Author: Elias Lönnrot
Year: 2001 (1849)
Publisher: Atlantis bokförlag
Language: Swedish (översättare Lars Huldén and Mats Huldén)
It is easy
to fall into the trap of reading “Kalevala”, compiled by Elias Lönnrot in the
nineteenth century from oral traditions throughout the Finnish heartland, as a
national epic in the heroic tradition of Homer or Virgil. Yet the key to
understanding this work, seems to be the realisation that its virtue lies not
in grand heroics but in the realistic representation of human frailty, contumacy,
and recklessness. The three central figures, Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, and Lemminkäinen
are not heroic in any conventional, triumphant sense. Their pedestrian habits,
repeated failures, and moral ambiguities form a mirror of Finnish cultural
self-understanding and of a folklore tradition that values endurance, craft,
and restraint over glory.
Väinämöinen,
the nominally supreme hero, is defined not by martial prowess but by experience, song,
and verbal skill. He is a singer and a seer, whose power is manifested in words
carefully remembered, spoken, or sung. Even so, he is hardly idealised. Väinämöinen
is stubborn, prideful, and often slow to adapt. His wisdom does not prevent him
from making errors, nor does it grant him control over events. He loses
contests, fails in courtship, and ultimately departs not in victory but in
resignation. This portrayal resists the epic convention of heroic ascent;
instead, it emphasises the limitations of knowledge and the inconspicuous dignity
of persistence. Väinämöinen’s authority is provisional, rooted in experience
rather than domination, and this modesty resonates with a cultural ethos that
values patience and tacit understanding over spectacle.
The smith
Ilmarinen embodies another deeply unglamorous form of excellence: labour. His
defining achievement, the forging of Sampo, is not an act of conquest but of
skilled craftsmanship carried out at great personal cost and against his will.
Ilmarinen is diligent, reliable, and technically brilliant, yet emotionally
inarticulate and unlucky in love. He forges wonders but cannot secure happiness
for himself. His exploits in love end in death or bitterness, and his attempts
to repair loss only underline the limits of craft as a solution to human grief.
In Ilmarinen, “Kalevala” elevates work and technical competence while declining
to romanticise them. Creation is necessary and valuable, but it does not legitimise existence or guarantee fulfilment. This sober view of labour aligns closely
with Finnish folklore’s emphasis on work as a duty rather than a path to excellence.
Lemminkäinen,
by contrast, appears at first glance to be the most conventional hero:
youthful, handsome, adventurous, and impulsive. Yet his narrative arc is a
sustained critique of reckless bravado. Lemminkäinen ignores warnings, provokes
needless conflicts, and pursues honour without reflection. His death in Tuonela
is not tragic heroism but the predictable outcome of carelessness. Even his
resurrection, accomplished through his mother’s painstaking labour rather than
his own merit, reinforces the poem’s scepticism toward individual glory.
Lemminkäinen survives, but he does not mature. He remains a cautionary figure
whose energy lacks direction. Through him, “Kalevala” suggests that courage
without judgment is not admirable but dangerous, and that survival often
depends on communal care rather than personal valour.
Taken
together, I find that these figures articulate a vision of humanity grounded in
limitations. None of the heroes achieves lasting success, moral purity, or final
victory. Their world is governed by scarcity, weather, and fate, not by destiny
shaped through will alone. There are no castles, only farms. There are no
monsters, only forest animals and evil humans. There are deities, most
prominently Ukko, the father of all gods, but they play a minor role and, much
like forces of nature, show no sign of any will of their own. Conflicts in
“Kalevala” are rarely resolved cleanly; instead, they fade, fracture, fluctuate,
and rely largely on coincidence. This narrative texture reflects a folklore
tradition shaped by harsh environments and long historical marginality, where
survival depended less on conquest than on adaptability and cooperation. “Kalevala’s”
heroes are thus not ideals to emulate but companions in endurance; figures
whose flaws make them recognisable rather than exemplary.
The poem’s
geography further underscores this mundane perspective. While “Kalevala” is
rich in spatial imagination, moving between Kaleva, Pohjola, Tuonela, and
distant lands, it is notable for what it omits. As a Swede, I am made aware
that despite its long political and cultural dominance over Finland, Sweden is
conspicuously absent from this work. By contrast, regions to the east and
south are more readily invoked, and I noted references that point
toward Russia and even Germany as part of a wider mythic horizon. Russia symbolises distance. Germany luxury and flair. This
asymmetry is striking. The stories were collected in a time where Finland was
still recovering from its violent and sudden decoupling from the Swedish realm,
which it had been a part of for 800 years, and yet, Sweden is neither idealised
nor demonised. It is, much to my surprise, completely ignored.
I choose to
read the silence regarding Sweden not as ignorance but as a meaningful absence:
an epic drawn from vernacular tradition does not centre on imperial power but
instead maps a world defined by trade, rumour, and cultural contact beyond
official authority. At the time Elias Lönnrot collected his stories in the
mid-19th century, Karelia in the easternmost parts of Finland was
considered the heart of Finland, and the farther west he travelled, the less
genuine and more “swedenised” he may have perceived the people and the lands. In this
sense, “Kalevala” reflects a folk worldview that resists dominant narratives
and preserves its autonomy through curated collective memory. Russia and Germany never threatened to pollute Finnishness and so reference to these lands may have appeared safe.
On a final note, despite the ostensibly chronological
storyline and recurring heroes, I propose that each of the 50 songs is best
read in isolation. Each carries its own secret and its own message. The songs
sometimes interact with one another, and jointly describe a chain of events,
and yet there are logical gaps and plot holes everywhere. One soon learns to
overlook them.
There is infinitely more to say about this curious work, and scholarly coverage continues to develop, not only in Finland but around the world. Ultimately though, “Kalevala” is an epic of restraint. Its heroes are weary, flawed, and often morally weak; its values are practical rather than transcendent. By refusing the consolations of heroic triumph, the poem offers something rarer: a meditation on how ordinary virtues such as skill, patience, care, and memory, sustain life in an indifferent world. In this way, the non-heroic qualities of Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, and Lemminkäinen are not shortcomings but the very substance of the epic’s wisdom and a peephole into the Finnish soul. I can only fantasise about what the 50 songs must sound like to a Finnish ear in their original tongue.
