Elias Lönnrot

Who is Elias Lönnrot?

Elias Lönnrot was a Finnish physician, philologist, and collector of traditional oral poetry who compiled the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. Born in Sammatti to a poor tailor's family, he trained as a physician at the Imperial Academy of Turku and later served as a district health officer in Kajaani. During the 1820s and 1830s he undertook numerous field expeditions across Karelia and other regions, transcribing folk songs, runic poems, and incantations from rural singers. From these materials he assembled the first edition of the Kalevala in 1835 and a greatly expanded edition in 1849. He also compiled the Kanteletar, a collection of lyric folk poetry, and produced a major Finnish–Swedish dictionary. His work was foundational to the Finnish national awakening and to the development of Finnish as a literary language. He served as professor of Finnish language and literature at the University of Helsinki.

Sources: Elias Lönnrot (comp.), 'Kalevala' (1835; expanded ed. 1849) · Juha Pentikäinen, 'Kalevala Mythology' (Indiana University Press, 1999)