Observatoire des droits humains (anglais seulement)

An epic border: Finland’s poetic masterpiece, the Kalevala, has roots in 2 cultures and 2 countries

(Version anglaise seulement)

par Thomas A. DuBois, Professor of Scandinavian Studies, Folklore, and Religious Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

At the outset of the Kalevala, Finland’s national epic, a singer bemoans his separation from a beloved friend who grew up beside him. Today, the friends rarely meet “näillä raukoilla rajoilla, poloisilla Pohjan mailla” – lines which translator Keith Bosley renders “on these poor borders, the luckless lands of the North.”

The Kalevala, a poetic masterpiece of nearly 23,000 lines, first appeared in 1835. Now, nearly 200 years later, those “luckless…

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