A list of translations of the Finnish national epic Kalevala in chronological order by language. The epic has appeared in 61 translated languages. [1]
Based partially on the list made by Rauni Puranen and the article here.
Language | Year | Translator | Remark |
---|---|---|---|
German | 1840 | N. Mühlberg | The first 60 lines of the first song, published in: Verhandlungen der gelehrten Esthnischen Gesellschaft zu Dorpat. Ersten Bandes erstes Heft. 1840, 94–96. |
1848 | Jacob Grimm | A short 38 line reading at a presentation in the Berlin Academy of Sciences. | |
1852 | Franz Anton Schiefner | A very important translation used by many other translators to bring Kalevala to their own language. | |
1885–1886 | H. Paul | ||
1967 | Lore Fromm, Hans Fromm | Full translation directly from Finnish. | |
2004 [1] | Gisbert Jänicke | Full translation. | |
Swedish | 1841 | M. A. Castrén | Full translation of the 1835 Old Kalevala. |
1864–1868 | Karl Collan | Full translation of the 1849 Kalevala. | |
1884 | Rafaël Hertzberg | ||
1944 | Olaf Homén | An abridged edition | |
1948 | Björn Collinder | trims about 10% of the text | |
1999 | Lars Huldén and Mats Huldén | ||
French | 1845 and 1867 | Louis Léouzon le Duc | An important translation used by many other translators to bring Kalevala to their own language. |
1926 | Charles Guyot | Abridged version of Louis Léouzon le Duc's translation. | |
1927 | Jean Louis Perret | Full translation in metric verse. | |
1991 | Gabriel Rebourcet | Full translation. In old style French vocabulary. | |
English | 1868 | John Addison Porter | Partial translation (The story of Aino [2] ) via Franz Anton Schiefner's translation. |
1869 | Edward Taylor Fletcher | Partial translation directly from Finnish (with a lengthy essay). | |
1888 [3] | John Martin Crawford | Full translation, via Franz Anton Schiefner's translation. | |
1893 [4] [5] | R. Eivind | A complete prose adaptation for children via Crawford's translation. | |
1907 [6] [7] | William Forsell Kirby | Second full translation. Directly from Finnish. Imitates the Kalevala meter. | |
1950 [4] | Aili Kolehmainen Johnson | Abridged prose translation. | |
1954 [4] | Margaret Sperry | Adapted verse translation of song 50. | |
1963 [8] | Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr. | Scholarly prose translation. Included with detailed essays and background information. | |
1969 [9] | Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr. | Scholarly prose translation of the 1835 Old Kalevala. | |
1977 | Ursula Synge | Abridged prose version. Using W. F. Kirby's translation as a reference. | |
1989 | Eino Friberg | Editing and introduction by George C. Schoolfield. Imitates the Kalevala meter selectively. The songs in this version are also not of the same length or structure as in the original. [10] Released to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the original publication. | |
1989 [11] | Keith Bosley | Uses a syllabic verse form to allow for accuracy and metrical variety; released to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the original publication. Subsequently, published as an audiobook read by the translator himself in 2013. | |
2020 | Kaarina Brooks | Complete translation of runic version of 1835 Old Kalevala, following the Kalevala meter throughout. | |
2021 | Kaarina Brooks | Complete translation of runic version Kalevala, following the Kalevala meter throughout. | |
Hungarian | 1871 | Ferdinánd Barna | Full translation via Franz Anton Schiefner's translation. |
1909 [12] | Béla Vikár | ||
1971 | Kálmán Nagy | ||
1976 | István Rácz | ||
1985 [13] | Antal Reguly | Old Kalevala songs 1-3 and 29. | |
1987 | Imre Szente | ||
Russian | 1888 [14] | Leonid Petrovic Belsky | An important translation used by many other Slavic translators to bring Kalevala to their own language. |
1998 [15] & 2006 [13] | Eino Kiuru and Armas Hiiri | ||
Estonian | 1891–1898 | M. J. Eisen | |
1938 | August Annist | ||
Czech | 1894–1895 | J. Holeček | Full translation in metric verse. |
Ukrainian | 1901 | Jevhen Tymčenko | |
Danish | 1902 | Ferdinand Ohrt | Partial translation. |
1994 | Hilkka and Bent Søndergaard | Full translation of songs 1–22 and 24–50, but excluding song 23, in trochaic tetrameter. | |
2017 | Hilkka and Bent Søndergaard, Erik Skyum Nielsen | Re-issue of the 1994 translation commemorating the centenary of Finland’s independence, with song 23 translated (from the Swedish 1999 translation) by Erik Skyum Nielsen. | |
Italian | 1909 [16] | Igino Cocchi | Verse translation (hendecasyllable) |
1910 [17] | Paolo Emilio Pavolini | Verse translation (original metre) | |
1912 [16] | Francesco Di Silvestri Falconieri | Prose translation | |
1980 | Liliana Calimeri | Used Ursula Synge's version as a model. | |
1988 [16] | Gabriella Agrati and Maria Letizia Magini | Prose translation | |
2010 [16] | Marcello Ganassini | Verse translation (blank verses) | |
Lithuanian | 1922 | Adolfas Sabaliauskas | |
1972 | Justinas Marcinkevičius | ||
Latvian | 1924 [13] | Linards Laicens | |
1965 | ? | Uses trochaic tetrameter and syllable stress rhythm. | |
Dutch | 1928 [13] | Maya Tamminen | Partial prose translation. |
1938 | Wies Moens | Full prose translation. | |
1940 [13] | Jan H. Eekhout. | An excerpt in poetic form. | |
1969 | Jr. Henrik Hartwijk | Translation of song #5. Published in the Yearbook of the Kalevala Society. | |
Serbian | 1935 | Ivan S. Šajković | |
Japanese | 1937 | Kakutan Morimoto | |
1961 [13] | Tsutomu Kuwaki | ||
1976 | Tamotsu Koizumi | ||
Spanish | 1944 | Alejandro Casona | Abridged prose translation, based on Charles Guyot's version. |
1953 | María Dolores Arroyo | Full metric verse translation via Perret's French and Pavolini's Italian translations | |
1967 | Juan B. Bergua | Full prose translation, via French and English translations | |
1985 | Ursula Ojanen and Joaquín Fernández | Full translation directly from Finnish. | |
1995 | Carmen Crouzeilles | Abridged prose translation. Published in Buenos Aires. | |
Romanian | 1946 | Barbu B. Brezianu's | Full prose translation. |
1959 | Iulian Vesper | Full translation using an eight syllable verse form. | |
1985 [13] | P. Starostin | Published in Moldovan which is identical to Romanian. Abridged translation. | |
Hebrew | 1954 | Shaul Tchernichovsky | |
1978 | Sarah Tubia | ||
Yiddish | 1954 [18] | Hersh Rosenfeld | |
Belarusian | 1956 [13] | M. Mašapa | Prose and poetry excerpts. |
Icelandic | 1957 & 1962 [13] | Karl Ísfeld | This translation utilises the Icelandic "three-par" alliteration method. |
Chinese | 1962 | Shih Hêng | Translated via the Russian translation. |
1981 [19] | Sun Yong | Translated via W.F.Kirby's English translation. | |
2000 [13] | Zhang Hua Wen | ||
Esperanto | 1964 | Johan Edvard Leppäkoski | Full translation in Kalevala meter, published as trochaic octometers (one for every two Finnish verses) with mandatory central caesura |
Turkish | 1965 [20] | Hilmi Ziya Ülken | Translation of the first 2 songs. Using the Hungarian and French as basis. Published in the Yearbook of the Kalevala Society, volume 43 (1963) |
1982 | Lale and Muammar Oğuz | Full interpreted prose translation. Missing 25% of the original content for artistic purposes. | |
Norwegian | 1967 | Albert Lange Fliflet | Nynorsk language translation. Based on an earlier unpublished translation. |
2017 | Mikael Holmberg | Bokmål language retelling in trochaic tetrameter. | |
Georgian | 1969 [13] | M. Macavarian, Š. Tšantladze & G. Dzneladze. | |
Arabic | 1970 | Muhamed Said al-Juneid | Abridged translation published in the yearbook of the Kalevala Society. |
1991 [21] | Sahban Ahmad Mroueh | ||
Armenian | 1972 [13] | A. Siras. Proosaa | Abridged prose translation. |
Polish | 1974 | Józef Ozga-Michalski | Full translation based on the work of Karol Laszecki. |
1998 | Jerzy Litwiniuk | Full translation | |
Komi | 1980 & 1984 [13] | Adolf Turkin | Partial translation (Väinämöinen's playing and song 10.) |
Fulani | 1983 | Alpha A. Diallo | Book was published in Hungary, illustrated with Akseli Gallen-Kallela's artwork. |
Tulu | 1985 | Amrith Someshwar | Used Keith Bosley's Wanton Loverboy to aid in the translation of some parts. |
Latin [22] | 1986 | Tuomo Pekkanen | |
Vietnamese | 1986 | Cao Xuân Nghiêp | Full prose translation. |
1991 | Hoàng Thái Anh | Full prose translation. | |
1994 | Búi Viêt Hòa's | Full translation in metrical verse. | |
Slovak | 1986 [13] | Marek Svetlik & Jan Petr Velkoborský. | |
Hindi | 1990 & 1997 [13] | Vishnu Khare | |
Slovene | 1991 | Jelka Ovaska Novak | Partial translation. |
1997 | Jelka Ovaska Novak | Full translation. | |
Swahili | 1992 | Jan Knappert | Illustrated with Tanzanian Robino Ntila's graphics. |
Bulgarian | 1992 | Nino Nikolov | |
Greek | 1992 [13] | Maria Martzoukou | Verse translation of the first 20 poems with prose translation of the rest. |
Faroese | 1993 | Jóhannes av Skarði | |
Tamil | 1994 [23] | R. Sivalingam (Uthayanan) | Full translation. Introduction by Asko Parpola. |
Catalan | 1997 | Ramon Garriga i Marquès, Pirkko-Merja Lounavaara | Full translation in metric verse, directly from Finnish. |
1997 | Encarna Sant-Celoni i Verger | Abridged prose translation. | |
Persian | 1998 | Mahmoud Amir Yar Ahmadi and Mercedeh Khadivar Mohseni | Full translation directly from Finnish. |
2012 | Kiamars Baghbani | Retold and translated in Persian directly from Finnish. [24] [25] | |
Macedonian | 1998 | Vesna Acevska | |
Kannada | 2001 | Dr K R Sandhya Reddy | Full translation from English. |
Croatian | 2001 | Stjepan A. Szabo | Partial translation in narrative form. |
2006 | Slavko Peleh | Full translation using the German translation partially. | |
Low German | 2001 [13] | Herbert Strehmel | |
Oriya | 2001 [13] | Mahendra Kumar Mishra | Prose translation. |
Udmurt | 2001 [13] | Anatoli Uvarov | Summary. |
Veps | 2003 [13] | Nina Zaiceva | Verse summary. |
2022 [26] | Nina Zaiceva | Full translation. | |
Portuguese | 2007 | Orlando Moreira | Full translation from an English version. |
2009 | José Bizerril and Álvaro Faleiros | Partial translation. Only the first song. | |
2013 | Ana Soares & Merja de Mattos-Parreira | Full translation from Finnish; in verse; with critical introduction, and hundreds of footnotes. | |
Meänkieli | 2007 [13] | Bengt Pohjanen | Translation of a select four songs. |
Urdu | 2012 [13] | Arshad Farooq | |
Belarusian | 2015 [27] | Yakub Lapatka | |
Livvi-Karelian | 2015 | Raisa Remšujeva | |
Karelian Proper | 2015 | Zinaida Dubinina |
The Kalevala is a 19th-century compilation of epic poetry, compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling an epic story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and retaliatory voyages between the peoples of the land of Kalevala called Väinölä and the land of Pohjola and their various protagonists and antagonists, as well as the construction and robbery of the epic mythical wealth-making machine Sampo.
Elias Lönnrot was a Finnish polymath, physician, philosopher, poet, musician, linguist, journalist, philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. He is best known for synthesizing the Finnish national epic, Kalevala from short ballads and lyric poems he gathered from Finnish oral tradition during several field expeditions in Finland, Russian Karelia, the Kola Peninsula and Baltic countries. In botany, he is remembered as the author of the 1860 Flora Fennica, the first scientific text written in Finnish rather than in Latin.
Finnish mythology commonly refers of the folklore of Finnish paganism, of which a modern revival is practiced by a small percentage of the Finnish people. It has many shared features with Estonian and other Finnic mythologies, but also with neighbouring Baltic, Slavic and, to a lesser extent, Norse mythologies.
Väinämöinen is a demigod, hero and the central character in Finnish folklore and the main character in the national epic Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot. Väinämöinen was described as an old and wise man, and he possessed a potent, magical singing voice.
Pohjola, sometimes just Pohja, is a location in Finnish mythology. It is one of the two main polarities in the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, along with Kalevala or Väinölä.
Ilmatar is a virgin spirit and goddess of the air in the Finnish national epic Kalevala.
White Karelia is a historical region in Northern Europe, comprising the northernmost part of Karelia, and of the Republic of Karelia in Russia. It is bordered by the White Sea to the east, Murmansk Oblast to the north, Finland to the west, and the Muyezersky and Segezhsky Districts of the Republic of Karelia to the south.
Keith Anthony Bosley was a British poet, translator, and radio broadcaster. Born in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, he studied French at university before starting his career at the BBC, where he worked primarily as a newsreader. Although he published three volumes of original poetry, Bosley is best known for his work as a translator. A polyglot, he claimed to have translated poetry to English from up to forty languages, and had published collections translated from Finnish, French, Portuguese, Hebrew, Vietnamese, Polish, Russian, and German.
Kullervo, Op. 7, is a five-movement symphonic work for soprano, baritone, male choir, and orchestra written from 1891–1892 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. Movements I, II, and IV are instrumental, whereas III and V feature sung text from Runos XXXV–VI of the Kalevala, Finland's national epic. The piece tells the story of the tragic hero Kullervo, with each movement depicting an episode from his ill-fated life: first, an introduction that establishes the psychology of the titular character; second, a haunting "lullaby with variations" that portrays his unhappy childhood; third, a dramatic dialogue between soloists and chorus in which the hero unknowingly seduces his long-lost sister; fourth, a lively scherzo in which Kullervo seeks redemption on the battlefield; and fifth, a funereal choral finale in which he returns to the spot of his incestuous crime and, guilt-ridden, takes his life by falling on his sword.
The Lemminkäinen Suite, or more correctly Four Legends from the Kalevala, Op. 22, is a sequence of four tone poems for orchestra completed in 1896 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The work was conceived as Veneen luominen, an opera with a mythological setting, before taking its form as a suite. There is a narrative thread: the exploits are followed of the heroic character Lemminkäinen from the Kalevala, which is a collection of folkloric, mythic, epic poetry. The second tone poem, The Swan of Tuonela, is popular as a standalone orchestral work.
Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr. MC was one of the seminal figures in the study of medieval and English literature in the 20th century, a scholar of subjects as varied as soccer and ancient Germanic naming practices, and translator of numerous important texts. Though an American, he served in the British Royal Flying Corps as a lieutenant during World War I. Magoun was victor in five aerial combats and was also decorated with Britain's Military Cross for gallantry.
The tone poem Pohjola's Daughter, Op. 49, was composed by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius in 1906. Originally, Sibelius intended to title the work Väinämöinen, after the character in the Kalevala. The publisher Robert Lienau insisted on the German title Tochter des Nordens, which is a literal translation of the work's Finnish title, Pohjolan tytär, traditionally given in English as Pohjola's Daughter. Sibelius then countered with the new title L'aventure d'un héros. He also considered calling the work Luonnotar. However, Lienau's suggestion eventually became the work's published title. This was the first work that Sibelius wrote directly for a German music publisher. Its first performance was given in Saint Petersburg in December 1906, with the composer himself conducting the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre.
Kanteletar is a collection of Finnish folk poetry compiled by 19th-century Finnish linguist Elias Lönnrot. It is considered to be a sister collection to the Finnish national epic Kalevala. The poems of Kanteletar are based on the trochaic tetrameter, generally referred to as "Kalevala metre".
A shaft bow is an element of horse harness that is attached to the front of the shafts of a horse-drawn vehicle and joins them by arching high above the neck of the horse. Use of the shaft bow is widespread in the area east of the Baltic Sea. A shaft bow is also used in traditional harness in Sicily. It is seldom seen in other parts of the world.
Luonnotar, Op. 70, is a single-movement tone poem for soprano and orchestra written in 1913 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The piece is a setting of Runo I of the Kalevala, Finland's national epic, which tells the legend of how the goddess Luonnotar created the Earth. Luonnotar premiered on 10 September 1913 at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester, England, with Herbert Brewer conducting the festival orchestra; the soloist was the Finnish operatic diva Aino Ackté, the tone poem's dedicatee. A few months later on 12 January 1914, Ackté gave Luonnotar its Finnish premiere, with Georg Schnéevoigt conducting the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.
Kalevala Day, known as Finnish Culture Day by its other official name, is celebrated each 28 February in honor of the Finnish national epic, Kalevala. The day is one of the official flag flying days in Finland.
Synty is an important concept in Finnish mythology. Syntysanat ('origin-words') or syntyloitsut ('origin-charms') provide an explanatory, mythical account of the origin of a phenomenon, material, or species, and were an important part of traditional Finno-Karelian culture, particularly in healing rituals. Although much in the Finnish traditional charms is paralleled elsewhere, 'the role of aetiological and cosmogonic myths' in Finnic tradition 'appears exceptional in Eurasia'. The major study remains that by Kaarle Krohn, published in 1917.
Elias Lönnrot is a monument in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, by a Finnish sculptor Emil Wikström, unveiled in 1902.
Aino is a single-movement symphonic poem for male choir and orchestra written in 1885 by the Finnish conductor and composer Robert Kajanus. The piece tells the tragic story of the eponymous heroine from the Kalevala, although the Finnish-language text—Ring, Kantele, Ring! —sung by the male choir at the end of the symphonic poem is not from the literary epic but rather is by an anonymous author. Aino premiered on 28 February 1885 at a concert celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Kalevala.
Marjatta was a projected three-movement oratorio for soloists, choir, and orchestra that occupied the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius from 27 June to late-October 1905, at which point he abandoned the project. The libretto, a collaboration with the Finnish author Jalmari Finne, freely adapted the story of Kiesus's miraculous birth to Marjatta from Runo L of the Kalevala, Finland's national epic. Although Sibelius initially worked on the oratorio with alacrity, he soon soured on the project, perhaps finding Finne's text an unwelcome constraint on his "absolute music". Sibelius never again attempted an oratorio, making it one of the few major genres of classical music in which he did not produce a viable work.