FinlandLive.Info - Finland Community
 Living, Studying, Working & Traveling in Finland

The Kalevala

Book and national epic poem which the Finn Elias Lönnrot compiled

Derived from Finnish and Karelian folklore in the nineteenth century

One of the most significant works of Finnish literature.

Credited with some of the inspiration for the national awakening (Finnish government's independence from that of Russia in 1917)

Kalevala can be interpreted as the "lands of Kaleva"

Consists of 22,795 verses - divided into fifty cantos or "chapters"

Source: Wikipedia
GNU Free Documentation Licence