Lönnrot

Lönnrot, ELIAS, a great Finnish scholar and folklorist, was born at Saumatti in Nyland, 9th April 1802. He studied medicine, and practised for twenty years in Kajana, but in 1853 on Castrén's death succeeded to the chair of Finnish at Helsingfors, from the duties of which he retired in 1862. He helped to found the Finnish Literary Society at Helsingfors in 1831, and made throughout his life journeys through the whole of Finland, as well as the neighbouring parts of Lapland, Russia, and Sweden, in order to collect the remains of poetry and tradition lingering among the people. The first fruit of these inquiries was a collection of more or less ancient Finnish folk-songs, Kantele (1829-31), after which followed in 1835 the great epic of the Kalvala. His Kanteletar (1840) was a collection of lyrical folk-poetry; Sanalaskuja (1842), of proverbs; Arvoituksia (1844; 2d ed., much enlarged, 1861), of riddles. No less important were the contributions to Finnish philology which his profound knowledge of the popular dialects enabled him to make. His latest work was the great Finnish Dictionary (2 vols. 1866-80). He died at his native place, 19th March 1884.