The Kalevala has been published twice in Hebrew. The first translation was done by Saul Tschernikovsky (1875–1943) and it came out in 1930. It was an abridged version of the Russian translation by Leonid Belskij. One of Tschernikovsky’s goals for the translation was to participate in the revival of the extinct spoken Hebrew. As many other translators of the Kalevala, he wanted to both present the Finnish epic to his own people and create an experience of something that was collective.
”During this trying and chaotic time, after the horrific war, a war that humanity has never experienced before, poetry and especially myths, this ancient source of human creativity that defies powers, is almost the only place where people can meet each other again as human beings”, he said at the at the centennial festivities of the Kalevala in 1935.
In 1964, the Hebrew speaking readers received more excerpts from the Kalevala. Sarah Tovia translated the Polish adaptation by Janina Porazinska, which had been published in 1958.
