Adolfas Sabaliauskas 1922

The Lithuanian canon Adolfas Sabaliauskas (1873–1950) was born in Krikščiai in the rural municipality of Biržai. He was a great admirer of Finland and had become friends with professor A. R. Niemi during Niemi’s three years long research visit to Lithuania 1909–1912.

Adolfas Sabaliauskas addresses the Kalevala at the centennial festivities in the Helsinki Convention Hall in 1935. Photo: The Kalevala Society.

Sabaliauskas had studied to become a priest, but he was also a researcher with folk poetry, particularly folk music, as his field of specialty. He also continued his studies at the university in Freiburg, Switzerland, studying, among other things, musicology for two semesters in 1900. Adolfas Sabaliauskas had gathered a large amount of folk poetry from the north-eastern parts of Lithuania and A. R. Niemi had the opportunity to study this in the beginning of his trip to Lithuania. Their collaboration started in 1910, when A. R. Niemi wanted to make his own journey to the same region in order to collect poems. As a result of their collaboration, several publications were published. For example, in the series by The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters an extensive collection of Lithuanian folk poems and folk songs was published in 1912. The collection was called Lietuvių dainos ir giesmės šiaur-rytinėje Lietuvoje.

Adolfas Sabaliauskas visited Finland for the first time in 1913 on a short two week-long visit. He visited Finland again three years later. This visit was meant to be brief, but he stayed for a couple of years. The first world war was raging and the Russian authorities did not allow Sabaliauskas to travel back to his home country. The church in his home parish and also the priest’s home had been burned to the ground. Sabaliauskas had to stay in Finland as a war refugee and he was invited to stay with A. R. Niemi and his family.

Kaarle Krohn, who was a professor of folk poetry, and A. R. Niemi supported Adolfas Sabaliauskas in his massive task to translate the Kalevala. While he was in Finland he also participated in the activities of the local catholic church and he took care of several Lithuanians who resided in Finland at that time. A Lithuanian association was active in Finland during the world war. Later, Vladas Nagevičius was the president of the association. Nagevičius was the director of the war museum in Kaunas and the surgeon general when Lithuania became independent. The Lithuanian association arranged a grand Lithuanian ball in the Great Hall of the University of Helsinki on May 6, 1917. The Finnish author Maila Talvio and A. R. Niemi were guest speakers at the event. Sabaliauskas and a large group of Lithuanians who lived in Finland at that time returned to their homeland in the beginning of 1918.

Sabaliauskas and Nagevičius, like many other Lithuanians who had lived here during the first world war, continued to have a warm relationship with Finland, also after their return to their homeland. Sabaliauskas and Nagevičius initiated the foundation of the Lithuania-Finland Association in Kaunas in May 1927. At the same time there was a grand Finland party held in the garden of the war museum on May 8, 1927 – ten years after the Lithuanian ball that had been held in the Great Hall of the University of Helsinki. Among the guests from Finland were professor Viljo Mansikka and A. R. Niemi.

The friendship between Adolfas Sabaliauskas and A. R. Niemi continued until the death of Niemi in the autumn of 1931. In the memory of their collaboration a commemorative plaque was unveiled in 2011. The plaque was attached to the wall of the house were Niemi lived – the same house where the Lithuanian translation of the Kalevala was created.

Hannu Niemi, A. R. Niemi’s grandson at the unveiling event of the commemorative plaque on September 7, 2011.