Traditions 28.2.

Kalevala Day today

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Kalevala (disambiguation).

Kalevala. The national epic of Finland John Martin Crawford, 1888

The Kalevala is a book and epic poem which the Finn Elias Lönnrot compiled from Finnish and Karelian folklore in the nineteenth century. It is held to be the national epic of Finland and is traditionally thought of as one of the most significant works of Finnish literature. Karelian citizens and other Balto-Finnic speakers also value the work. The Kalevala is credited with some of the inspiration for the national awakening that ultimately led to Finnish government's independence from that of Russia in 1917.
The name can be interpreted as the "lands of Kaleva" (by the Finnishsuffix -la/lä for place). The epic consists of 22,795 verses, dividedinto fifty cantos or "chapters" (Finnish runo).