#kalevala1849

[kalevala-snark-blog]

Changes compared to New Kalevala, pt. 1

The legend of Kullervo is the part of Kalevala that has changed the most between the two editions, so I have made you a brief summary of the biggest differences. It probably says something that the legend of Kullervo is six poems long in the New Kalevala but only one poem in the Old One.

Kullervo's father

Most of you probably remember him as Kalervo. In the Old Kalevala, however, Kullervo's father is mentioned to be "Kalewa" (= Kaleva). This is a fairly daring choice, since "Kaleva" is a mighty folklore hero. Whether he is a giant or a king (you would think these not to be mutually exclusive, but hey) is a bit open but there is a fairly large amount of myths about his sons.

Kalevala is also named after Kaleva which why it's somewhat ironic that the man himself doesn't really make an appearance in the whole book and his son is seen only in one poem - a poem which is in the whole epic only because Lönnrot needed to fridge Ilmarinen's wife.

Feud between Kalervo and Untamo

Neither the feud nor Untamo exists as far as the Old Kalevala is concerned. Instead of his pregnant mother being kidnapped during a skirmish by Untamo and Untamo selling Kullervo to Ilmarinen as a slave, Kullervo's own parents live happily together and then just randomly sell him to slavery after he is born.

There will be a second part of this once we have gone through the whole Poem 19. Just to avoid spoilers for a book published in 1835.

[kalevala-snark-blog]

"oops - väinämöinen, creating the world" Väinämöinen didn't really create the world according to the Kalevala mythos though? A bird made a nest on the knee of goddess deity Ilmatar, who haphasardly moved, knocking the egg over and the world was created from the egg and its remnants.... I'm sorry but as a Finn whose culture is sort of underappreciated as it is, it kind of rubs me the wrong way.

—

Honestly, both of us are both right and wrong here at the same time and I’m glad you raised this issue.

While working in the Carelian region in Eastern Finland, Elias Lönnrot collected and published several versions of Kalevala. The two major versions are The Old Kalevala (Vanha Kalevala) from 1835 and The New Kalevala (Uusi Kalevala) from 1849. The latter is the one usually meant when someone says “Kalevala”.

You are 100% correct that in The New Kalevala, it’s the deity Ilmatar who swims in the ocean and breaks the eggs of the duck (sotka in Finnish), accidentally creating the world. Sometime after this, she gives birth to Väinämöinen.

In The Old Kalevala, however, the egg-breaker is Väinämöinen himself (and the bird is an eagle). Otherwise, the creation myth is pretty identical, though.

This blog focuses almost entirely on The Old Kalevala, since I love the language in it. In retrospect, however, that might have been a less than stellar idea, since you are right in that not many people even know that there are also other versions than the year 1849 one. I have tried tagging all posts with Kalevala1835 and explaining the situation in here, but they are unfortunately easy to miss. Luckily, there are only a few major differences between the two versions.

I’ll write more about The New Kalevala once I have tackled the old one and I’m planning on writing a more thorough post about the differences between the versions and how they change the dynamic between the characters. Maybe I should also add notes between the “quotes” about the biggest differences whenever they are relevant - what do you think?

I agree with you on Finnish culture being underappreciated. I would love to see people - both Finns and foreigners - express more interest in Finnish folklore and history (and Finnish modern culture, too).

I’m sincerely sorry that my aim to focus on the snark made it unclear which version I was using and made you feel uncomfortable. I hope it’s at least clear that I’m not writing snarky fake quotes of Kalevala due to thinking the epic sucks but due to thinking it’s a fantastic read and wanting to make it easier to approach to the general public. Kalevala has definitely earned its place as a classic and has a lot to give to modern readers.

Thank you for your feedback - I’ll see about adding a mention of the Kalevala version in the Väinämöinen quote, since the odds are you are not the only one who assumed it was referring to The New Kalevala.