Literary scholars and folklorists may define epics differently, but both are interested in national epics, folklorists because national epics are usually derived from folk epics. Epic poetry contains both features which are similar to those found in oral tradition of other peoples, and those which are unique to a single epic. Distinctiveness is produced by differing cultural realities, while similarities are the result of cultural contacts. In composing and modifying oral epic, traditional singers thus use both types of elements available to them. In this way, feature by feature, folk epics are built up of layers of elements, some from the culture’s own reservoir of tradition, some borrowed from other cultures (e.g. Alho 1987: 267-75). The shape the oral epic will take depends on the dialogue between the epic singers’ creativity and cultural reality. An epic in textual form, on the other hand, appears as a finished, crystallised product. The same is true of a national epic in literary form: it is “closed” rather than “open” and is brought “ready” to the attention of other peoples and cultures through translation. It is known that traditional epic singers assimilate new poetic material to fit the framework of their own perspective, but how do translators of national epics proceed? Presumably the solutions found to interpreting problems are those of the translators, but are the translators really free from the influence of their own cultures? Should they be? Is there, in the end, any difference between an educated translator and the folk singer who assimilates and conveys the folk epic tradition?
Most of the great achievements of world literature have been translated into countless languages. Gilgamesh, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the plays of Shakespeare and Moliere, the poetry of Goethe, the Sundiata and the Mahabharata can be read in dozens of languages. Many bodies of poetry which have achieved the status of national epic, or written epics which have become classics, have been translated into many languages, and so, too, has the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. To date, 154 known translated editions of the Kalevala have appeared in various languages. The languages of translation number 51, so that some languages are represented by more than one translation. Two-thirds of the translations are abridged versions, partial translations or prose adaptations, and not all of the full translations of the epic are presented in metrical verse. It is difficult to say which language is represented by the greatest number of translations, but the Kalevala in its entirety has been translated numerous times into Hungarian, English and German, and quite a few adaptations have appeared in Russian and Swedish. The Kalevala has been translated into two African languages: Swahili and Fulani. Of the major non-European languages, Arabic, Tamil, Chinese and Japanese are represented, but the Kalevala can also be read in, for example, Armenian, Hindi, Tulu, Vietnamese and Yiddish.
The Kalevala Society maintains an inventory of translations based on the list compiled by Rauni Puranen (1985). The large number of translations raises the question: why do translations of the Kalevala continually appear not only in new languages but as replacements for published translations which already exist in the same language?
The message of the Kalevala translations
The Kalevala was linked to nationalist political objectives soon after its appearance in 1835. At the time of the epic’s completion, Finland was an Autonomous Grand Duchy of Czarist Russia, for which the Kalevala represented an affirmation of national memory. Oral history was accorded weight as evidence of this national memory, since it was not possible to appeal to Finnish-language literature or historical sources in creating a national self-awareness (Honko 1980). In his dissertation, William Wilson has pondered the relationship between the Kalevala and folk poetry research on the one hand, and nationalist politics on the other (Wilson 1976). Fourteen years earlier, W. R. Mead was already publishing an article in which he made a connection between Finnish propaganda and the Kalevala. Mead, who was familiar with the original 19th century source materials, suggested an interpretation in which the battle between good and evil presented in the Kalevala was an allegory for the need for an independent Finland. The Kalevala’s symbolic value was reinforced as different language versions of the Kalevala spread throughout the world. (Mead 1962.)
In fact, Finnish nationalists decided to make immediate use of the epic. As early as 1836, the Finnish Literature Society offered a grant of 500 rubles for the translation of the epic into Swedish or German. The first Swedish version was the work of M. A. Castrén and appeared in 1841. Next appeared L. A. Léouzon Le Duc’s French prose version, carried out through the mediation of Latin and Swedish. The Germans, too, were interested in the idea of a translation. In March 1845, Jacob Grimm included lines 206-244 from poem nineteen of the Kalevala in a presentation given to the Berlin Academy of Sciences, although he almost certainly did not translate them directly from the Finnish. A number of German translations were already in progress when it became clear that Lönnrot was working on an expanded version of the Kalevala. Orientalist Anton Schiefner, born in Tallinn and working in St. Petersburg, was finally chosen to translate the New Kalevala into German. He had become acquainted with the Kalevala in Tartu, Estonia, but his work was carried out in Helsinki (Jänicke 1991). After this, twelve years would pass before the next translation of the New Kalevala appeared: Karl Collan’s two-part Swedish rendering was published between 1864 and 1868. In time, translations into other major European literary languages followed, including Estonian (M. J. Eisen 1891, 1898) and Hungarian (Ferdinand Barna 1871, although Béla Vikár’s version of 1909 became the one widely used). A translation into Danish was carried out by F. Ohrt in 1902. Among the eleven full translations of the Kalevala published in the last century was J. Holecek’s Czech version (1894-95).
Underlying these translations were influences from 19th century nationalistic ideals: a small country on Europe’s northern rim offered surprising proof of oral artistry. Later, the Kalevala seems to have become more detached from its link to Finnish National Romanticism. The work continued to generate interest as a work of literature, until, towards the end of the 20th century, the epic’s role as a symbol of folk culture has begun to be recognised even more widely. The Kalevala has become a model for peoples outside Europe as well. Like expanding ripples, new translations continue to appear in countries located further and further from Finland.
The boom in Kalevala translations
The first translation of the Kalevala outside Europe was the Japanese version translated by Kakutan Morimoto, which appeared in 1937. Its successor, produced by Tamotsu Koizumi, appeared already in its third printing in 1985. On the eve of the Second World War, August Annist completed a new Estonian translation which has since gone through several editions. Immediately after the war, Barbu B. Brezianu’s Romanian prose version appeared. A Georgian translation appeared in 1969, followed by an Armenian prose abridgement three years later. The earliest Chinese translation (Shih Hêng 1962) was apparently based on the Russian, the more recent (Sun Yong 1981) relied on W. F. Kirby’s English translation. A Russian prose adaptation has been the basis for a Belorussian, a Moldavian, and a Slovenian version. An Esperanto translation of the Kalevala (1964) by Johan Edvard Leppäkoski had by 1985 already run to its second printing (Klemola 1965).
A more recent wave of full-scale translation projects was timed to coincide with the approach of the 150th anniversary of the Old Kalevala. At this time, two new English versions appeared. Eino Friberg, the translator of the U.S. version, was Finnish-American, while Keith Bosley was responsible for the British version. Bosley had already published a selection from the Kalevala, Tales from the Long Lakes (1966, second edition under the title The Devil’s Horse 1971, in Dutch 1979). Bosley’s translated collection of the Lemminkäinen poems, Wanton Loverboy (1985) has also been a model for other interpretations: Amrith Someshwar’s Tulu version Mookeda biire Leminkaaye (1985), for example, is based on it. The Dutch translation of the Kalevala was carried out by Maria Mies le Nobel (1985); according to the Afterword, he utilised several German renderings as well as the English translations by Kirby and Francis Peabody Magoun Jr. Henrik Hartwijk’s Dutch translation of the 5th poem was published in the Yearbook of the Kalevala Society back in 1969, Tuomo Pekkanen’s Latin version of the Kalevala in 1986.
The Kalevala e Fulbeyán (1983), a translation into the West African language Fulani, is the work of Alpha A. Diallo. This book, which was published in Hungary, is illustrated with Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s classic artwork. The Swahili translation Utenzi wa Kalevala (1992) is illustrated with Tanzanian Robino Ntila’s charming graphics. The translation is that of Jan Knappert. The cover of Vishnu Khare’s Hindi Kalevala (1990) is based on Gallen-Kallela’s The Capture of the Sampo, but the beauty of this work is further enhanced by its decorative lettering. The attractiveness of the cover of the Arabic Kalevala (Sahban Ahmad Mroueh 1991) derives from the same exotic feature. An earlier excerpt by Muhamed Said al-Juneid appeared in the yearbook of the Kalevala Society in 1970. Two prose translations have been published in Vietnamese: Calêvala: truyên dân gian Phân Lan by Cao Xuân Nghiêp appeared in 1986, the second, Truyên dân gian Phân Lan. Truòng ca Kalevala translated by Hoàng Thái Anh, in Hanoi in 1991. Búi Viêt Hòa’s rendering in metrical verse appeared in 1994, as did Ramalingam Sivalingam’s Tamil translation. Carmen Crouzeilles’ abridged prose version of the Kalevala in Spanish was published in Buenos Aires in 1995.
New European translations have also been published in the 1990s. Of these, first renderings include Jelka Ovaska Novak’s Slovenian abridgement (1991) and later full-scale version (1997), Nino Nikolov’s Bulgarian translation and Maria Martzouk’s Greek Kalevala, both in 1992, Hilkka and Bengt Sondergaard’s translation into Danish, and Encarna Sant-Celoni i Verger’s Catalan abridgement a few years later, as well as the entire epic in Catalan, jointly interpreted by Ramon Carriga-Marquès and Pirkko-Merja Lounavaara (1997).
What do we know of the translations?
We know less than we would like about the Kalevala translations and their backgrounds. Their cover designs, illustrations and general appearance would in themselves be an interesting topic for research, for in them can often be found a simplified or stereotypical version of how the receiving culture interprets Finnish ideas. Some of the works have been commented upon in publications accessible to the Finnish reader, but often these commentaries deal only with news of published translations or work in progress, rather than the actual problems of translation. In 1853, the Finnish poet August Ahlqvist severely criticised Anton Schiefner’s version of the Kalevala, as well as other translators who limited themselves to the use of trochaic tetrameter (Vapaasalo 1955). Schiefner’s work has nonetheless served as the basis for certain later German translations. For example, Wolfgang Steinitz’s version is based on Martin Buber’s revision of Schiefner’s translation. Even the high quality translation made directly from the Finnish by Lore and Hans Fromm (1967) has, in the opinion of Gisbert Jänicke (1991), resorted to some of the same solutions. The translation by Schiefner has also served as the basis for countless versions in other languages, such as the English translation by John A. Porter published in the United States in 1863.
Two other early translations have influenced the interpretation of the Kalevala around the world, for not all renderings are based directly on the original Finnish epic. The point of departure for many translations has been L. P. Bel’skij’s Russian version of 1888. It has been reprinted many times, the various editions differing chiefly in terms of illustration. One of the most beautiful editions is that illustrated by Pavel Filonov’s group of artists (1933). The artist and his students later fell into disfavour with the Soviet government, so the distribution of the work was halted and copies of it are rare. One example of a translation based on Bel’skij’s Russian rendering is a Hebrew version for young people. The translator, Saul Tschernichovsky, was a Russian Jew who became familiar with the Kalevala in St. Petersburg after a visit to Finland (Hentinen 1954). A Yiddish translation was published in 1954. E. Timcenko (1901), the translator of the Ukrainian Kalevala, used, in addition to Schiefner’s and Bel’skij’s interpretations, the French version by Léouzon Le Duc, a work which has also been mentioned as having been an aid in numerous other translations.
A third influential work has been W. F. Kirby’s English translation, first published in 1907. It has gone through nearly two dozen printings, one of which appeared in 1985, the 150th anniversary of the Old Kalevala, with an introduction by Michael Branch. Ten years earlier Ursula Synge had used Kirby’s translation to compile an abridged prose version (1977), which in turn served as the model for the Italian version (Liliana Calimeri 1980). Francis P. Magoun Jr.’s prose translation (1963) was based on a conscious decision to preserve the meaning as much as possible without attempting to reproduce the poetic metre or alliteration in English. Six years later, Magoun translated the Old Kalevala (1969) using the same principles.
The Icelandic volumes appearing in 1957 and 1962 and based on F. Ohrt’s Danish abridgement cover approximately one third of the Kalevala. This translation utilised the Icelandic “three-par” alliteration technique, and the language is rhythmically similar to Kalevala-metric expression (Holmberg 1964). In introducing the Norwegian translation Knut Bergsland comments on the decisions which favoured the preservation of the epic’s linguistic features: expressions from a living tradition as opposed to a “dead language” in an earlier non-published precise translation which served as the basis for Albert Lange Fliflet’s interpretation.
Tyyni Tuulio has analysed Maria Dolores Arroyo’s Spanish rendering which appeared in 1953 and which was carried out on the basis of Jean-Louis Perret’s French translation, with help from Paolo Emilio Pavolini’s Italian version (Tuulio 1955). Later, a new translation of the Kalevala in Spanish was made by Joaquin Fernandez and Ursula Ojanen (1985). Turkish versions of the first two poems of the Kalevala, translated by Hilmi Ziya Ülken on the basis of the Hungarian and French texts, were published in Kalevalaseuran vuosikirja [the Yearbook of the Kalevala Society], volume 43 (1963). The final translation of the epic in Turkish (1965) was made by Lale and Muammar Obuz and has been reviewed for Finnish readers by Paul Jyrkänkallio. In this review, Jyrkänkallio mentions that the lines of poetry in the Turkish Kalevala have been reduced by approximately one fifth, but that according to the translators’ own preface, they have striven to remain otherwise faithful to the original text. In evaluating the actual implementation, Jyrkänkallio mentions the difficulties experienced by all interpreters of the Kalevala in conveying an image of Finnish culture intended for a different milieu (Jyrkänkallio 1966).
According to Tauno Nurmela, the Romanian translation by Iulian Vesper of 1959 is a linguistic success: its eight-syllable non-rhyming poetic form flows well, and radiates a “rustic, slightly archaic serenity and balance” (Nurmela 1960). One of the most faithful translations of the Kalevala is probably the Latvian version, which has been studied by Lauri Posti. He refers to the information given by the translator on the precise correspondence between the lines in the translation and in the original, which is disrupted only five times. The poetic metre of the work is trochaic tetrametre, which is also the metre used in Latvian dainas. The rhythm, however, is based on syllable stress rather than vowel length, which makes the text more monotonous than the original. Although the translator has used the original Finnish text as his point of departure, the errors contained within other translations used in parallel have also slipped into the Latvian edition. As a result of careful examination, Posti has thus shown how translation errors can drift from one work to the next (Posti 1966).
The most difficult translations to evaluate are those written in a non-European script. For the Finnish reader, the key to understanding the Chinese version of the Kalevala is Aarne Mustonen’s short commentary on the stages in the translation of the epic into Chinese. The edition published in Moscow (1956) was preceded by a prose abridgement. According to the postscript, the Chinese translator had used W. F. Kirby’s work, but the illustrations were originally Russian (Mustonen 1964). The same images were used in the edition printed in Shanghai in 1962, but the illustrations to Sung Yong’s translation appearing in 1981 were the work of Dung Kejun. This version was reprinted in 1985.
Yet more translations are at the planning stages. Translators appear to be endlessly drawn to the Kalevala, and something in the Finnish epic speaks to representatives of ever more distant cultures. It is clear that the parallel drawn between the Kalevala and the epic folk tradition of their own brings it closer to national and ethnic groups interested in shaping their own identity and cultural awareness. This makes the African translation projects, for example, or the Tulu abridgement of the epic more comprehensible. The themes common to the oral epics of different groups increase the ease with which the epic moves from language to language. In addition, the global “shrinking” taking place in the modern world, the levelling of cultural differences, the forging of new cultural relations and the fact that the ambitions of smaller ethnic groups are becoming more similar have created a situation in which the common features contained within the oral poetry of different peoples can be recognised more easily. Thus even the archaic epic of a distant people may be of interest. Moreover, the translations already accessible serve as a stimulus or incentive towards more translations: if the Kalevala has been translated into Russian, then why not into Belorussian? Or if it exists in Spanish, then why not in Catalan? However, these explanations do not satisfy the question of why new translations are replacing older versions in the world’s major languages.
What accounts for the appearance of replacement translations?
Parallel translations, including prose versions, abridged versions, and adaptations intended for children and young people have been published in a number of languages. There are over twenty German versions of the Kalevala, nearly as many in English, some dozen in Swedish, and eight each in Italian, French and Russian. The Kalevala has been translated, in part or whole, into Hungarian or Dutch six times, and into Spanish, Japanese and Estonian five times.
Elias Lönnrot completed the Old Kalevala in 1835 and its first Swedish translation was published in 1841, eight years before the appearance of the Kalevala in its present form. Before the arrival of the New Kalevala, the Old Kalevala was translated into French (1845) and parts of it into Russian (1847). However, the translator of the first German version (1852), Anton Schiefner, was able to use the New Kalevala as his source text. During the 19th century new renderings appeared in Swedish (1864) and French (1867), along with numerous English abridgements, four selections from the epic in Russian, a new German translation (1886) and the first full-length Estonian version. The French translation of the New Kalevala by Louis Antoine Léouzon Le Duc managed to stand the test of time: in 1926 Charles Guyot published an abridgement of it, which served as the basis for Alejandro Casona’s Spanish Kalevala (1944), and it was not until 1927 that Jean-Louis Perret’s new prose translation appeared. His translation in metric verse was published in 1930, and Gabriel Rebourchet’s modern French translation came out in 1991. In similar fashion, Björn Collinder’s Swedish translation (1948) supplanted Karl Collan’s older version, but not until a century had passed, and L. P. Bel’skij’s Russian translation held its own until the 1990s, when Eino Kiuru and Armas Hiiri undertook a new interpretation.
Susan Bassnett has considered the problems of translation and listed the different ideas held by translators on the conditions a translation must meet before it can be considered an equivalent of the original. She quotes Anton Popovic, who states that two types of “non-translatability” exist. First of all, it may be impossible to find linguistic replacements for the structure, linearity, function or semantics of the source text because denotations and connotations are not shared by the two languages. The second problem is not only linguistic, and occurs when a satisfactory expression is not found in translation for the meaning’s expressive relations, in other words, for the relationship between the real world and its corresponding linguistic expression in the source language. Modern linguistics – the contributions of Ferdinand de Saussure and others, Noam Chomsky’s transformation theory as an aid to semantic research – has helped to clarify the problematics of translation as well. Georges Mounin has outlined three limitations which the translator must accept: 1) the uniqueness of personal experience cannot be translated, 2) in theory, the basic units of two different languages can never be fully comparable and 3) communication is only possible when one takes into account the situational context of the speaker and listener or writer and translator (Bassnett 1980: 49-51).
Background information on Kalevala translations can be found from prefaces to the editions, in which the translators ponder the principles which guided their work and associated problems. In some cases, it is stated that another translation was used as a point of departure, and sometimes this fact becomes clear in other ways, even if it is not mentioned in the preface itself. Some translators have considered the precise transfer of meanings, i.e. cultural and linguistic authenticity, to be most important. Yet the difficulty of conveying this cultural milieu, taken together with problems connected to metric verse and line structure, may represent an insurmountable obstacle. Other translators, however, have wished to interpret the epic so as to make it comprehensible within the culture of its new audience. For these translators, what is significant is the mental reality of the Kalevala, in which Northern exoticism is only a veneer beneath which can be found myths common to all peoples. Neither approach is easy for the translator, however. Sometimes we can only guess at the translator’s motivations, at his or her knowledge of the Finnish language, or at how successful the translation is in its target language. It goes without saying that as a challenge, translating the Kalevala is in a class by itself. Gisbert Jänicke has carried out a thorough analysis of the German Kalevala translations, and in his view, the German versions are heterogeneous in style due to the fact that the connotations of the Finnish language are not always necessarily comprehensible to Germans. The Kalevala is made an oddity by the contradictory nature of the artistic, scholarly, ideological and political processes that went into its compilation. According to Jänicke, its translation is actually doomed to failure if complete correspondence is sought at all levels of style and substance. The lines of poetry in the epic originate, moreover, from different folklore genres, time periods and dialectal regions, and variants have been combined in spite of these differences. The translator thus faces an almost impossible task (Jänicke 1991). Nonetheless, this challenge has been taken up by a surprising number of translators.
Certain translators of replacement Kalevalas have pondered the principles underlying their work. For the average Finn, the language of the Kalevala diverges significantly from everyday Finnish – not only due to its poetic expression, but also because of its archaic vocabulary and concepts. In its home country, the Kalevala is continually being re-interpreted to make it more comprehensible to a present-day audience: through comic strips, theatrical productions, computer games, etc. The Kalevala has been linguistically updated primarily in the guise of fun and games. The foreign translator, however, faces a different situation: in order to find an audience, the translator must ensure the archaic Kalevala’s readability in the present day so that a bridge is formed between the two cultures. An earlier translation of the Kalevala may have aged in terms of its language, or it may be felt to otherwise lack the necessary connection to modern reality. An early abridgement may, in its own time, have been crafted to be comparable to the target culture’s own National Romantic heritage, while the modern reader demands a text which provides an enjoyable reading experience.
The translators of replacement Kalevalas appear to emphasise different things depending on their own interests. The objective of a researcher’s translation might be either philological correspondence or ethnographic relevance. If the goal is a text of high linguistic standards, the translator may be a poet who takes into account the receiving culture’s criteria for evaluating poetic language. Some translations are aimed at young readers, in which case a prose abridgement which focuses on action themes may be a wise solution. In their own way, the translations tell about the era in which they appear and about the receiving culture, while the original Kalevala, which has been “fixed” in its time of publication, reflects the Finland of the mid-19th century. The flood of translations which have appeared over the past nearly 160 years bears witness to the capacity of folklore to overcome cultural boundaries. The problems encountered in translation are perhaps not, after all, so different from those faced by ancient tradition-bearers in assimilating influences from more distant cultures. However, there remains one difference between oral transmission and translation of printed material: a singer of epic chooses his or her intellectual materials – be they domestic or translated and adapted – according to the context of the performance and the creative intentions. A modern translator is more dependent on the printed text.
The Kalevala Society and the Finnish Literature Society have undertaken a project aimed at gathering information associated with the Kalevala and its translations and assembling this information in the form of an ongoing database. The organisations involved in this project – including the Kalevala Institute – are coordinating a symposium for Kalevala translators in June 1999, during which the problems of translating the Kalevala will be discussed and considered. According to the preliminary programme, themes for the symposium sessions will be The Epic in Culture, Translating from Culture to Culture/Cultural Adapation, Translating from Language to Language, The Reception of the Kalevala in the Target Culture. Numerous experts have been invited to introduce the sessions. The Kalevala Translations Research Project and the Kalevala Translators’ Symposium will hopefully also benefit both the study of epics in a broader sense as well as the translation work associated with this research.
Literature cited
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Henni Ilomäki
Finnish Literature Society, Helsinki
(FFN 16, October 1998: 2-7)