version.

Day of the epic "Kalevala"

For the first time, the Day of the national epic "Kalevala" was celebrated in 1860. Since then, it has been celebrated annually on February 28, the day when the first copies of the Finnish epic were published, but this day was included in the list of official holidays only in 1978.

Traditionally, various events dedicated to the Kalevala are held on this day, and the culmination of the holiday is the Kalevala Carnival, during which people dressed in clothes for a long time walk through the streets of cities. past years, presenting scenes from the epic. Moreover, celebrations are held not only in Finland, but also in Russia. In Karelia, where there is even a Kalevalsky district, on the territory of which, according to legend, most of the events described in the epic took place, theatrical performances, performances of folklore groups, folk festivals, exhibitions and round tables are held annually.

You can familiarize yourself with the epic "Kalevala" at this link.

Interesting facts related to the epic "Kalevala":

• According to legend, on the territory of the village of Kalevala there is a pine tree under which Lönnrot worked.
• Based on Kalevala, a joint Soviet-Finnish film Sampo was shot.
• Karelian composer Gelmer Sinisalo wrote the ballet "Sampo" based on "Kalevala". The ballet was first staged in Petrozavodsk on March 27, 1959. This ballet had big success and many times performed in the USSR and abroad.
• The first pictorial painting on the subject of "Kalevala" was created in 1851 by the Swedish artist Johan Blakstadius.
• The first work on the plot of "Kalevala" was the play of the Finnish writer Alexis Kivi "Kullervo" in 1860.
• Jean Sibelius made a significant contribution to the musical embodiment of "Kalevala".
• The texts of "Kalevala" inspired the metal band Amorphis with their plot.

Related material

Finnish folklore

The history of the Finnish people dates back to the second millennium BC. However, the first written confirmations appear much later - at the beginning of the 2nd century BC. n. e, when the ancient authors Tacitus and Ptolemy talk about the people.

epic is literary genre, as independent as lyrics and drama, telling about the distant past. It is always voluminous, extended for a long time in space and time, and extremely eventful. "Kalevala" - Karelian-Finnish epic poetry. For fifty folk songs(runes) the heroes of "Kalevala" are sung. There is no historical basis in these songs. The adventures of the heroes have a purely fabulous character. The epic also does not have a single plot, as in the Iliad, but summary"Kalevala" will be presented here.

Folklore processing

The Karelian folk epic began to be processed and written down only in the nineteenth century. The well-known Finnish doctor and linguist Elias Lönnrot collected various variants epic songs, made a selection, trying to plotly connect the individual parts with each other. The first edition of "Kalevala" was published in 1835, and only after almost fifteen years - the second. The Finnish epic was translated into Russian in 1888 and published in the "Pantheon of Literature" by the poet L.P. Belsky. Public opinion was unanimous: "Kalevala" is literature and a pure source of new information about the religious pre-Christian ideas of the Karelians and Finns.

The name of the epic was given by Lönnrot himself. Kalevala was the name of the country in which folk heroes live and perform feats. Only the name of the country is a little shorter - Kaleva, because the suffix la in the language denotes just the place of residence: living in Kaleva. It was there that the people settled their heroes: Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, Lemminkäinen - all three were sung as the sons of this fertile land.

The composition of the epic

A poem of fifty runes was formed from various separate songs - there were both lyrical and epic, and even magical content. Lönnrot most recorded directly from peasant lips, and some have already been recorded by folklore collectors. The most songful regions ended up in Russian Karelia, in the Olonets province and in the Arkhangelsk regions, on the banks of Ladoga and in Finnish Karelia, there the people's memory has preserved very, very much.

The runes do not show us historical realities; not a single war with other peoples is reflected there. Moreover, neither the people, nor society, nor the state are shown, as in Russian epics. In the runes, the family rules everything, but even family relationships do not set goals for the heroes to perform feats.

Bogatyrs

The ancient pagan beliefs of the Karelians give the heroes of the epic not only physical strength, and not even so much of it, as magical powers, the ability to conjure, speak, make magical artifacts. Bogatyrs have the gift of shapeshifting, they can turn anyone into anything, travel, instantly moving to any distance, and control the weather and atmospheric phenomena. Even a brief summary of "Kalevala" will not do without fabulous events.

The songs of the Karelian-Finnish epic are diverse, and it is impossible to fit them into a single plot. Kalevala, like many other epics, opens with the creation of the world. The sun, stars, moon, sun, earth appear. The daughter of the wind gives birth to Väinämöinen, it will be the protagonist epic, which will equip the earth and sow barley. Among the many and varied adventures of the hero, there is one that can claim to be the beginning of a basic, albeit thread-like plot.

wonderful boat

Väinämöinen meets by chance with a maiden of the North, as beautiful as day. In response to the proposal to become his wife, she agrees on the condition that the hero builds a magical boat for her from fragments of a spindle. The inspired hero set to work so zealously that the ax could not hold back and injured himself. The blood did not subside in any way, I had to visit a healer. Here is the story of how the iron came about.

The healer helped, but the hero never returned to work. With a spell, he raised his wind grandfather, who sought out and delivered the most skilled blacksmith, Ilmarinen, to Pohjola, the country of the North. The blacksmith obediently forged for the maiden of the North the magical Sampo mill, which brings happiness and wealth. These events contain the first ten runes of the epic.

Treason

In the eleventh rune, a new heroic character appears - Lemminkäinen, completely replacing previous events from songs. This hero is warlike, a real sorcerer and a great lover of women. Having introduced the listeners to the new hero, the narration returned to Väinämöinen. What the hero in love did not have to endure in order to achieve his goal: he even descended into the underworld, let himself be swallowed by the giant Viipunen, but still got the magic words that were needed to build a boat from a spindle, on which he sailed to Pohjola to marry.

It wasn't there. During the absence of the hero, the northern maiden managed to fall in love with the skilled blacksmith Ilmarinen and married him, refusing to fulfill her word given to Väinämöinen. Not only the wedding is described in detail here, with all its customs and traditions, even the songs that were sung there are given, clarifying the duty and obligation of the husband to his wife and the wife to her husband. This storyline ends only in the twenty-fifth song. Unfortunately, the very brief content of "Kalevala" does not contain the exceptionally sweet and numerous details of these chapters.

sad tale

Further, six runes tell about the remote adventures of Lemminkäinen in the northern region - in Pohjola, where the Northern one reigns, not only no longer a virgin, but also spiritually corrupted, with an unkind, acquisitive and selfish character. With the thirty-first rune begins one of the most piercing and deeply sensual stories, one of the best parts of the entire epic.

For five songs, it tells about the sad fate of the beautiful hero Kullervo, who unknowingly seduced his own sister. When the whole situation was revealed to the heroes, both the hero himself and his sister could not bear the sin they had committed and died. This is a very sad story, written (and, apparently, translated) exquisitely, penetratingly, with a great sense of sympathy for the characters so severely punished by fate. The epic "Kalevala" gives many such scenes, where love for parents, for children, for native nature is sung.

War

The next runes tell how three heroes united (including the unlucky blacksmith) in order to take away the magical treasure - Sampo from the evil Northern maiden. The heroes of Kalevala did not give up. Nothing could be decided by battle here, and it was decided, as always, to resort to sorcery. Väinämöinen, like our Novgorod gusler Sadko, built himself a musical instrument - a kantele, enchanted nature with his play and put all northerners to sleep. Thus the heroes stole Sampo.

The Mistress of the North pursued them and plotted against them until the Sampo fell into the sea. She sent monsters, pestilence, all kinds of disasters to Kaleva, and meanwhile Väinämöinen did new tool, on which he played even more magically than he returned the sun and moon stolen by the mistress of Pohjola. Having collected the fragments of Sampa, the hero did a lot of good things for the people of his country, a lot of good deeds. Here is quite a long joint adventure three heroes almost ends "Kalevala". Retelling this story is no substitute for reading a work that has inspired many artists to create great works. This must be read in its entirety to be truly enjoyed.

divine baby

So, the epic came to its last rune, very symbolic. This is practically an apocrypha for the birth of the Savior. The maiden from Kaleva - Maryatta - gave birth to a divinely wonderful son. Väinämöinen was even afraid of the power that this two-week-old child possessed, and advised him to kill him immediately. What the baby hero shamed, reproaching for injustice. The hero listened. He finally sang a magical song, got into a wonderful canoe and left Karelia to a new and more worthy ruler. Thus ends the epic "Kalevala".

Finnish poem compiled by the scholar Elias Lennrot and published by him first in more summary in 1835, then with large quantity songs in 1849. The name K., given to the poem by Lennrot, is the epic name of the country in which Finnish folk heroes live and act. The suffix la means place of residence, so Kalevala is the place of residence of Kalev, mythologically. the ancestor of the Finnish heroes - Veinemeinen, Ilmarinen, Lemminkainen, sometimes called his sons. Individual folk songs (runes), part of the epic, part of the lyrical, part of the magical character, recorded from the words of the Finnish peasants by Lennrot himself and the collectors who preceded him, served as the material for the compilation of an extensive poem of 50 songs. The oldest runes are best remembered in Russian Karelia, in the Arkhangelsk (Vuokkinyemi parish) and Olonets lips. (in Repol and Himola), as well as in some places of Finnish Karelia and on the western shores Lake Ladoga, to Ingria. In recent times (1888) runes were recorded in significant numbers in the west of St. Petersburg and in Estonia (K. Kron). The ancient Germanic (Gothic) word rune (runo) is what the Finns currently call the song in general; but in ancient times, during the period of paganism, magic runes or conspiracy runes (loitsu runo) were of particular importance, as a product of shamanistic beliefs that once dominated among the Finns, as well as among their relatives - Lapps, Voguls, Zyryans and others Finno-Ugric peoples. Under the influence of a collision with more developed peoples - the Germans and Slavs - the Finns, especially during the period of the Scandinavian Vikings (VIII-XI centuries), went further in their spiritual development than other shamanistic peoples, enriched their religious performances images of elemental and moral deities, created types of ideal heroes and at the same time achieved certain form and significant art in their poetic works, which, however, did not cease to be popular and did not close, like the Scandinavians, among professional singers. The distinctive external form of the rune is a short, eight-syllable verse, not rhyming, but rich in alliteration. A feature of the warehouse is the almost constant comparison of synonyms in two adjacent verses, so that each next verse is a paraphrase of the previous one. The latter property is explained by the way of folk singing in Finland: the singer, having agreed with a friend about the plot of the song, sits down opposite him, takes his hands, and they begin to sing, swaying back and forth. At the last measure of each stanza, it is the turn of the assistant, and he sings the whole stanza alone, and meanwhile the singer ponders the next one at her leisure. Good singers know many runes, sometimes they keep several thousand verses in their memory, but they sing either individual runes or sets of several runes, linking them at their discretion, having no idea of ​​the existence of an integral epic, which some scientists find in the runes. Indeed, in K. there is no main plot that would link all the runes together (as, for example, in the Iliad or the Odyssey). Its content is extremely varied. It opens with a legend about the creation of the earth, sky, luminaries and the birth of the main character of the Finns, Veinemeinen, who arranges the earth and sows barley, by the daughter of air. The following is about different adventures the hero meeting, by the way, the beautiful maiden of the North: she agrees to become his bride if he miraculously creates a boat from fragments of her spindle. Having started work, the hero wounds himself with an ax, cannot stop the bleeding and goes to the old healer, who is told a legend about the origin of iron. Returning home, Veinemeinen raises the wind with spells and transfers the blacksmith Ilmarinen to the country of the North, Pohjola, where he, according to the promise given by Veinemeinen, forges for the mistress of the North a mysterious object that gives wealth and happiness - Sampo (runes I-XI). The following runes (XI-XV) contain an episode about the adventures of the hero Lemminkainen, a dangerous seducer of women and at the same time a warlike sorcerer. The story then returns to Veinemeinen; it describes his descent into the underworld, his stay in the womb of the giant Vipunen, his obtaining from the last three words necessary to create a wonderful boat, the hero's departure to Pohjola in order to receive the hand of a northern maiden; however, the latter preferred the blacksmith Ilmarinen to him, whom she marries, and the wedding is described in detail and wedding songs are given that set out the duties of a wife to her husband (XVI-XXV). Further runes (XXVI-XXXI) are occupied again by the adventures of Lemminkainen in Pohjol. The episode about the sad fate of the hero Kullervo, who, out of ignorance, seduced his own sister, as a result of which both, brother and sister, commit suicide (runes XXXI-XXXVI), belong in the depth of feeling, sometimes reaching true pathos, to the best parts of the entire poem. Further runes contain a lengthy story about the common enterprise of three Finnish heroes - getting the Sampo treasure from Pohjola, about making a kantela (harp) by Veinemeinen, by playing which he enchants all nature and lulls the population of Pohjola, about the Sampo being taken away by the heroes, about their persecution by the sorceress-mistress of the North , about the fall of the Sampo in the sea, about the blessings rendered by Veinemeinen to his native country through the fragments of the Sampo, about his struggle with various disasters and monsters sent by the mistress of Pohjola to K., about the hero’s wondrous game on a new kantele created by him when the first one fell into the sea , and about the return to them of the sun and moon, hidden by the mistress of Pohjola (XXXVI-XLIX). The last rune contains a folk-apocryphal legend about the birth of a miraculous child by the virgin Maryatta (the birth of the Savior). Veinemeinen gives advice to kill him, as he is destined to surpass the power of the Finnish hero, but the two-week-old baby showers Veinemeinen with reproaches of injustice, and the ashamed hero, having sung in last time marvelous song, leaves forever in a canoe from Finland, giving way to the baby Maryatta, the recognized ruler of Karelia. It is difficult to point out a common thread that would link the various episodes of K. into one artistic whole. E. Aspelin believed that its main idea is the chanting of the change of summer and winter on the north. Lennrot himself, denying the unity and organic connection in the runes of K., admitted, however, that the songs of the epic are aimed at proving and clarifying how the heroes of the country of Kaleva overpower the population of Pohjola and conquer the latter. Julius Kron claims that K. is imbued with one idea - about creating Sampo and getting it into the ownership of the Finnish people - but admits that the unity of the plan and ideas are not always seen with the same clarity. Deutsch scientist background Pettau divides K. into 12 cycles, completely independent of each other. The Italian scientist Comparetti, in an extensive work on K., comes to the conclusion that it is not possible to assume unity in the runes, that the combination of runes made by Lennrot is often arbitrary and still gives the runes only an illusory unity; finally, that from the same materials it is possible to make other combinations according to some other plan. Lennrot did not open the poem, which was in a hidden state in runes (as Steinthal believed) - he did not open it because such a poem did not exist among the people. The runes in the oral transmission, even though they were connected by the singers several times (for example, several adventures of Veinemeinen or Lemminkaneinen), just as little represent an integral epic, like Russian epics or Serbian youth songs. Lennrot himself admitted that when he combined the runes into an epic, some arbitrariness was inevitable. Indeed, as a check of Lennrot's work showed with options recorded by himself and other rune collectors, Lennrot chose such retellings that were most suitable for the plan drawn by him, rallied runes from particles of other runes, made additions, added separate verses for greater coherence of the story, and the last rune (50) can even be called his composition, although based on folk legends. For his poem, he skillfully utilized all the richness of Finnish songs, introducing, along with narrative runes, ritual, incantation, family songs, and this gave K. capital interest as a means of studying the worldview, concepts, life and poetic creativity Finnish common people. Characteristic of the Finnish epic is the complete absence of a historical basis: the adventures of the heroes differ purely fabulous character; no echoes of the historical clashes between the Finns and other peoples were preserved in the runes. In K. there is no state, people, society: she knows only the family, and her heroes perform feats not in the name of their people, but to achieve personal goals, like heroes wonderful tales. The types of heroes are in connection with the ancient pagan views of the Finns: they perform feats not so much with the help of physical strength, but through conspiracies, like shamans. They may accept different kind, wrap other people in animals, miraculously move from place to place, cause atmospheric phenomena - frosts, fogs, etc. The proximity of the heroes to the deities of the pagan period is still very vividly felt. The high importance attached by the Finns to the words of the song and music is also remarkable. A prophetic person who knows conspiracy runes can work miracles, and the sounds extracted by the marvelous musician Veinemeinen from the kantela conquer all nature for him. In addition to ethnographic, K. is also of high artistic interest. Its advantages include: simplicity and brightness of images, deep and living feeling nature, high lyrical impulses, especially in the depiction of human grief (for example, a mother's longing for her son, children for their parents), healthy humor penetrating some episodes, a successful characterization of the characters. If you look at K. as an integral epic (Kron's view), then it will turn out to have many shortcomings, which, however, are characteristic of more or less all oral folk epic works: contradictions, repetitions of the same facts, too large sizes of some particulars in relation to to the whole. The details of some upcoming action are often set out in extremely detail, and the action itself is told in a few insignificant verses. This kind of disproportion depends on the quality of the memory of one or another singer and is often encountered, for example, in our epics. Literature. German translations. K. - Shifner (Helsingfors, 1852) and Paul (Helsingfors, 1884-86); French - Leouzon Le Duc (1867); English - I. M. Crawford (New York, 1889); small excerpts in Russian translation are given by Ya. K. Grot ("Contemporary", 1840); several runes in Russian. translation published by Mr. Gelgren ("Kullervo" - M., 1880; "Aino" - Helsingfors, 1880; runes 1-3 (Helsingfors, 1885); full Russian translation by L. P. Belsky: "Kalevala - Finnish folk epic"(St. Petersburg, 1889). Of the numerous studies on K. (not counting Finnish and Swedish), the main ones are: Jacob Grimm, "Ueber das finnische Epos" ("Kleine Schriften" II); Moritz Eman, "Main features from the ancient epic Kalevala" (Helsingfors, 1847); v. Tettau, "Ueber die epischen Dichtungen de finnischen Volker, besonders d. Kalewala" (Erfurt, 1873); Steinthal, "Das Epos" (in "Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie" V., 1867); Jul. Krohn, "Die Entstehung der einheitlichen Epen im allgemeinen" (in "Zeitschrift far Völkerpsychologie", XVIII, 1888); his own, "Kalewala Studien" (in German translation from Swedish, ibid.); Eliel Aspelin, "Le Folklore en Finlande" ("Melusine", 1884, no. 3); Andrew Lang, "Custom and Myth" (pp. 156-179); Radloff, in the preface to the 5th volume of "Proben der Volkslitteratur der nurdlichen Turk-Stämme" (St. Petersburg, 1885, p. XXII). About the wonderful Finnish book by Yu. Kron "History of Finnish Literature. Part I. Kalevala", published in Helsingfors (1883), see the article by Mr. Mainov: " A new book about the Finnish folk epic" (in "J. M. H. Pr." 1884, May). Independent processing of extensive materials collected by Y. Kron and other Finnish scientists to criticize the Kalevala is a thorough work of the famous Italian scientist Domenico Comparetti, which was also published in German translation: "Der Kalewala oder die traditionelle Poesie der Finnen" (Halle, 1892).

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24. "KALEVALA" "Kalevala" is a literary treasure not only of the Finno-Ugric spiritual culture, but of all mankind. The Finnish and Karelian runes capture such archaic layers of human self-consciousness that extend to the prehistory of the majority

Kalevala

From the book Encyclopedic Dictionary (K) author Brockhaus F. A.

Kalevala Kalevala is a Finnish poem compiled by the scientist Elias Lönnrot and published by him first in a shorter form in 1835, then with a large number of songs in 1849. The name K., given to the poem by Lönnrot, is the epic name of the country in which they live and act Finnish

Kalevala

TSB

"Kalevala"

From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (KA) of the author TSB

Finnish knife

From the book Small Encyclopedia of Edged Weapons the author Yugrinov Pavel

Finnish knife The Finnish knife is a universal knife, widely used in Finland, Karelia and the Scandinavian countries. First of all, the Finnish knife is intended for household needs. The modern Finnish knife owes its origin to

Finnish epic and Kalevala

From the book Beliefs of pre-Christian Europe author Martyanov Andrey

Finnish epic and "Kalevala" If you ask the name of the Finnish epic, almost everyone will answer - "Kalevala". It is the most translated book written in Finnish; it was translated and re-sung in sixty languages ​​of the world. And it is narrated in a poem (like many epics,

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The epic work "Kalevala", the main characters of which are the subject of our interest in this article, is of Karelian-Finnish origin. The epic is based on songs called runes. The epic exists in oral passing from mouth to mouth, from generation to generation. In written form, the Kalevala epic is known in the processing of Elias Lennrot, a Finnish linguist and physician. Lennrot collected songs, combined runes compositionally, publishing folklore material under common name"Kalevala". In total, Lennrot made two editions of the collection of Karelian-Finnish epic songs: the first time - in 1835, and the second - in 1849, respectively.

"Kalevala" has literary and artistic significance, as well as cultural, because the work is a source of information about the pagan religious ideas of the Karelian and Finnish peoples.

"Kalevala" includes 50 songs. Lennrot placed the runes in such a way that a coherent plot would turn out from the collected material. As a result, the researcher got a poem created on the basis of Karelian-Finnish folklore. Lennrot used material collected before him by peasants who lived on the territory of Karelia. The runes are epic, lyrical and magical, which is characteristic of the pre-Christian heritage of this region.

The specifics of the epic and the plot basis of "Kalevala"

Lennrot carried out a large-scale work on the systematization of separate, unrelated Karelian-Finnish songs. As a result literary heritage replenished with a work that went down in history under the name "Kalevala". The text consists of runes - songs, legends, myths, tales that exist in the Karelian-Finnish culture.

The plot of the epic poem "Kalevala" begins with a classic theogony for this kind of literary works. This term is usually associated by readers with the work of the ancient Greek writer Hesiod, who also owns the text of the same name. This means that "Kalevala" begins with a story about the origin of the universe, nature, the appearance of land and water, and, finally, the first man - the ancestor of people. The first runes of the Kalevala are devoted to this topic.

The word "Kalevala" comes from the name of the place where the ancestor of mankind lived, namely: the ancestor of the heroes - the main characters of "Kalevala". The name of this ancestor is Kalev. In Karelian-Finnish mythology, the idea of ​​​​the relationship between Kalev and the central characters of Lennrot's work - Väinemeinen, Ilmarinen, and also Lemminkäinen - was entrenched. There is an opinion that Kalev was even the father of the above heroes.

In addition to these global themes, "Kalevala" is full of stories, myths about the origin of things that are sacramental for the Karelian-Finnish culture. For example, one of the Kalevala runes tells about the appearance of the favorite drink of the Karelians and Finns - beer. The poet is noted for its detail; it is interesting for the reader to get acquainted with the details that Lennrot included in the final version of the epic. In the rune about beer, for example, table traditions of Karelians and Finns are described. Other runes touch on the theme of music: the reader will find out how certain musical instruments, sounds appeared, who was the first musician and singer.

The leitmotif that permeates all runes without exception is the presence of magic in nature, the ability of a person to influence the surrounding reality with the help of magic.

People experience magical reincarnations, spirits and magicians alternately help and harm the main characters of Kalevala. The characters of the poem are traditionally divided into positive and negative. For example, the figures of Kullervo and Väinemeinen are clearly distinguished by a positive character, but Lemminkäinen, an evil sorcerer who intrigues the heroes, is without a doubt a negative character.

The epic is full of dynamic events, many of which are tragic in nature. The plot of "Kalevala" is full of adventures: the main characters fight enemies, overcome obstacles, acquiring new qualities, magical knowledge and improving spiritually. The finale of "Kalevala" can be called open: the heroes leave in the hope of finding the source of blessings, endless abundance - Sampo. This is nothing but a treasure, a source of eternal happiness, placed by the heroes of Kalevala in the heart of a magic windmill.

Analysis of the runes "Kalevala" in the context of the characteristics of the characters

The characterization of the main characters of Kalevala is not an easy task, since the plot outline of the poem consists of separate fragments. Lennrot seems to have glued the narrative together from pieces, which is why it is difficult for an inexperienced reader of Kalevala: perception constantly emphasizes this fragmentary plot, the lack of natural integrity.

Kalev

The mythological ancestor of the heroes - the main characters of "Kalevala". The name "Kalevala" literally translates as "place of residence of Kalev". The character of Lennrot also has a real-life prototype: we can draw a conclusion about this, analyze the similarity of the names of the heroes of other epic works and historical chronicles.

It seems that some of the runes of the poem are not connected at all. Therefore, it is logical to analyze not so much the plot as individual motives underlying the structure of the Kalevala.

The motive of the creation of the world

Theogonic theme is the subject of the narration of the first runes of the Kalevala. The song that opens the poem tells that there was once a time when there was no heavenly bodies, animals, birds, plants. At this time, water and night dominate. The lonely virgin goddess Ilmatar, grieving and suffering from longing, gives birth to a son from the water. The child is named Väinemöinen.

The world is created from the parts of an egg laid by a duck on Ilmatar's lap. From this egg came the earth and sky, the sun and stars. The relief of the earth is the work of Ilmatar.

Väinemöinen

Central actor Lennrot's poems. Väinemöinen is considered the first person who, however, was born already an old man. The hero is a musician, the inventor of the musical instrument kantele. The character is credited with the role of a rune-singer, soothsayer, sower, sage. Väinemeinen is characterized by the features of an archaic hero of the epic: the hero is a shaman, a sorcerer, skilled in magic and spells. The character uses magic more often than melee weapons.

Väinemöinen, as befits the traditional epic hero, - the result of a "miraculous birth", and the poem constantly emphasizes the motive of the hero's heavenly origin - from a virgin without a father. Ilmatar - Väinemeinen's mother - went pregnant for a very long time, and therefore the maiden's son was born already an adult - at the time of birth, the hero was 30 years old.

The hero overcomes many obstacles on the way spiritual development. Väinemöinen fights another bogatyr named Joukahainen. He survives, but Väinemöinen marries the sister of his Lapland rival, Aino. The girl does not want to marry the unloved, and commits suicide. Väinemöinen's mother advises her son to go to the northern kingdom of shadows Pohjelu.

Joukahainen prevents Väinemeinen from getting to Pohjola, but the hero still ends up in the North. The mistress of the seventh region - Loukhi - an insidious old woman - refuses to help Väinemeinen until the hero brings Sampo. However, only a skilled blacksmith named Ilmarinen is able to make Sampo.

Väinemöinen is improving in witchcraft. The hero even resurrects the powerful sorcerer Vipunen to teach the hero magical tricks. The sorcerer swallows the hero, but Väinemeinen manages to learn new spells.

Väinemöinen in cunning ways drags Ilmarinen to Pohjela so that the blacksmith forges Sampo for Loukhi. However, in the future, three heroes - Väinemeinen, Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen - kidnap Sampo from the Northern Kingdom. With the help of playing the kantele and songs, Väinemöinen lulls the inhabitants of the North. Upon awakening, Louhi sends a chase after the kidnappers, as a result of which the Sampo is broken, Väinemöinen loses the kantele.

It is curious that the hero made the first kantele from the bones of a magical fish - pike. Väinemöinen makes the second instrument from a birch base, and the hair of the hero's beloved serves as the strings.

Väinemeinen is also credited with the role of the first farmer. The hero grows the first plants, trees, crops on earth. Thus, Väinemeinen is the ancestor of people, as well as a participant in the process of creation and design of the world.

Motif of love

The motive of love is associated with several characters of Kalevala: these are Aino and Kullervo. The latter, in particular, unknowingly enters into an incestuous relationship with his own sister. This is the motif of incestuous love in Kalevala. Kullervo is the most unfortunate hero of the poem, a hero with a tragic fate. The uncle of the young man - Untamo - is guilty of the death of the hero's parent - Kalervo. Kullervo grows up as an orphan, dreaming one day to avenge his father's death. Mother - miraculously survived the extermination of the Kalervo family - tells her son the story of his father's death.

Untamo wants to destroy the last survivor of the Kalervo family. However, Kullervo remains alive, but the uncle cannot force the young man to serve him. Then Untamo sends his nephew to Ilmarinen to teach the boy blacksmithing.

Since childhood, Kullervo has been endowed with extraordinary strength. Being in the service of Ilmarinen, Kullervo meets the blacksmith's wife. She was trusted by the mistress of the North Louhi. The insidious sorceress wants to kill Kullervo and sends the young man to graze the cows. On the way, the beautiful wife gives the guy bread, inside of which the girl baked a stone. Trying to cut the bread, Kullervo broke the knife - the legacy of his father. Angry at Ilmarinen's wife, Kullervo drowns the cows in the swamp, and instead of them, he drives home a herd of wild animals - under the guise of cows. Louhi's daughter is killed by animals when she tries to milk them.

The young man runs away from the blacksmith's house, however, upon arrival at home, he realizes that all his relatives are alive. But we do not like Kullervo at home. Only a mother feels love for her son. Kullervo meets a girl. However, later it turns out that the girl is the sister of the hero. From the realization of perfect incest, the sister ends her life. Kullervo, in the war with his uncle, exterminates his entire family. Returning home - this time - the hero realizes that his relatives are dead. Out of grief, Kullervo commits suicide by throwing himself on a sword.

Aino

The legend about the girl Aino, who did not want to become the wife of the elder Väinemöinen, entered art as a separate plot. Defeated in battle, Joukahainen promised the singer to marry his sister. However, the beauty rejected the hero, throwing herself into the sea in despair. Väinemöinen managed to catch the fish that Aino had turned into from the water. But the sage could not keep the catch.

The motive of unhappy love is also connected with the figure of Ilmarinen. Having lost his beloved wife - a beauty from the kingdom of Pohjela, Ilmarinen creates a second wife - from gold. However, the golden beauty is soulless and insensitive. It is known that brides should be taken from Pohjola. Therefore, the heroes regularly visit the Northern Territory in the hope of finding a wife. The bogatyr Lemminkäinen is no exception.

Lennrot mentions the nickname of this hero - "careless". This corresponds to the character of the Kalevala character. Lemminkäinen is characterized by self-confidence, carelessness, fun. The hero killed the swan, for which he himself was killed. Lemminkäinen's mother saved and revived her son with the help of witchcraft, collecting all the parts of the murdered. The character is depicted as a master of sorcery and a seducer of women.

The bogatyr also took a wife from Pohjola. The first wife brought disappointment to the hero, so Lemminkäinen turned to Louhi to woo the second wife from the old woman.

Louhi gives the hero a test. However, as a result, Louhi gave her daughter to Ilmarinen. Angry at the old woman, Lemminkäinen arrived at the wedding and killed Louhi's husband. From the revenge of the old woman and the punishment for the crime, the hero fled, hiding on one of the islands.

The motive of evil and confrontation

In Kalevala, positive forces are balanced by a negative beginning. This feature is characteristic of the epic. The bearer of negative traits is the already mentioned Joukahainen. This hero is characterized by pride and self-confidence. Joukahainen is self-taught. The character learned witchcraft by challenging Väinemöinen himself to a duel. The hero wanted to defeat the sorcerer in order to take over his craft.

However, Väinemöinen won the battle. Then Joukahainen promised the winner Aino - a sister who was to become the wife of an old man - the ancestor of the Kalevala world. This is the price of life. Joukahainen is considered the demonic character of the Kalevala. The hero comes from Lapland. When Aino committed suicide, the girl's brother fired an arrow at Väinemöinen, which wounded the old man in the leg.

Loukhi is also recognized as a negative character of Kalevala. The old woman is the evil mistress of the Northern Kingdom of Pohjola. Louhi is the source of evil, misfortune, disease. The sorceress dreams of getting a magical source of happiness and prosperity - Sampo. Pokhela is mirror reflection Kalevala, the land that opposes the land of Kalev. Louhi is the thief of the heavenly bodies, the cause of the misfortunes of the Kalevala.

The motif of craft and craftsmanship

In Kalevala, it is important not only to hold a sword, but also to know spells, to master magic. Beyond this, a blacksmith, a craftsman appears as a participant in the key events of the plot of the poem. It's about about Ilmarinen.

Only Ilmarinen can forge magic item- Sampo. The blacksmith also marries Louhi's daughter, and in return provides the old woman with Sampo.

In the runes of the Kalevala, Ilmarinen is called the brother of Väinemeinen, with whom they create heavenly fire. The hero is a pioneer in blacksmithing, because Ilmarinen is the first to forge iron products.

The blacksmith's first wife is the daughter of Louhi. After the death of his wife, Ilmarinen returns to Pohjola. However, the new chosen one, kidnapped from the Northern Territory, quarrels with the groom, and he turns the bride into a bird.

When Louhi steals the Sun, Ilmarinen comes to the rescue and tries to forge a new luminary, getting burned in the process.

A significant place in the "Kalevala" is occupied by the legend of Sampo - a miraculous object that gives eternal grace and happiness. Shards Sampo Väinemöinen uses for good home country- Kalevala. The end of the poem is symbolic. The last song of Kalevala contains a prediction about the “miraculous birth” of a child by a certain maiden named Maryatta. Väinemöinen is hostile to the birth of a child, because the baby, according to prophecy, will destroy Väinemöinen. We are talking about Christianity, which will overthrow the power of paganism.

Karelian-Finnish epic "Kalevala": the main characters

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One of the most famous monuments of the past is the Karelian-Finnish poetic epic " Kalevala". The epic itself was written by the Finnish linguist Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884). He based his work on Karelian folk songs. Elias Lönnrot collected epic songs and plotted them into one whole, having received a full-fledged work, which has a certain plot and main characters. Despite the fact that the poetic epic is a selection, substitution and processing of folk songs, Kalevala is considered an important source of information about pre-Christian beliefs and the worldview of such peoples as the Finns and Karelians.

The processing of folk songs was carried out by the author of Kalevala twice. The first edition appeared in 1835, and the second in 1849. For the first time translation into Russian was carried out by Leonid Petrovich Belsky - translator, literary critic, poet. Despite the fact that other translators later translated Kalevala, it is under the translation of Belsky Kalevala that most Russian-speaking readers know. For the first time in Russian, the Karelian-Finnish epic was published in 1888 in the journal Pantheon of Literature.

The material for the composition of the poem was a collection of folk songs of Karelian and Finnish peasants, which were collected by Lönnrot himself and his predecessors. The epic tells about a certain country Kalevala. The name "Kalevala" comes from the name of the ancestor of the heroes - Kalev. In the Karelian-Finnish myths, the children of Kaleva are the legendary heroes - Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen. It is these heroes who become the main characters of Kalevala. The Kalevala describes the moment of the creation of heaven and earth, as well as various adventures mythological heroes. Researchers who have been and are still doing a detailed study this work, indicate that almost no match historical events and events in Kalevala can not be found. Most likely, all the songs from which the epic was composed are part of the mythology of the Karelian-Finns, that is, pagan ideas about gods, spirits, heroes and the arrangement of the world.

Kalevala has become so famous and so important for the inhabitants of Karelia and Finland that in honor of this epic there is even a national holiday - “The Day of the Kalevala Folk Epic”, which is celebrated on February 28.

Buy the Karelian-Finnish epic "Kalevala" translated by L. P. Belsky in the online store.

Akseli Gallen-Kallela paintings on the theme of "Kalevala"

Fratricide

Sampo Defense

Ilmarinen plows the snake field, fresco

Legend of Aino

Lemminkäinen's mother