But has it been such a thing any more, really, since the Second World War? Sometimes I doubt it. The Kalevala myth was a genuine source of inspiration for the fledgling Finnish nation in search of an identity. And that is not nothing in today’s marketing-strategy world. Väinämöinen and Maid Finland, in their various incarnations, have been the self-evident emblems of our national-cum-ethnic existence throughout Finland’s independence.Īnd when the time comes to celebrate, artists are the heroes of the nation: it is from them that the nation commissions something to build the future and to reinforce our conception of ourselves. A myth whose mental landscape conjures forth the stormy forces of creativity. The myth in whose epic and dramatic energy our nation found the strength to achieve political independence, found a cultural identity to defend fiercely in the face of war, and found its place as a nation among nations, a mystical people of the North. But we do have the Kalevala, we then remember. Finland is a young culture, we like to say.
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