Antero Warelius (14 July 1821 – 16 January 1904) was a Finnish priest and writer. He had interest in the

Finnish language Finnish ( endonym: or ) is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish ...

, that he studied and contributed to promote as a national language. Warelius was born in the village of Varila, part of the municipality of

Tyrvää Tyrvää (; sv, Tyrvis) was a municipality in the Satakunta region, Turku and Pori Province, Finland. It was established in 1439 when the Tyrvää parish was separated from the parish of Karkku. In 1915, the market town of Vammala was separated fr ...

Satakunta Satakunta (in both Finnish and Swedish, ) is a region ( / ) of Finland, part of the former Western Finland Province. It borders the regions of Southwest Finland, Pirkanmaa, South Ostrobothnia and Ostrobothnia. The capital city of the region is ...

county. He served as a priest in western

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, and between 1869 and 1900 he was

vicar A vicar (; Latin: ''vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pref ...

Loimaa Loimaa (; historical sv, Loimijoki) is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Southwest Finland region. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is ...

. He studied at the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

, where he became interested in the academic ambitions of the

, and with support of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

he travelled to conduct

ethnographic Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

studies of his country, collecting his results in the article ''Bidrag till Finlands kännedom i etnografiskt hänseende'' ("Contributions to the knowledge of Finland with respect to ethnography"), published on the ''Suomi'' journal. In this work he drew the boundary between the regions populated by the Tavastian and

Karelia Karelia ( Karelian and fi, Karjala, ; rus, Каре́лия, links=y, r=Karélija, p=kɐˈrʲelʲɪjə, historically ''Korjela''; sv, Karelen), the land of the Karelian people, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for ...

n tribes based, among other things, on a survey of the spoken dialects.Nordisk familjebok He contributed to the Swedish-Finnish dictionary compiled by

Daniel Europaeus David Emanuel Daniel (Taneli) Europaeus (1820–1884) was a Finnish linguist and folklore collector. During the period 1845–54, he made several trips to Finnish and Russian Karelia. Of his large and valuable collections, Elias Lönnrot received, ...

, and to the Finnish-Swedish dictionary by

Elias Lönnrot Elias Lönnrot (; 9 April 1802 – 19 March 1884) was a Finnish physician, philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. He is best known for creating the Finnish national epic, ''Kalevala'', (1835, enlarged 1849), from short b ...

. In 1847 he wrote ''Vekkulit ja Kekkulit'', the first original comedy in Finnish language, and in 1845 he published ''Enon opetuksia luonnon asioista'', the first Finnish textbook on

natural sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

. In 1847 he co-founded a Finnish newspaper, ''

Suometar ''Uusi Suomi'' (Finnish for ''The New Finland'') was a Finnish daily newspaper that was published from 1919 to 1991. The headquarters was in Helsinki, Finland. History and profile ''Uusi Suomi'' was established in 1919 as a continuation of two ...

'', of which he was editor in chief for the first six months.Uppslagsverket Finland He died in

in 1904.

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Warelius, Antero 1821 births 1904 deaths 19th-century Finnish writers 19th-century Finnish Lutheran clergy Finnish writers