From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

List of Kalevala translations

none

Summary

none

A list of translations of the Finnish national epic Kalevala in chronological order by language. The epic has appeared in 61 translated languages.

Based partially on the list made by Rauni Puranen and the article here.

Language	Year	Translator	Remark
German	1840	N. Mühlberg	The first 60 lines of the first song, published in: Verhandlungen der gelehrten Esthnischen Gesellschaft zu Dorpat. Ersten Bandes erstes Heft. 1840, 94–96.
	1848	Jacob Grimm	A short 38 line reading at a presentation in the Berlin Academy of Sciences.
	1852	Franz Anton Schiefner	A very important verse translation used by many other translators to bring Kalevala to their own language. Revised by Martin Buber in 1921.
	1885–1886	Hermann Paul	Verse translation.
	1936	Arthur Luther	A word-by-word translation that it is made based on the revision by Martin Buber of Schiefner's translation.
	1967	Lore Fromm, Hans Fromm	Full translation directly from Finnish.
	1978	Inge Ott	Prose adaptation based on the translation by Fromm.
	2004	Gisbert Jänicke	Full translation.
Swedish	1841	M. A. Castrén	Full translation of the 1835 Old Kalevala.
	1864–1868	Karl Collan	Full translation of the 1849 Kalevala.
	1884	Rafaël Hertzberg
	1944	Olaf Homén	An abridged edition
	1948	Björn Collinder	trims about 10% of the text
	1999	Lars Huldén and Mats Huldén
French	1845 and 1867	Louis Léouzon le Duc	An important translation used by many other translators to bring Kalevala to their own language.
	1926	Charles Guyot	Abridged version of Louis Léouzon le Duc's translation.
	1927	Jean Louis Perret	Full translation in metric verse.
	1991	Gabriel Rebourcet	Full translation. In old style French vocabulary.
English	1868	John Addison Porter	Partial translation (The story of Aino) via Franz Anton Schiefner's translation.
1869	Edward Taylor Fletcher	Partial translation directly from Finnish (with a lengthy essay).
	1888	John Martin Crawford	Full translation, via Franz Anton Schiefner's translation.
	1893	R. Eivind	A complete prose adaptation for children via Crawford's translation.
	1907	William Forsell Kirby	Second full translation. Directly from Finnish. Imitates the Kalevala meter.
	1950	Aili Kolehmainen Johnson	Abridged prose translation.
	1954	Margaret Sperry	Adapted verse translation of song 50.
	1963	Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr.	Scholarly prose translation. Included with detailed essays and background information.
	1969	Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr.	Scholarly prose translation of the 1835 Old Kalevala.
	1977	Ursula Synge	Abridged prose version. Using W. F. Kirby's translation as a reference.
	1989	Eino Friberg	Editing and introduction by George C. Schoolfield. Imitates the Kalevala meter selectively. The songs in this version are also not of the same length or structure as in the original. Released to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the original publication.
	1989	Keith Bosley	Uses a syllabic verse form to allow for accuracy and metrical variety; released to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the original publication. Subsequently, published as an audiobook read by the translator himself in 2013.
2020	Kaarina Brooks	Complete translation of runic version of 1835 Old Kalevala, following the Kalevala meter throughout.
2021	Kaarina Brooks	Complete translation of runic version Kalevala, following the Kalevala meter throughout.
Hungarian	1871	Ferdinánd Barna	Full translation via Franz Anton Schiefner's translation.
	1909	Béla Vikár
	1971	Kálmán Nagy
	1976	István Rácz
	1985	Antal Reguly	Old Kalevala songs 1-3 and 29.
	1987	Imre Szente
Russian	url=http://elibrary.karelia.ru/book.shtml?levelID=034003&id=274&cType=1	access-date=August 19, 2010	title=Leonid Petrovic Belsky – Калевала}}	Leonid Petrovic Belsky	An important translation used by many other Slavic translators to bring Kalevala to their own language.
	1998 & 2006	Eino Kiuru and Armas Hiiri
Estonian	1891–1898	M. J. Eisen
	1938	August Annist
Czech	1894–1895	J. Holeček	Full translation in metric verse.
Ukrainian	1901	Jevhen Tymčenko
Danish	1902	Ferdinand Ohrt	Partial translation.
	1994	Hilkka and Bent Søndergaard	Full translation of songs 1–22 and 24–50, but excluding song 23, in trochaic tetrameter.
2017	Hilkka and Bent Søndergaard,	Re-issue of the 1994 translation commemorating the centenary of Finland's independence, with song 23 translated (from the Swedish 1999 translation) by Erik Skyum Nielsen.
Italian	url=https://www.bifrost.it/FINNI/Fonti/Kalevala.html	access-date=	title=Il Kalevala (Riduzione dell'articolo di Dario Giansanti)	website=Bifröst}}	Igino Cocchi	Verse translation (hendecasyllable)
	1910	Paolo Emilio Pavolini	Verse translation (original metre)
	1912	Francesco Di Silvestri Falconieri	Prose translation
	1980	Liliana Calimeri	Used Ursula Synge's version as a model.
	1988	Gabriella Agrati and Maria Letizia Magini	Prose translation
	2010	Marcello Ganassini	Verse translation (blank verses)
Lithuanian	1922	Adolfas Sabaliauskas
	1972	Justinas Marcinkevičius
Latvian	1924	Linards Laicens
	1965	?	Uses trochaic tetrameter and syllable stress rhythm.
Dutch	1928	Maya Tamminen	Partial verse translation with connecting prose summaries. Only Dutch translation directly from Finnish.
	1938	Wies Moens	Abridged prose translation. based on the German adaptation by Arthur Luther.
	1940	Jan H. Eekhout.	An shortened adaptation in verse. Based on the German translation by Schiefner and Buber, and the Dutch version of Tamminen.
	1969	Henrik Hartwijk	Translation of song #5. Published in the Yearbook of the Kalevala Society.
	1979	J.C. Ebbinge Wubben	Full prose translation. Based on the German adaptation of Inge Ott.
	1985	Mies le Nobel	Full verse translation. Based on the German translation by Schiefner and Buber.
Serbian	1935	Ivan S. Šajković
Japanese	1937	Kakutan Morimoto
	1961	Tsutomu Kuwaki
	1976	Tamotsu Koizumi
Spanish	1944	Alejandro Casona	Abridged prose translation, based on Charles Guyot's version.
	1953	María Dolores Arroyo	Full metric verse translation via Perret's French and Pavolini's Italian translations
	1967	Juan B. Bergua	Full prose translation, via French and English translations
	1985	Ursula Ojanen and Joaquín Fernández	Full translation directly from Finnish.
	1995	Carmen Crouzeilles	Abridged prose translation. Published in Buenos Aires.
Romanian	1946	Barbu B. Brezianu's	Full prose translation.
	1959	Iulian Vesper	Full translation using an eight syllable verse form.
	1985	P. Starostin	Published in Moldovan which is identical to Romanian. Abridged translation.
Hebrew	1954	Shaul Tchernichovsky
	1978	Sarah Tubia
Yiddish	1954	Hersh Rosenfeld
Belarusian	1956	M. Mašapa	Prose and poetry excerpts.
Icelandic	1957 & 1962	Karl Ísfeld	This translation utilises the Icelandic "three-par" alliteration method.
Chinese	1962	Shih Hêng	Translated via the Russian translation.
	1981	Sun Yong	Translated via W.F.Kirby's English translation.
	2000	Zhang Hua Wen
Esperanto	1964	Johan Edvard Leppäkoski	Full translation in Kalevala meter, published as trochaic octometers (one for every two Finnish verses) with mandatory central caesura
Turkish	1965	Hilmi Ziya Ülken	Translation of the first 2 songs. Using the Hungarian and French as basis. Published in the Yearbook of the Kalevala Society, volume 43 (1963)
	1982	Lale and Muammar Oğuz	Full interpreted prose translation. Missing 25% of the original content for artistic purposes.
Norwegian	1967	Albert Lange Fliflet	Nynorsk language translation. Based on an earlier unpublished translation.
2017	Mikael Holmberg	Bokmål language retelling in trochaic tetrameter.
Georgian	1969	M. Macavarian, Š. Tšantladze & G. Dzneladze.
Arabic	1970	Muhamed Said al-Juneid	Abridged translation published in the yearbook of the Kalevala Society.
	1991	Sahban Ahmad Mroueh
Armenian	1972	A. Siras. Proosaa	Abridged prose translation.
Polish	1974	Józef Ozga-Michalski	Full translation based on the work of Karol Laszecki.
	1998	Jerzy Litwiniuk	Full translation
Komi	1980 & 1984	Adolf Turkin	Partial translation (Väinämöinen's playing and song 10.)
Fulani	1983	Alpha A. Diallo	Book was published in Hungary, illustrated with Akseli Gallen-Kallela's artwork.
Tulu	1985	Amrith Someshwar	Used Keith Bosley's Wanton Loverboy to aid in the translation of some parts.
Latin	1986	Tuomo Pekkanen
Vietnamese	1986	Cao Xuân Nghiêp	Full prose translation.
	1991	Hoàng Thái Anh	Full prose translation.
	1994	Búi Viêt Hòa's	Full translation in metrical verse.
Slovak	1986	Marek Svetlik & Jan Petr Velkoborský.
Hindi	1990 & 1997	Vishnu Khare
Slovene	1991	Jelka Ovaska Novak	Partial translation.
	1997	Jelka Ovaska Novak	Full translation.
Swahili	1992	Jan Knappert	Illustrated with Tanzanian Robino Ntila's graphics.
Bulgarian	1992	Nino Nikolov
Greek	1992	Maria Martzoukou	Verse translation of the first 20 poems with prose translation of the rest.
Faroese	1993	Jóhannes av Skarði
Tamil	url=http://pm.tamil.net/pub/pm0032/index.html	access-date=August 19, 2010	title=R. Sivalingam – KALEVALA	url-status=dead	archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101225050751/http://pm.tamil.net/pub/pm0032/index.html	archive-date=December 25, 2010 }}	R. Sivalingam (Uthayanan)	Full translation. Introduction by Asko Parpola.
Catalan	1997	Ramon Garriga i Marquès, Pirkko-Merja Lounavaara	Full translation in metric verse, directly from Finnish.
	1997	Encarna Sant-Celoni i Verger	Abridged prose translation.
Persian	1998	Mahmoud Amir Yar Ahmadi and Mercedeh Khadivar Mohseni	Full translation directly from Finnish.
	2012	Kiamars Baghbani	Retold and translated in Persian directly from Finnish.
Macedonian	1998	Vesna Acevska
Kannada	2001	Dr K R Sandhya Reddy	Full translation from English.
Croatian	2001	Stjepan A. Szabo	Partial translation in narrative form.
	2006	Slavko Peleh	Full translation using the German translation partially.
Low German	2001	Herbert Strehmel
Oriya	2001	Mahendra Kumar Mishra	Prose translation.
Udmurt	2001	Anatoli Uvarov	Summary.
Veps	2003	Nina Zaiceva	Verse summary.
2022	Nina Zaiceva	Full translation.
Portuguese	2007	Orlando Moreira	Full translation from an English version.
	2009	José Bizerril and Álvaro Faleiros	Partial translation. Only the first song.
	2013	Ana Soares & Merja de Mattos-Parreira	Full translation from Finnish; in verse; with critical introduction, and hundreds of footnotes.
Meänkieli	2007	Bengt Pohjanen	Translation of a select four songs.
Urdu	2012	Arshad Farooq
Belarusian	2015	Yakub Lapatka
Livvi-Karelian	2015	Raisa Remšujeva
Karelian Proper	2015	Zinaida Dubinina

References

"National epic "The Kalevala" reaches the respectable age of 175".
John Martin Crawford. "Kalevala – The national epic of Finland" ''Preface to the First edition, (1888)''.
"Kalevala: The Epic Poem of Finland".
Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr. "The Kalevala or Poems of the Kaleva district" ''Appendix (1963)''.
"Finnish Legends for English Children".
Kirby, W. F.. (1907). "Kalevala: The Land of Heroes". Dent.
Kirby, W. F.. (1907). "Kalevala: The Land of Heroes". Dent.
''The Kalevala; or, Poems of the Kaleva District'', compiled by Elias Lönnrot, trans. by Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963).
''The Old Kalevala, and Certain Antecedents'', compiled by Elias Lönnrot, trans. by Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969).
Eino Friberg. "Kalevala – Epic of the Finnish people" ''Introduction of the first edition, (1989)''.
Elias Lönnrot, ''The Kalevala: An Epic Poem After Oral Tradition'', trans. by Keith Bosley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
"KALEVALA SZEMELVÉNYEK A FINNEK NAIV EPOSZÁBÓL.".
"Kalevalan käännökset ja kääntäjät".
"Leonid Petrovic Belsky – Калевала".
"Eino Kiuru and Armas Hiiri – Калевала".
"Il ''Kalevala'' (Riduzione dell'articolo di Dario Giansanti)".
"''Kalevala'' (Traduzione e note di Paolo Emilio Pavolini)".
"Kalevala: Folks epos fun di Finen".
"Sun Yong – Kalevala".
Hilmi Ziya Ülken. "Turkish translation of The Kaevala Runos 1 and 2" ''Yearbook of the Kalevala Society, volume 43 (1963).''.
Sahban Ahmed Mroueh, Kaj Öhrnberg, and Jussi Aro, الكاليفالا: ملحمة الشعب الفنلندي [''al-Kālīfālā: malhamat al-šaʿb al-finlandī''] (Beirut: Dār Dānāy, 1991).
''[[iarchive:KalevalaLatina/page/n1. Kalevala Latina: Carmen epicum nationis Finnorum in perpetuam memoriam anniversarii centesimi quinquagesimi]]'', trans. by Tuomo Pekkanen, 2nd edn (Helsinki: Societas Kalevalensis, 1996) [first publ. 1986].
"R. Sivalingam – KALEVALA".
(January 29, 2019). "Kalevalan Käännökset 1835–".
(2024). "Supplement_pages".
"Vepsän kul'turvoz': eloho läksi uz' "Kalevala" vepsän kelel".
[http://prajdzisvet.org/news/finski-epas-kalevala-vyijshau-pa-belarusku.html "Калевалу" па-беларуску прэзентуюць 10 снежня]

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

kalevala translation-related-lists translators-from-finnish

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about List of Kalevala translations — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report