Elias Lönnrot

Born Apr. 9, 1802, in the village of Sammatti; died there Mar. 19, 1884. Finnish folklorist. Son of a rural tailor; studied medicine.

Lönnrot was a professor of Finnish language and literature at the University of Helsinki. In 1827 he defended his dissertation, Väinämöinen, God of the Ancient Finns (written in Latin). He founded the first literary periodical in Finland, Mehiläinen, in 1836. Lö nnrot collected and transcribed epic and lyric runes of the folk singers of eastern Finland and Karelia. These materials formed the basis for his recreation of the Karelian-Finnish epic Kalevala (1st ed., 1835; enlarged 2nd ed., 1849) and the collection of lyric runes Kanteletar (1840–41). He also published the anthologies Finnish Folk Proverbs (1842) and Finnish Folk Riddles (1844) and compiled a Finnish-Swedish dictionary (1866–80).