Kalevala. Karelian-Finnish folk epic. From the Karelian-Finnish epic "Kalevala" by E. Lennrot Summary of the Karelian-Finnish epic

Kalevala begins with a rune that tells about the birth of the earth, about how the daughter of air brought into the world Väinämöinen, the main character of the Karelian epic. He conquers the beautiful maiden of the North and she becomes his betrothed, but on the condition that the groom builds a boat from the remnants of the spindle. With the help of spells, the hero summons the blacksmith Ilmarinen, and he forged the magical Sampo mill for the mistress of the North.

In the following runes, a new character appears - Lemminkäinen. And our main character gets into different stories, but comes out the winner. When Väinämöinen is ready to make a boat, his fiancee chooses to marry a blacksmith.

The runes about three Karelian heroes tell how they got the treasures of Sampo and Pohjela, how they were overtaken by the sorceress of the North, and Väinämöinen fights monsters and returns the sun and moon to heaven.

The final rune describes the birth of a magical baby who is destined to become a hero instead of Väinämöinen. He reluctantly agrees, recognizing that the child is worthy to become the ruler of Karelia.

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Summary of Kalevala Lennrot

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✪ KALEVALA (Karelian-Finnish epic about the Creation of the World (abbreviated))

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Folk songs (runes)

The name "Kalevala", given to the poem by Lönnrot, is the epic name of the country in which Karelian folk heroes live and act. Suffix la means place of residence, so Kalevala- this is the place of residence of Kalev, the mythological ancestor of the heroes Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, Lemminkäinen, sometimes called his sons.

Lönnrot served as material for compiling an extensive poem of 50 songs (runes) from individual folk songs, partly epic, partly lyrical, partly magical in nature, recorded from the words of Karelian and Finnish peasants by Lönnrot himself and the collectors who preceded him. The best remembered ancient runes (songs) in Russian Karelia, in Arkhangelsk (Vuokkiniemi parish - Voknavolok) and Olonets provinces - in Repol (Reboly) and Himol (Gimola), as well as in some places of Finnish Karelia and on the western shores of Lake Ladoga, until Ingria.

In the Kalevala there is no main plot that would link all the songs 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 protagonist of the Karelians, Väinämöinen, by the daughter of air, who arranges the earth and sows barley. The following tells about the various adventures of the hero, who, by the way, meets 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, Väinämöinen 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 Väinämöinen, forges for the mistress of the North a mysterious object that gives wealth and happiness - the Sampo mill (runes I-XI).

The following runes (XI-XV) contain an episode about the adventures of the hero Lemminkäinen, a militant sorcerer and seducer of women. The story then returns to Väinämöinen; his descent into the underworld, his stay in the womb of the giant Viipunen, his obtaining from the last three words necessary to create a wonderful boat, the departure of the hero to Pohjola in order to receive the hand of a northern maiden are described; however, the latter preferred the blacksmith Ilmarinen to him, whom she marries, and the wedding is described in detail and wedding songs are given outlining the duties of the wife and husband (XVI-XXV).

Runes (XXVI-XXXI) again tell about the adventures of Lemminkäinen in Pohjola. The episode about the sad fate of the hero Kullervo, who unknowingly seduced his sister, as a result of which both, brother and sister, commit suicide (runes XXXI-XXXVI), belongs in depth of feeling, sometimes reaching true pathos, to the best parts of the whole poem. The runes about the bogatyr Kullervo were recorded by Lönnrot's assistant folklorist Daniel Europeus.

Further runes contain a lengthy story about the common enterprise of the three Karelian heroes - about how the treasures of Sampo from Pohjola (Finland) were mined, how Väinämöinen made a kantele and by playing on it enchanted all nature and lulled the population of Pohjola, how Sampo was taken away by heroes. It tells about the persecution of heroes by the sorceress-mistress of the North, about the fall of Sampo into the sea, about the blessings rendered by Väinämöinen to his native country through the fragments of Sampo, about his struggle with various disasters and monsters sent by the mistress of Pohjola to Kalevala, about the marvelous game of the hero on a new kantele created them when the first 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). Väinämöinen gives advice to kill him, as he is destined to surpass the power of the Karelian hero, but the two-week-old baby showers Väinämöinen with accusations of injustice, and the ashamed hero, having sung a wondrous song for the last time, leaves forever in a canoe, giving way to the baby Maryatta, the recognized ruler of Karelia.

Philological and ethnographic analysis

It is difficult to point out a common thread that would link the various episodes of the Kalevala into one artistic whole. E. Aspelin believed that its main idea was the chanting of the change of summer and winter in the North. Lönnrot himself, denying the unity and organic connection in the runes of Kalevala, admitted, however, that the songs of the epic are aimed at proving and clarifying how the heroes of the country of Kalev subjugate the population of Pohjola. Julius Kron argues that Kalevala is imbued with one idea - about creating Sampo and getting it into the ownership of the Karelian people - but admits that the unity of the plan and idea is not always seen with the same clarity. The German scientist von Pettau divides the Kalevala into 12 cycles, completely independent of each other. The Italian scientist Comparetti, in an extensive work on Kaleval, comes to the conclusion that it is impossible to assume unity in the runes, that the combination of runes made by Lönnrot 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.

Lönnrot 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. Runes in oral transmission, even if they were connected by singers several times (for example, several adventures of Väinämöinen or Lemminkäinen), represent as little an integral epic as Russian epics or Serbian youth songs. Lönnrot himself admitted that when he combined the runes into an epic, some arbitrariness was inevitable. Indeed, as the verification of Lönnrot's work with the variants recorded by himself and other rune collectors showed, Lönnrot chose such retellings that were most suitable for the plan he had drawn, 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 wealth of Karelian songs, introducing, along with narrative runes, ritual, incantation, family songs, and this gave Kalevala considerable interest as a means of studying the worldview, concepts, life and poetic creativity of the Finnish common people.

Characteristic of the Karelian epic is the complete absence of a historical basis: the adventures of the heroes are of a purely fairy-tale character; no echoes of the historical clashes of the Karelians with other peoples have been preserved in the runes. In Kalevala 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 of wonderful fairy tales. The types of heroes are in connection with the ancient pagan views of the Karelians: they perform feats not so much with the help of physical strength, but through conspiracies, like shamans. They can take on different forms, turn other people into animals, miraculously move from place to place, cause atmospheric phenomena - frost, fog, and so on. The closeness of the heroes to the deities of the pagan period is also felt. It should also be noted the high importance attached by the Karelians, and later by the Finns, to the words of the song and music. A prophetic person who knows conspiracy runes can work miracles, and the sounds extracted by the marvelous musician Väinämöinen from the kantele conquer all nature to him.

In addition to ethnographic, Kalevala is also of high artistic interest. Its advantages include: simplicity and brightness of images, a deep and lively sense of 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 that pervades some episodes, and a successful characterization of the characters. If you look at the Kalevala 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 whole. The details of some upcoming action are often set out in great 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 found, for example, in Russian epics.

However, there are also historical facts, intertwined with geographical ones, partially confirming the events described in the epic. To the north of the current village of Kalevala there is Lake Topozero - the sea through which the heroes sailed. Settled along the shores of the lake Saami- the people of Pohjola. The Saami had strong sorcerers(Old Woman Loukhi). But the Karelians were able to push the Saami far to the north, subjugate the population of Pohjola and conquer the latter [ ] .

Kalevala Day

Every year on February 28, the "Day of the Folk Epic of the Kalevala" is celebrated - the official day of Finnish and Karelian culture, the same day is dedicated to the Finnish flag. Every year in Karelia and Finland, the Kalevala Carnival takes place, in the form of a street costumed procession, as well as theatrical performances based on the plot of the epic.

Kalevala in art

• The first written mention of the heroes of Kalevala is contained in the books of the Finnish bishop and pioneer Mikael Agricola in the 16th century [ ] .
• The first monument to the hero of Kalevala was erected in 1831 in Vyborg.
• The poem was first translated into Russian in 1888 by the poet and translator Leonid Petrovich Belsky.
• In Russian literature, the image of Väinemöinen is found for the first time in the poem of the Decembrist F. N. Glinka "Karelia"
• 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" (1860).
• The most significant contribution to the musical embodiment of the Kalevala was made by the classic of Finnish music Jan Sibelius.
• Kalevala was translated into Ukrainian by linguist Yevgeny Timchenko. In Belarus, the first translation was made by the poet and writer Mikhas Mashara. The newest one is by the translator Jakub Lapatka.
• The Latvian translation was made by Linard Laizen.
• The Nenets translation was made by Vasily Ledkov.
• Plots of "Kalevala" are present in the work of many artists. The Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Karelia has a unique collection of works of fine art on the themes of the Kalevala epic. A cycle of paintings with scenes from the Kalevala by the Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela is widely known.
• In 1933, the publishing house Academia released "Kalevala" with illustrations and in general artistic design by the students of Pavel Filonov, Masters of Analytical Art T. Glebova, A. Poret, M. Tsybasova and others. Filonov himself was the editor of illustrations and design. (Electronic version of the publication.)
• Based on the Kalevala, the ballet Sampo was written by the Karelian composer Gelmer Sinisalo, which was first staged in Petrozavodsk on March 27, 1959. This work has been repeatedly performed both in the USSR and abroad.
• In 1959, based on the Kalevala, a joint Soviet-Finnish film Sampo was shot (directed by Alexander Ptushko, script by Väinö Kaukonen, Viktor Vitkovich, Grigory Yagdfeld).
• In 1982, the Finnish director Kalle Holmberg filmed for television a 4-episode film adaptation of Kalevala - Iron Age. Tales of the Kalevala, awarded prizes from the Finnish and Italian film academies. In 2009, the film was released in Russia as a two-DVD set.
• The Silmarillion by John Tolkien was inspired by the Kalevala. [ ] The connection with the Karelian-Finnish epic is also visible in another work by this author - "History of Kullervo".
• Under the influence of the Kalevala, the “Song of Hiawatha” by Henry Longfellow was created.

Among the first propagandists of Kalevala were Jacob Grot in Russia, Jacob Grimm in Germany.

Maxim Gorky put "Kalevala" on a par with the Homeric epic. In 1908, he wrote: "Individual creativity has not created anything equal to the Iliad or the Kalevala." In 1932, he calls the Finno-Karelian epic "a monument of verbal creativity." “Kalevala” is mentioned in the second volume of “The Life of Klim Samgin”, in the chapters devoted to the Finnish impressions of the hero: “Samghin remembered that in childhood he read “Kalevala”, a gift from his mother; this book, written in verses that jumped past memory, seemed boring to him, but his mother nevertheless forced him to read it to the end. And now, through the chaos of everything that he experienced, the epic figures of the heroes of Suomi, fighters against Hiisi and Loukhi, the elemental forces of nature, her Orpheus Väinemöinen ... the cheerful Lemminkäinen - Baldur of the Finns, Ilmarinen, who fettered Sampo, the treasure of the country, arose. Valery Bryusov, Velimir Khlebnikov, Sergei Gorodetsky, Nikolai Aseev have Kalevala motives. "Kalevala" was in the library of Alexander Blok.

Kalevala was highly appreciated by the national poet of Belarus Yakub Kolas, about his work on the poem "Simon the Musician" he said: "Kalevala" gave me a good impetus to work ... And its numerous creators, and I drank from one source, only Finns on the seashore, among the rocks, and we - in our forests and swamps. This living water belongs to no one, it is open to many and for many. And in some ways, the joy and sorrow of every nation are very similar. This means that the works may also be similar ... I was ready to bow at the feet of Lönnrot. "(Based on the book by Maxim Luzhanin" Kolas tells about himself ")

V. G. Belinsky could not appreciate the global significance of the Kalevala. The great critic was familiar with the Finnish epic only in a bad, prosaic retelling. His tense relationship with J.K. Grot, the then main popularizer of Finnish literature in Russia, affected the Slavophile idealization of folk archaism (Finland of that time, like the Slavic countries, was cited by the Slavophiles, for example Shevyryov, as an example of patriarchal integrity as opposed to "corrupted" Europe ). In a review of M. Eman’s book “The Main Features of the Ancient Finnish Epic of the Kalevala,” Belinsky wrote: “We are the first to be ready to do justice to the wonderful and noble feat of Mr. Lönnrot, but we do not consider it necessary to fall into exaggeration. How! all the literatures of Europe, except for Finnish, have turned into some kind of ugly market? ... ". “Frantic Vissarion” objected to the comparison of “Kalevala” with the ancient epic, pointed to the underdevelopment of contemporary Finnish culture: “Some national spirit is so small that it fits in a nutshell, and another is so deep and wide that the whole earth is not enough for it. Such was the national spirit of the ancient Greeks. Homer far from exhausted it in his two poems. And whoever wants to get acquainted and get used to the national spirit of ancient Hellas, Homer alone is not enough, but Hesiod, and the tragedians, and Pindar, and the comedian Aristophanes, and philosophers, and historians, and scientists, and there still remains architecture and sculpture, and finally the study of domestic domestic and political life." (Belinsky V. G. Complete works of vol. X, 1956 p. 277-78, 274 M.)

• In 2001, the children's writer Igor Vostryakov retold the Kalevala for children in prose, and in 2011 he retelled the Kalevala in verse.
• In 2006, the Finnish-Chinese fantasy film "Warrior of the North" was filmed, the plot of which is based on the interweaving of Chinese folk legends and the Karelian-Finnish epic.

Name use

• In the Republic Karelia there is the Kalevala national district and the village of Kalevala.
• There is Kalevala street in Petrozavodsk and Kostomuksha.
• "Kalevala" - a corvette in the Baltic Fleet of the Russian Empire in 1858-1872.
• Kalevala is a bay in the southern part of Posyet Bay in the Sea of ​​Japan. Surveyed in 1863 by the crew of the corvette "Kalevala", named after the ship.
• In Petrozavodsk there is a cinema "Kalevala", a network of bookstores "Kalevala".
• In Syktyvkar there is an indoor market "Kalevala".
• Kalevala is a Russian folk metal band from Moscow.
• "Kalevala" is a song by the Russian rock bands Mara and Chimera.
• In the Prionezhsky district of the Republic of Karelia in the village of Kosalma, the Kalevala Hotel has been operating since the 1970s.
• In Finland since 1935 under the brand Kalevala Koru jewelry made in the traditional technique with a national Baltic-Finnish ornament is produced.
• In Petrozavodsk, in the square named after Elias Lönnrot, a fountain was installed in memory of the heroes of the Kalevala epic.

Translations

Translations into Russian and adaptations

• 1840 - Small excerpts in Russian translation are given by Y. K. Grot ("Contemporary", 1840).
• 1880-1885 - Several runes in Russian translation were published by G. Gelgren ("Kullervo" - M., 1880; "Aino" - Helsingfors, 1880; runes 1-3 Helsingfors, 1885).
• 1888 - Kalevala: Finnish folk epic / Complete verse translation, with a preface and notes by L. P. Belsky. - St. Petersburg: Printing house of N. A. Lebedev, Nevsky Prospekt, 8., 1888. 616 p.). It was repeatedly reprinted in the Russian Empire and the USSR.
• 1960 - From the poem "Kalevala" ("Birth of Kantele", "Golden Maiden", "Aino") // S. Marshak: Op. in 4 vols., vol. 4, pp. 753-788.
• 1981 - Lyubarskaya A. Retelling for children of the Karelian-Finnish epic "Kalevala". Petrozavodsk: Karelia, 1981. - 191 p. (poetic excerpts from the translation of L. P. Belsky).
• 1998 - Lönnrot E. Kalevala. Translated by Eino Kiuru and Armas Mishin. Petrozavodsk: Karelia, 1998. (Republished by the Vita Nova publishing house in 2010).
• 2015 - Pavel Krusanov. Kalevala. Prose retelling. St. Petersburg, "Publishing House K. Tublin" . ISBN 978-5-8370-0713-2

Foreign language translations

• German translations of the Kalevala: Shifner (Helsingfors, 1852) and Paul (Helsingfors, 1884-1886).
• French translation: Leouzon Le Duc (1867).
• Swedish translations: Castren (1841), Collan (1864-1868), Herzberg (1884)
• English translation: I. M. Crawford(New York, 1889).
• Yiddish translation of eighteen runes: H. Rosenfeld, "Kalevala, the folk epic of the Finns" (New York, 1954).
• Translation into Hebrew (in prose): trans. Sarah Tovia, "Kalevala, the country of heroes" (Kalevala, Eretz ha-giborim), Tel Aviv, 1964 (subsequently reprinted several times).
• Translation into Belarusian: Jakub Lapatka Kalevala, Minsk, 2015, simply translated into the Belarusian language

It is on this land that the outstanding Finnish folklorist Elias Lennrot in the 19th century, he wrote down many of the runes included in the world-famous Karelian-Finnish epic Kalevala. Kalevala. The Kalevala epic is the only epic that, along with epics, has folk roots and unites Russia and Finland.

The epic Kalevala. Creation

As early as the 18th century in Finland, attention was paid to surprisingly meaningful and beautiful folk songs that were sung not only in Finnish villages, but which were especially popular among peddlers who came from East Karelia and peddle throughout Finland. They were recorded and published. One of these collectors and publishers was the father of the well-known Finnish writer Zachary Topelius,

He worked as a district doctor in the town of Kajaani. Other collectors and publishers of folk songs, fairy tales, and legends also appeared. At the beginning of the 19th century, interest in hitherto unknown native poetry, in folklore ("folk wisdom") began to grow throughout Europe, which was the merit of the so-called current of romanticism, which was looking for social ideals in the folk life of past eras.

With the accumulation of new material, interest in it increased more and more, and among philologists, the idea arose of the possibility of creating on its basis an epic work similar to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. K. Gotlund was the first to express such an idea, later it was picked up and brought to life by Elias Lennrot (1802–1884).

Karelian-Finnish epic Kalevala. With the world on a string

While still a university student in the city of Turku, he made his first trip to the villages and villages of eastern Finland, where he recorded many incantations, incantations and epic songs mainly among the Karelian population. His further expeditions in Finland, Russian Karelia and other areas brought rich results - he recorded beautiful songs about the deeds of such heroes as Väinemäinen, Lemminkäinen, Ilmarinen, Joukahainen.

When there was quite a lot of such material (others were also involved in the collection of songs, in particular, students were also involved in this work), Elias Lennrot set about creating a work that summarized all the collected works. The work proceeded in stages and in 1833 he wrote and prepared for printing a poem of 16 chapter songs, which was never published, because during his fifth expedition to Karelia, in particular, to the village of Ukhta (now Kalevala), E Lennrot managed to record almost as much new material as he had before.

During this trip in April 1834, E. Lennrot met in the village of Latvajärvi with the most famous Karelian rune singer of those years, Arkhippa Perttunen, from whom he wrote down as many as 4000 lines of poetry. And although there were almost no plots and topics in this material that would not have been known before, the songs performed by this, as he was called, the king of Karelian rune singers, were surprisingly harmonious and consistent in plots and composition. A number of plots, such as, for example, the rune about Sampo, were distinguished by the originality of the interpretation of individual episodes.

Karelian-Finnish epic Kalevala. Edition

As a result of such a successful expedition, E. Lennrot suspended the publication of the finished poem, which later received the name "Pervo-Kalevala", and already at the beginning of 1835 he put into production the epic poem "Kalevala", in which there were 32 chapter songs and a total of about 12000 poetic lines.

The success of this book stimulated a new wave of interest in folk poetry and, in general, in the life of the Karelian people in the wilderness, where, as Finnish scientists, writers, and the intelligentsia thought, elements of everyday life and social relations that seemed ideal to the romantics were still preserved. This is how the wave of so-called Corelianism began, and Karelian villages and villages became a place of pilgrimage for writers, artists, composers and, of course, ethnographers and folklorists.

This led to the accumulation of new runes and other works of folklore. The villages and villages of Akonlakhti (Bab-guba), Voinitsa, Ukhta, Chena, Latvajärvi became famous in the circles of the Finnish cultural community. All this prompted E. Lennrot to continue work on the already published poem. He was motivated to do this, in particular, by recording runes and conversations with such outstanding performers of ancient epic songs as Ontrei Malinen, Vaassila Kieleväinen, Jyrki Kettunen, Soava Trokhkimainen and, of course, Arkhippa Perttunen.

It was their creative execution of the rune and advice that convinced E. Lennrot that the question that had tormented him for a long time, in what sequence to place the events told by individual runes in the poem, should be decided by him. And then the poet exclaimed in the style of the songs he recorded: “I myself will become a rune singer, a good spellcaster!” And now, fourteen years after the publication of the first version of the poem in 1849, a new version appeared, the so-called “complete” Kalevala, in which there were already 50 chapter songs and 22,795 poetic lines.

It was this book that was destined to enter the golden fund of literature along with dozens of other world-famous and revered works of the human spirit. It was the Karelian rune singers, of whom there were hundreds, who made it possible to reveal and extract from under a bushel the material from which Elias Lennrot, who was familiar with tailoring from childhood, cut and skillfully sewed a magnificent work, the 150th anniversary of which we celebrated in 1999.

Epos is a 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 a summary of the 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 versions of epic songs, made a selection, trying to plot 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 recorded most of it directly from the lips of the peasants, and some have already been recorded by folklore collectors. The most songful regions turned out to be in Russian Karelia, in the Olonets province and in the Arkhangelsk regions, on the banks of Ladoga and in Finnish Karelia, where 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 views of the Karelians give the heroes of the epic not only physical strength, and not even so much of it, but 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, this will be the main character of the epic, who 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 the previous events from the 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 made a new instrument, 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, the Kalevala almost ends with a rather long joint adventure of three heroes. 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".

29.10.2015

In the 1820s, the Finnish educator Elias Lönnrot traveled across Russian Karelia. In remote villages: Voknavolok, Rebolakh, Khimola and some others, he recorded the chants of local residents. These runes, after processing, were collected in a single set, known today throughout the world as the "Kalevala".

"Kalevala" is a poem that tells about the beliefs of the Karelians, their worldview, attitude towards nature and the surrounding tribes. The complete work includes more than 20 thousand poems, and the work has been translated into almost all languages ​​of the world. The content of "Kalevala" is distinguished by its diversity, there is no single storyline. Researchers believe that when arranging the runes into a single text, Lönnrot allowed improvisation to bring artistic integrity. Still, all the poems were collected in different places and, in fact, are a compilation of oral folk art.

As in the epics of other peoples, one of the central themes of Kalevala is the creation of the world and the first man. Among the Karelians, the elder Väinämöinen is considered the first earthly inhabitant. He arranges the world under the moon, sows barley and fights enemies. At the same time, he does not act with a sword, but with a word, he is an image of a shaman. Significant events in the history of the Karelian people are retold through the stories of Väinämönen's journey: the manufacture of a boat, which was necessary for life in the land of lakes, the beginning of iron processing, and, finally, the invention of the Sampo mill. Thus, the first 11 runes reflect the appearance of those things without which the Karelians could not survive in the harsh northern lands.

The next 4 runes are dedicated to the brave exploits of the young hunter Lemminkäinen. He travels to the mysterious land of Pohjola. Here, by a feat of arms, he wants to achieve the location of the daughter of the mistress of the North. After several successful antics, Lemminkäinen drowns, but is revived by his mother. Going to Pohjola next time, he kills the master of the North. Some Kalevala researchers believe that here the epic intersects with stories about Osiris and Isis from ancient Egyptian mythology. In addition, the work reveals the themes of unhappy love (episodes with the adventures of the hero Kullervo), about confrontation with neighbors from the north and about achieving wealth.

Finally, one of the last songs tells about the appearance of the Karelian national musical instrument kantele. Thus, "Kalevala" is permeated with historicism. It tells about the most important milestones in the history of the Karelians, about their confrontation with the Sami tribes for fertile lands and control of waterways. The last rune ends with the birth of the Savior from a virgin named Maryatty. Väinämönen offers to kill the wonderful child, but, being misunderstood, swims away in an unknown direction. Here we see a clear allusion to the departure of the pagan tradition into the past and the formation of the Christian faith in Karelia.

The written tradition has not preserved any materials on the history of ancient Karelia. That is why, "Kalevala", as a work of folklore, provides valuable evidence for researchers. Despite the fact that all the adventures of the heroes are fabulous, shrouded in magic, the epic gives an idea of ​​the complex processes of the struggle for land in the Far North. "Kalevala" went down in world history as a magnificent poetic work, sometimes surpassing the Scandinavian sagas or Russian epics.

Kalevala in abbreviation [VIDEO]