Julian Vesper 1959
Julian Vesper (1908–1996) was a Romanian journalist and author, who was hired to translate the Kalevala into Romanian in 1945. Only a few years earlier, in 1942, a word-by-word Romanian translation of the Kalevala had been published by Barbu Brezianu, who was an author and literature critic. Meanwhile the monarchy of Romania had become the republic of Romania.
Julian Vesper.
Julian Vesper was interested in translating the Kalevala also on a personal level. In his article, Tauno Nurmela writes:
“The author had been very preoccupied with the Kalevala and he had wanted to translate it into Romanian long before he took on this huge project, which he finalised very vigorously and skilfully in a short time. According to Nurmela, Vesper had told him that he had heard about the Kalevala when he was in school and that he had liked the stories in it very much. “When I was a student, I read the complete Kalevala as a translation and I was only waiting for it to be published in the Romanian language”, Julian Vesper reminisced. He waited in vain.
“Along with my other works in 1938–1944 I tried to make poetic translations of the songs in it, but I failed, in my opinion, even though I later realised that I had been on the right track. This time, my success was a result of the fact that I received the necessary material and moral support for my work.”
Julian Vesper did not know Finnish. He used the 1953 edition of the Kalevala and, according to the information that Tauno Nurmela had, Vesper was first helped by the Finnish engineer Toivo Närhi and to some extent also by the poet Arvo Turtiainen, Also, the head of the Finnish embassy in Romania, Matti Pyykkö and his secretary, Mrs Martta Negrea-Laurikainen, helped Vesper in his work. However, Vesper used the translations by Perret, Schiefner, Beslkij, Kirby, Cocchi and Pavolini as sources for the actual translation. In other words, he used a large number of French, German, Russian, English and Italian interpretations.
Tauno Nurmela says that the translation is very literal even though it is written in poetic meter. “For a foreigner, it is difficult to say how fluent this language sounds to a Romanian”, Nurmela writes, “but, at least on one hand, it feels as if the translator has managed to create fluent expressions without unnatural mannerism. On the other hand, the translation also conveys vernacular archaic peace and balance. His rural ancestry has most certainly been of great help to him in this.”
The Romanian Kalevala that Julian Vesper translated was at least not shorter than the Finnish version. On the contrary: according to Nurmela, it contains 2000 more verses than the original version. Vesper has also wanted to present the content to the reader as exactly as possible.
| The 10th poem in the Kalevala | Romanian (Vesper) | Finnish (Nurmela) |
| Laulelevi, taitelevi: lauloi kuun kumottamahan Kultalatva kuusosehen, Lauloi oksille otavan. |
A silit prin vrajă luna Să se-așeze mai aproape, Să lucească chiar asupra Bradului cu crengi de aur, Să scînteie din inalturi Ursa Mare peste dînsul. |
Hän pakotti laulullaan kuun istumaan päälle, loistamaan kirkkaana yllä kuusen kultaoksan, välkkymään korkeuksista Otavan sen laelle. |
Although the Romanian republic had approved of the translation and provided funding, the work was also stimulated by enthusiasm and a genuine interest. However, since the republic had become a closed culture and was not influenced by western ideas, it had, obviously led to the situation that Vesper could not receive help in his work from Finnish experts. Instead, he had to rely on Finnish people who were more on an amateur level when it came to the Kalevala. Tauno Nurmela also finds the long preface by Otto Ville Kuusinen to be of questionable quality. The preface has been published in several Russian translations of the Kalevala and the Romanian republic has also used the preface to mark the translation by Julian Vesper as their own. “But it certainly is, if nothing more, a sort of memory of the circumstances and period during which the Kalevala received its form in the Romanian language”, Nurmela states.
Tauno Nurmela: “Romaniankielinen Kalevala” – Kalevalaseuran vuosikirja 40. Helsinki: WSOY. 1960.