Igino Cocchi 1909
The first complete poetic version of the Kalevala in Italian was published in 1909. The translator was surprisingly not a philologist, author or literary researcher but the geologist and palaeontologist Igino Cocchi (1852–1913), whose interest in Finland had been evoked by chance. Cocchi took part in an international conference on geology that was held in St. Petersburg in 1897 and after the conference he decided to travel to the Grand Duchy of Finland. The journey came to be very significant and important for him.
Igino Cocchi. Photo: Wikipedia.
When Cocchi had returned home, he wanted to tell the Italians about the country where the people who were polite and educated had made an impression on him. He wrote a book about the geography and nature in Finland and about the Finnish society and culture. He paid for the printing of the book himself. The book La Finlandia: ricordi e studi (in English: Finland: memories and studies) was published in 1902. It is a hardcover book and it contains 325 pages with photographs and illustrations.
Building the Italian identity
Italy was united in 1871, which means that at that time it was still a young nation. There were huge differences between the cultural and industrial structures and also between the social classes in the regions. Some sort of linguistic unity was also just starting to be formed. For example, a farmer from Sicily could not understand the language used by a bourgeois from Milan.
As a scientist, Cocchi wanted to strengthen the national identity in Italy, the culture and the education. He thought that the Finnish people were a good example of this, because they had been able to organise themselves and they coped with extreme climate conditions. Cocchi was surprised by the fact that the Finnish people had such good reading skills and the low crime rates in the country. At that time, illiteracy was very common in Italy, especially in the rural areas. Also, highway robberies were common during 1871–1900. Political rebel forces were common in the woodlands and mountains in the middle and southern parts of the country. The Italian military brutally fought against the phenomenon, which in turn led to bloodbath and executions.
In the second part of his book, Cocchi describes the Finnish people. He thinks that the Finns are peaceful but persistent, very tenacious and when they get angry, they may possibly become very short-tempered. Cocchi’s opinion was that the Finnish people had exactly the characteristics that Sallustius wished for the young people in Ancient Rome: “Ability to endure cold and hot, strength to survive hunger and strains”. A Finnish person was a strong worker and outdid all other people in the North. Cocchi regarded a Finnish immigrant or sailor as “a good deal” for other countries.
The Kalevala ruined his eyesight
Ignia Cocchi started to learn Finnish at the same time as he wrote his book Finlandia. He was at that point already very old, but this did not prevent him from learning the language very well. To practise, Cocchi translated almost the whole first poem in the Kalevala and a part of the third poem (from verse 443 until the end of the poem) and a part of the fourth poem (from the beginning of the poem until the verse 330). The publisher was so impressed that they decided to publish the translated poems at the end of the book Finlandia and they asked Cocchi to translate the complete Kalevala. Cocchi reports on the phases of his work with the translation in a letter he sent to professor Setälä, which is dated in Arezzo on December 5, 1908.
“While I was travelling in Finland and saw that I, as a geologist, did not have much to do during my travels, I began to observe and study your beautiful country from another perspective. When I later decided to write a book based on my notes, as we usually do in Italy, I realised that it would be useful to learn some Finnish. I discontinued my work, ordered the necessary books and started to study the language, which is so very different from our own. I translated a few of the poems in the Kalevala for practise; and the publisher, when they saw my translations, wanted to adapt them and add them to my book. This was done and the preface was printed as a separate parallel column.
Based on my translations I was asked to translate the whole Kalevala. For the time being I have limited my work to the same selection that Mr Tallgren has written a report on in the Valvoja.
My goal for this translation has been to adapt the parts that I have chosen to the Italian form and thus, make them more enjoyable to our audience; I kind of wanted to prepare the readers to enjoy the poems. My purpose was, thus, not to have the reader to do research on Your language.
Meanwhile, I have continued my studies; but there are two things that I have to complain about. Studying a language at this age, Your grammar and your dictionaries with so many letters have ruined my eyesight, which has sadly deteriorated very much. What makes it even more hopeless is that my memory does not agree to cooperate and save the things I learn. However, one thing is indeed growing, my persistence. In my book, I have presented the influences I have got when I was in Finland. I should very much like to go there again to meet the good friends that I left behind there. I have also talked about the Kalevala in my book. To write about this here would easily make this too long; I will leave it for another time.”
Interpreting the National Romantic mythology
The book Finlandia contains a lot of information on the Kalevala. According to Cocchi’s findings, Lönnrot had noticed that the best poetic singers knew how to combine different epic songs. German researchers were of the opinion that the unidentified poets of the Homeric epics also had done the same thing and they regarded Lönnrot as the new Homer of the North.
Cocchi’s interpretation of the Kalevala is historical: In the battles in the Kalevala and Pohjola there were recollections of the rivalry between the Finnish and the Sami people about the same territories. Lönnrot’s view on the New Kalevala was also historical, but in his opinion, it was a question about the rivalry between two Finnish tribes that battled against each other. Cocchi acknowledged that the battles that were depicted in the Kalevala were not as grand as the Trojan War in the Iliad, which lasted for a relatively short time and was very violent. That is why it was deeply imprinted in the Greek people. Because the conflicts between the Finnish and the Sami people continued for a long time and were more sporadic, the Kalevala does not include any actual tales of war.
According to Cocchi, the old and wise poem singers wanted to convey the heroic deeds of their ancestors as well as knowledge about this to future generations and young singers. In the free National Romantic style Cocchi compared the Plunder of the Sampo to the attempt to take possession of the statue of the Palladium, which is described in the Iliad. The Greek peoples’ wish for the return of Helena to Sparta was compared to the attempts of the heroes of the Kalevala to try to wed the maiden of Pohjola. Cocchi thought that the story resembled the Roman myth in which Romulus’ troops abducted women and girls from their archenemies, the Sabines. Like in classical myths, the women in the Kalevala were also the subject of conflicts between two groups of people.
In his work, Cocchi depicted the interest that the Kalevala evoked in other Finno-Ugric languages and he referred, for example, to research done by the lingvists and ethnologists Anders Johan Sjögren, Matthias Castrén, Heikki Paasonen and Yrjö Wichmann. Furthermore, he had observed the influence the folk poems had on the theatre in Finland and he hoped that the plays would be translated into Italian. Cocchi also talks about the admiration that the Kalevala had drawn from the literary circles in Europe. He praises the melodic form of the Finnish language and speaks of how, in the Finnish tradition, the folk poet was a singer, who considered poetry to be music and music to be poetry. The love for singing had been carried over to younger generations and, for example, during the May Day celebrations thousands of university students came together at the Senate Square to sing in a choir without musical accompaniment. In Cocchi’s view, also the playing of the kantele had left its trace in the young people in Finland, who mastered all string instruments.
Criticism by Domenico Ciàmpoli
Cocchi’s partial translation of the Kalevala was published in 1906 and the poetic translation of the complete Kalevala was published in 1909. The translation received positive reviews, although it was much influenced by the French version by Léouzon Le Duc (De Anna 2010, 10). The preface in the book was written by Domenico Ciàmpoli, who unexpectedly also presents some critique and talks about the trials and difficulties Cocchi had in order to find a suitable meter for his translations.
In his earlier version, Cocchi had translated Kullervo’s five poems using the trochaic octameter, but he was not content with the result, because he thought that the exotic tone would feel strange to an Italian reader. In his complete translation, he ended up using the classical hendecasyllabic poetic meter, which was typical in classical epic tales.
However, Ciàmpoli did not agree with this. He preferred the trochaic octameter, because he felt that it was better suited to convey the noble and distant Nordic exotic feeling. He thought that the Italian version of the Kalevala using the hendecasyllabic poetic meter sounded strange, in the same way as if the Iliad would have been translated into Finnish using the Kalevala meter. Ciàmpoli stated that he preferred the Italian version of the Kalevala using the trochaic octameter by Pavolini, which had recently been completed and was about to be published. He did not think that Cocchi had always been true to the original verses in the Kalevala.
Ciàmpoli praised Cocchi’s courage, good taste and perseverance when translating the complete Kalevala. He said that the Finnish people thanked and complimented Cocchi in the Kalevalavihko in the Valvoja. Ciàmpoli was happy that the homeland of Dante had finally received the “noble crown” of the songs in the Kalevala and he hoped that more Finnish literature would be translated into Italian. He thought that Italy was now ready to “embrace” the masterpieces in foreign literature.
According to Ciàmpoli, knowledge of the Kalevala could help the Italian people to understand and love the persecuted people in Finland, whose sufferings reminded him of the experiences the Italians had lived through. It is interesting that Ciàmpoli so openly defended the rights of the Finnish people to “live free” honouring their own traditions. Cocchi, on the other hand, believed that the independent Finland would have been “a too weak” nation.
Vesa Matteo Piludu: “Väinämöisen kyyneleistä tuli Venetsian kaunein tyttö. Kalevala italialaisten kääntäjien ja kulttuurivaikuttajien silmin” – Kalevala maailmalla. Helsinki: SKS. 2012.