Suomen kansan vanhat runot
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Suomen kansan vanhat runot (The Ancient Songs of the Finnish People), or SKVR, is an edition of traditional Finnic-language verse containing around 100,000 different songs, and including the majority of the songs that were the sources of the Finnish epic Kalevala and related poetry. The collection is available, free, online.
Contents
The original fourteen volumes (published in around 32 physical volumes) were published by the Finnish Literature Society from 1908 to 1948.Tuukka Karlsson, '[http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-51-7801-5 "Come here, you are needed": Registers in Viena Karelian Communicative Incantations]' (PhD thesis, Helsinki University, 2022).{{rp|25}} A supplement, containing, among other things, some of the field notes of Cristfried Ganander and Elias Lönnrot, was added in 1997. The supplement also contains poems on highly sexual subjects, such as spells to obtain a sexual partner or to improve sexual performance, which had previously been considered unsuitable for publication.[http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/Sisuradio/programsidor/amnessida.asp?programID=1003&Nyheter=&grupp=2689&artikel=1228349 Housumato ja sudenkita – seksi kansanrunoudessa] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20070930225231/http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/Sisuradio/programsidor/amnessida.asp?programID=1003&Nyheter=&grupp=2689&artikel=1228349 Arkistoitu artikkeli]){{rp|26}} Most of the songs in the collection come from the archives of the Finnish Literature Society, but many come from elsewhere, including archives in other countries.
SKVR includes over 89,000 poetic texts in Kalevala-meter, though it is also rich in prose stories and other poetic forms. It does not include all Finnish folklore; around 60,000 texts, for example, are held in unpublished form by the Finnish Literature Society.{{rp|26}}
The songs in SKVR are organised into fourteen regions from which they were collected; most volumes then arrange the material by geographical location within the region, and then into four genres:{{rp|26}}
- lyric songs
- epic or narrative songs
- occasional songs (in genres such as wedding songs or lullabies)
- incantations.
Each of these genres is further divided into several subgroups. For example, in 1918 F. A. Hästesko published a sub-genre classification for incantations, which was used in SKVR.Frans Aleksi Hästesko, Länsisuomalainen loitsurunous (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 1918).{{rp|26}}
The regions covered are as follows:
| class="wikitable"
|+ !SVKR series number !number of parts !Suomalainen kirjallisuuden seuran toimitusksia series number(s) !editor !years !region |
| I
|4 |121 |A. R. Niemi |1908–21 |
| II
|1 |144 |A. R. Niemi |1921 |Aunus, Tver, and Novgorodin-Karjala |
| III
|3 |139 |Väinö Salminen and V. Alava |1915–24 |Länsi-Inkeri |
| IV
|3 |140 |Väinö Salminen |1925–28 |Keski-Inkeri |
| V
|3 |141 |Väinö Salminen |1929–31 |Itä- and Pohjois-Inkeri |
| VI
|2 |142 |J. Lukkarinen |1934–36 |Savo |
| VII
|5 |143 |A. R. Niemi with Kaarle Krohn and V. Alava |1929–33 |Raja- and Pohjois-Karjala |
| VIII
|1 |145 |Y. H. Toivonen |1932 |
| IX
|4 |146 (first publ. Monumenta Tavastica/Hämeen muistomerkkejä, 1–2) |Hämäläis-osakunta Keisarillisessa Suomen Aleksanterin Yliopistossa |1917–18 (first publ. 1915–17) |Häme |
| X
|2 |147 |T. Pohjankanervo and J. Lukkarinen |1933–34 |
| XI
|1 |148 |J. Lukkarinen |1933 |
| XII
|2 |149 |Martti Haavio |1934–35 |
| XIII
|4 |150 |Väinö Salminen |1936–45 |
| XIV
|1 |151 |Väinö Salminen |1948 |
| XV
|1 |685 |Matti Kuusi and Senni Timonen |1997 |various |
English translation
A selection of poems is presented in normalised Finnish and in English translation in Finnish Folk Poetry: Epic. An Anthology in Finnish and English, edited and translated by Matti Kuusi, Keith Bosley and Michael Branch (Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran toimituksia, 329, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 1977).
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://skvr.fi SKVR online]
- Vol. 1 [https://archive.org/details/suomenkansanvanh11niem part 1], [https://archive.org/details/p2suomenkansanva01niem part 2], [https://archive.org/details/p3suomenkansanva01niem parts 3-4]
- Vol. 3 [https://archive.org/details/p1suomenkansanva03niem part 1], [https://archive.org/details/p2suomenkansanva03niem part 2]
- Vol. 6 [https://archive.org/details/p2suomenkansanva06niem part 2]
- Vol. 7 [https://archive.org/details/p3suomenkansanva07niem part 3], [https://archive.org/details/pt4suomenkansanv07niem part 4]
- Vol. 9 [https://archive.org/details/p1suomenkansanva09niem parts 1-2] [https://archive.org/details/p3suomenkansanva09niem parts 3-4]
- Vol. 10 [https://archive.org/details/p1suomenkansanva10niem part 1]
- Vol. 13 [https://archive.org/details/p1suomenkansanva13niem part 1]