Paper short abstract:

Ballads are the main genre of oral song in Europe, but Finns today hardly know of their popularity in 19th century Finland. One reason is that episodes from the early, non-rhymed ballad stratum were decontextualized by Elias Lönnrot and became only known as components of the new Kalevala (1949).

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on the invisibility of ballads in the Finnish cultural heritage. While ballads form the core genre of early modern and even contemporary European narrative oral singing, they are rarely recognized by Finns as having been popular in the 19th century Finland. The major reason is the higher prestige always given to the archaic alliterative, iterative Finnish runosong tradition over newer rhymed forms, but other factors also exist.

Before entering Finland from Scandinavia in their characteristic rhymed meters and regular stanzaic form, the European ballad themes had already found their way in the runosong tradition. This singing culture was still lively in eastern Finland and Karelia, when Elias Lönnrot, the creator of the Kalevala (1835; 1849), collected folk poetry. Lönnrot noticed that ballads were extremely popular: rhymed versions in the whole country and non-rhymed in the eastern runosong area.

Lönnrot published songs from the old ballad-stratum in a volume on lyric poetry and songs, the Kanteletar (1840, 1841). He later used episodes from these ballads to expand the new Kalevala (1849). The episodes were decontextualized and, as analyzed in this paper, lost their identity as ballads in the recontextualizing processes.

The lyric Kanteletar never received similar recognition as cultural heritage as the Kalevala did. While Lönnrot thus did not disregard the ballad-based stratum of the runosong tradition, the results of his editorial practices and transmission of ballad episodes embedded within the Kalevala became more enduring than the publication of the songs in their own right.