''Elias Lönnrot'' is a monument in

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

, the capital of

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

, by a Finnish sculptor

Emil Wikström Emil Wikström (13 April 1864 in Turku – 26 September 1942 in Helsinki) was a Finnish sculptor. Among his best known works are the '' Lyhdynkantajat'' ("Lantern Carriers") sculptures on the front of the Helsinki Central railway station and t ...

, unveiled in 1902.Leskinen, M. & J. Keronen. Secret Helsinki. Jonglez Publishing, 2019. The

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

and

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

monument is situated in the Southern Helsinki

Kamppi Kamppi () is a Subdivisions of Helsinki#Neighbourhoods, neighbourhood in the centre of Helsinki, the capital of Finland. The name originally referred to a small area known as the "Kamppi field" (see below), but according to the current official d ...

neighborhood on Lönnrotinkatu street, in front of Ressun lukio in small Lönnrot's Park.

History

In 1899 Emil Wikström won the contest held by the

Finnish Literature Society The Finnish Literature Society ( or ) was founded in 1831 to promote literature written in Finnish. Among its first publications was the ''Kalevala'', the Finnish national epic A national epic is an epic poem or a literary work of epic s ...

to design a sculpture of the Finnish folklore collector

Elias Lönnrot Elias Lönnrot (; 9 April 1802 – 19 March 1884) was a Finnish polymath, physician, philosopher, poet, musician, linguist, journalist, philologist and collector of traditional Finnish language, Finnish Oral literature, oral poetry. He is best k ...

. The final version differed considerably from the original draft. It was influenced by the sculpture of Eemil Halonen, who held the second position in the contest. The monument was unveiled at night, October 18, 1902. The monument is currently the part of the Helsinki Art Museum collection.

Description

The monument depicts realistic figure of Lönnrot, writing down the songs, with two epic figures,

Väinämöinen () is a deity, demigod, hero and the central character in Finnish folklore and the main character in the national epic ''Kalevala'' by Elias Lönnrot. Väinämöinen was described as an old and wise man, and he possessed a potent, magical sing ...

, hero-god from the national epic

Kalevala The ''Kalevala'' () is a 19th-century compilation of epic poetry, compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling a story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and retaliatory ...

, and mythic maiden

Impi is a Nguni word meaning war or combat and by association any body of men gathered for war, for example is a term denoting an army. were formed from regiments () from large militarised homesteads (). In English is often used to refer to a ...

from the folklore collection

Kanteletar ''Kanteletar'' is a collection of Finnish folk poetry compiled by 19th-century Finnish linguist Elias Lönnrot. It is considered to be a sister collection to the Finnish national epic ''Kalevala''. The poems of ''Kanteletar'' are based on the t ...

. Väinämöinen rises from the mouth of a giant

Antero Vipunen Antero Vipunen is a giant who appears in Finnish mythology and Kalevala folk poetry. He is buried underground and possesses very valuable spells and knowledge. The god-hero Väinämöinen has a spell with three words or '' luotes'' missing. In ...

, carved on the right side of the granite pedestal. Antero Vipunen has a pentagram on the forehead, symbolizing his divine protection and magic power. Next to Lönnrot's name the front of the pedestal contains the words from Kalevala, poem 17: "Sain sanat salasta ilmi", which was translated by

John Martin Crawford John Martin Crawford (March 29, 1962 – December 16, 2020) was a Canadian serial killer. Crawford was convicted of killing four women in Saskatchewan and Alberta, between 1981 and 1992. Crimes Crawford was sentenced in 1981 to ten years' impri ...

(1888) as "Hidden deep for many ages, learned the words of ancient wisdom". The context comes from the songs 16, 17 and 18 of the Finnish national

epic Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film defined by the spectacular presentation of human drama on a grandiose scale Epic(s) ...

. Väinämöinen intends to obtain missing magic spells. A giant Antero Vipunen, buried with head emerging from the ground, swallows him. Väinämöinen fights to escape. Finally released from the mouth, Väinämöinen obtains new spells. The words on the pedestal refer to this event, as well as the collection work of Lönnrot.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elias Lonnrot (monument) Monuments and memorials in Finland Outdoor sculptures in Helsinki Works based on the Kalevala