SOURCE: "The Kalevala and Finnish Literature," translated by Hildi Hawkins, in Books from Finland, Vol. XIX, Ño. 1, 1985, pp. 61-64.

In the following excerpt, Laitinen examines the influence of the Kalevala on the development of Finnish literature and of a Finnish national identity.

I

Finnish literature began with the Kalevala.

That statement is at the same time more and less than the truth. A fair amount of literature had been published in Finland before the Kalevala appeared in 1835. Bishop Mikael Agricola, who brought Lutheranism to Finland in the sixteenth century, gave a start to Finnish-language literature when he translated the Bible into Finnish, and Swedish-language literature had had a number of distinguished representatives, such as Frans Michael Franzén (1772-1847) and the poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, who made his debut five years before the Kalevala appeared. All the same, it is true to say that it was the publication...