Editing Kalevala (section)

====History====
Before the 18th century, ''Kalevala'' poetry, also known as [[runic song]], was common throughout Finland and Karelia, but in the 18th century it began to disappear in Finland, first in western Finland, because European rhymed poetry became more common in Finland. Finnish folk poetry was first written down in the 17th century<ref>[http://www.karuse.info/ Kalevala poetry society (Finnish)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050307142922/http://www.karuse.info/ |date=7 March 2005 }}, [http://www.finlit.fi/kalevala/index.php?m=11&s=38&l=1 Finnish Literature Society (Finnish)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524081440/http://www.finlit.fi/kalevala/index.php?m=11&s=38&l=1 |date=24 May 2011 }}, [https://web.archive.org/web/20041103164118/http://www.muhos.fi/koivujatahtipaivat/missa_kalevala_on_syntynyt.htm "Where was The Kalevala born?" Finnish Literature Society, Helsinki, 1978.] Accessed 17 August 2010</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://dbgw.finlit.fi/skvr/teksti.php?id=skvr11108660|title=SKVR XI. 866. Pohjanmaa. Pentzin, Virittäjä s. 231. 1928. Pohjal. taikoja ja loitsuja 1600-luvulta. -?|access-date=31 August 2010|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718172531/http://dbgw.finlit.fi/skvr/teksti.php?id=skvr11108660|archive-date=18 July 2011}}</ref> and collected by hobbyists and scholars through the following centuries. Despite this, the majority of Finnish poetry remained only in the oral tradition.

Finnish-born nationalist and linguist [[Carl Axel Gottlund]] (1796–1875) expressed his desire for a Finnish epic in a similar vein to the ''[[Iliad]]'', ''[[Ossian]]'' and the ''[[Nibelungenlied]]'' compiled from the various poems and songs spread over most of Finland. He hoped that such an endeavour would incite a sense of nationality and independence in the native Finnish people.<ref name="Swedish Literary News">{{Citation
| last  = Gottlund
| first = Carl Axel
| author-link = Carl Axel Gottlund
| title = Review
| newspaper = Svensk literatur-tidning 
| location = Stockholm
| volume = 25
| date   = June 21, 1817
| page   = 394
}}</ref> In 1820, {{ill|Reinhold von Becker|fi}} founded the journal ''Turun Wiikko-Sanomat'' (Turku Weekly News) and published three articles entitled ''Väinämöisestä'' (''Concerning [[Väinämöinen]]''). These works were an inspiration for Elias Lönnrot in creating his masters thesis at Turku University.<ref name="Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr."/><ref name="Turun Wiikko-Sanomat 1820">{{cite web|url=http://digi.lib.helsinki.fi/sanomalehti/secure/browse.html?action=year&id=1457-4888&name=Turun%20Wiikko-Sanomat|title=Turun Wiikko-Sanomat 1820 archive.|access-date=19 August 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110722150629/http://digi.lib.helsinki.fi/sanomalehti/secure/browse.html?action=year&id=1457-4888&name=Turun%20Wiikko-Sanomat|archive-date=22 July 2011}}</ref>

In the 19th century, collecting became more extensive, systematic and organised. Altogether, almost half a million pages of verse have been collected and archived by the [[Finnish Literature Society]] and other collectors in what are now [[Estonia]] and Russia's [[Republic of Karelia]].<ref name="Folklore Fellows #15">{{cite web|url=http://www.folklorefellows.fi/netw/ffn15/fls.html|title=The folklore activities of the Finnish Literature Society|access-date=19 August 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060517044417/http://www.folklorefellows.fi/netw/ffn15/fls.html|archive-date=17 May 2006}}</ref> The publication ''[[Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot]]'' (''Ancient Poems of the Finns'') published 33 volumes containing 85,000 items of poetry over a period of 40 years. They have archived 65,000 items of poetry that remain unpublished.<ref name="Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot">{{cite web|url=http://dbgw.finlit.fi/skvr/|title=Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot kotisivu|access-date=19 August 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100910231028/http://dbgw.finlit.fi/skvr/|archive-date=10 September 2010}}</ref> By the end of the 19th century this pastime of collecting material relating to Karelia and the developing orientation towards eastern lands had become a fashion called [[Karelianism]], a form of [[national romanticism]].

The [[chronology]] of this [[oral tradition]] is uncertain. The oldest themes, the origin of Earth, have been interpreted to have their roots in distant, unrecorded history and could be as old as 3,000 years.<ref name="Crawford Kalevala">John Martin Crawford. ''Kalevala – The national epic of Finland'', "Preface to the First edition, (1888)".</ref>
The newest events, e.g. the arrival of Christianity, seem to be from the [[History of Finland#Iron Age|Iron Age]], which in Finland lasted until c. 1300 [[Common Era|CE]]. Finnish folklorist [[Kaarle Krohn]] proposes that 20 of the 45 poems of the ''Kalevala'' are of possible [[Ancient Estonia]]n origin or at least deal with a motif of Estonian origin (of the remainder, two are [[Ingrian language|Ingrian]] and 23 are Western Finnish).<ref name="Laugaste1990">{{cite book |last=Eduard |first=Laugaste |editor=Lauri Honko |title=Religion, Myth and Folklore in the World's Epics: The Kalevala and its Predecessors |date=1990 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-087455-6 |pages=265–286 |chapter=The Kalevela and the Kalevipoeg}}</ref>

It is understood that during the [[Religion in Finland#The Reformation|Finnish reformation]] in the 16th century the clergy forbade all telling and singing of [[Paganism|pagan]] rites and stories. In conjunction with the arrival of European poetry and music this caused a significant reduction in the number of traditional folk songs and their singers. Thus the tradition faded somewhat but was never totally eradicated.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.finlit.fi/kalevala/index.php?m=11&s=38&l=1|title=Laulut Kalevalan takana|access-date=31 August 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524081440/http://www.finlit.fi/kalevala/index.php?m=11&s=38&l=1|archive-date=24 May 2011}}</ref>