Elias Lönnrot
Source: Wikipedia: Elias Lönnrot
Literature & Poetry • Historical Archive • 🇫🇮 Finland • 1 views

Elias Lönnrot 🇫🇮

Elias Lönnrot (Known as "Lönnrot")
Philologist, Physician, Botanist, Compiler of the Kalevala and Kanteletar
Born 1802-04-09 🇫🇮 Sammatti, Finland
Passed Away 1884-03-19 Sammatti, Finland
Lifespan 81 years old
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Notice / Correction
"The singing of the ancient runes binds the spirit of our ancestors to the soul of generations yet unborn."

Archival Overview

Father of Finnish national identity, physician, and philologist who traveled thousands of kilometers on foot across Karelia collecting rune songs to compile the national epic Kalevala.

Biographical Record

Elias Lönnrot was born on April 9, 1802, in Sammatti into a poor village tailor's home. Qualifying in both medicine and philology at the Imperial Alexander University of Finland, he was appointed district physician in the remote northern town of Kajaani in 1833.

Between 1828 and 1844, Lönnrot undertook eleven arduous field expeditions on foot, skis, and rowboats into Russian Karelia, writing down thousands of ancient oral runes sung by traditional bardic singers. He synthesized these mythic songs into the Finnish national epic Kalevala (Old Kalevala 1835; expanded edition 1849) and lyric companion Kanteletar (1840). He coined hundreds of new Finnish words for modern medicine, law, and botany.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Sammatti Churchyard
Sammatti, Finland
GPS: 60.3167, 23.8167
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