The early Russian translations
Russian author Vladimir Odojevski (1803–1869) wrote in the preface of the short novel called Salamanteri, which was about Finland, (Salamandra, 1841):
”[…] We have to be thankful to [Jacob] Grot, who translated “Frithiof’s Saga”, and who has dedicated his work to Finland with such great benefit that we got the chance, quite surprisingly and most interestingly, to learn to know the valuable details that are a part of the characteristics of the Finnish people and tales, which, to an astonishing extent, differ from the tales of all other people. You should not form an opinion about Finns if you have not visited the inner parts of the country and got to know their way of life. Their inherent passion for magic is combined with a strong poetical element and a half wild attachment to their own land. As a matter of fact, the Finns are kind, patient, humble when it comes to authorities, dedicated to their responsibilities, but suspicious and so clever that when they meet someone they do not know, they may pretend for a while that they do not understand this person; once you provoke them, their desire for revenge is unstoppable…
Living close to nature have taught them the characteristics of herbs and roots; they even know the secrets of animal magnetism; this is all witchcraft to them…”
Odojevski also presents his perception of the origin of Finnish folk poetry and the Kalevala, which was based on the conceptions of that time.
“They (the Finns) do not live in villages but isolated in huts that are scattered in the middle of granite rocks; they seldom communicate, neither with other people nor among themselves; therefore information about everything that goes on in the world reach them as corrupt rumours; in each hut, some extraordinary tale is added to the rumour (because the Finns are great story tellers), and consequently, little by little the thing that happened yesterday turns into a fairy tale like story. This phenomenon is rather interesting and it explains, to some extent, how ancient stories have emerged. In general, you can say that the Finnish people are ancient people who have transferred into our time period. Lönnrot, the brilliant poet, wandered through all of his home country, collected the folk songs that no one had done before; when he went through them, he saw a kind of connection between them; when he studied them more thoroughly, he made a discovery that the folk songs, as a matter of fact, were parts of a complete and consistent work of poetry…”
Jakov Grot
Odojevski mentions Jakov Grot, who was a scholar and a professor of Russian language and literature at the University of Helsinki, and later a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Grot was a good friend of Elias Lönnrot’s and his soulmate. They met often and engaged in a lively correspondence. Grot travelled a lot in Finland and in 1846 he went on a long journey, together with Elias Lönnrot, through Finland all the way up to the Tornio river and Aavasaksa. On this trip, he also stayed with Lönnrot in Kajaani for ten days.
Jakov Grot was a true friend of Finland and he knew the country well, and because of this he made Finland known among Russians by publishing articles about Finnish culture, traditions and ways of living in the most well-known and most respected magazine, the Sovremennik. As was usual at this point of time, the overviews were extensive and discussed a vast variety of topics. Grot and his articles also made the Kalevala known to the intellectuals in Russia. In his article “Suomalaisista ja heidän kansanrunoudestaan”, in English: About Finns and their folk poetry) (1849), Jakov Grot writes, at first, a very detailed description of the character of the Finnish people, their beliefs, folk poetry and the history of collecting the poems in the Kalevala. After this, he presents the Kalevala and its contents. Grot re-tells the contents of the Kalevala from the beginning to the end and, finally, he states that this is the Kalevala “in the format that Mr Lönnrot has reconstructed it”.
The summary of the contents of the Kalevala that Grot presents includes several word-by-word translations of long excerpts of poems and of separate verses. However, Grot does not stop there, and he offers the reader a Russian translation of the 29th poem of the Kalevala in poetic meter (”Kanteleen synty ja Väinämöisen kanteleensoitto”, in English: “The birth of the Kantele and Väinämöinen playing the Kantele”) and he asks his readers to regard this as “a trial, because translating folk poetry is one of the most daring things one can do”. Grot’s “trial” can be regarded as very successful, although he is self-critical and says that “the song has lost a lot in our translation”. Grot’s choice of song is interesting in the sense that it is, as far as we know, the first Russian translation of an excerpt from the Kalevala, but it is not the first Russian translation of this particular song. Feodor Glinka, who was a poet, happened to have translated a song on the same topic ten years earlier (Rozhdenije arfy, 1827–1828). However, Glinka’s translation was not published until 1863. At the same time as he was translating the Kanteleen synty (in English: The birth of the Kantele), Glinka also translated another Karelian folk song into Russian, Väinämöinen ja Joukahainen (Veinamena i Jukovaina, in English: Väinämöinen and Joukahainen).
Both Glinka and Grot emphasise that when they have translated the poems, they have used the original poetic meter. The translations of the poems are in trochaic tetrameter without rhymes, which was right from the start the poetic meter that was used in Russian translations of the poetic songs in Kalevala. Instead, the alliteration which is essentially connected with oral folk poetry cannot be found in the translations by these poets.
Öhman’s translation does not do justice to the original version
In 1847, a word-by-word translation of the Kalevala by August Mauritz Öhman was published in St. Petersburg. However, Öhman did not know the Russian language well enough and his translation includes several mistakes. It is no wonder that the critic Vissarion Belinski (1811–1848) who had learned to know the Kalevala based on it, dismissed the whole book as he was very disappointed in it, since he had high expectations before reading it. In particular, he was annoyed that the admirers of the Kalevala, J. L. Runeberg and J. J. Tengström had the nerve to compare it to the works of Homer and even claim it to be better.
A Russian translation of the complete Old Kalevala in poetic meter was not published until 2006. This version was translated by .
The first translation of the New Kalevala in poetic meter was published in Russia as early as in 1852, only three years after the original book had come out – in German. It was translated by the Russian linguist and scholar .
Mirja Kemppinen ja Markku Nieminen: ”Rekonstruoidusta kansaneepoksesta Lönnrotin runoelmaksi – Kalevala Venäjällä” – Kalevala maailmalla. Helsinki: SKS. 2012.