ELIAS

See also:

• ELIAS LONNROT (1802-1884)

LONNROT (1802-1884)  , Finnish philologist and discoverer of the Kalevala, was born at Nyland in Finland on the gth of April 1802 . He was an apothecary's assistant, but entered the university of Abo in 1822, and after taking his successive degrees became a physician in 1832 . But before this, as early as 1827, he had begun to publish contributions to the study of the ancient Finnish language, and to collect the national ballads and folk-lore, a field which was at that time uncultivated . In 1833 he settled as a doctor in the country district of Kajana, and began to travel throughout Finland and the adjoining Russian provinces in his leisure time, collecting songs and legends . In this way he was able to put together the great epic of Finland, the Kalevala,the first edition of which he published in 1835; he continued to add to it, and in 1849 issued a larger and completer text . In 184o Lonnrot issued his important collection of the Kanteletar, or folk-songs of ancient Finland, which he had taken down from oral tradition . The Proverbs of Finland followed in 1842 . In 1853, on the death of Castren, Lonnrot became professor of the Finnish language and literature at the high school of Helsingfors; he retired from this chair in 1862 . He died on the loth of March 1884 .