num_pages: 272
description: Probably in no other country has the marriage of folklore studies and nationalism produced such dramatic results as in Finland. The turning point in the struggle for independence was the intensifying nationalistic sentiment produced by the publication, in 1835, of Elias Lonnrot's Kelevala, an epic based on folk poetry. In the following decades a small band of Finnish scholar-patriots dug deeply into Finnish folklore to forge a literary language, create a national culture, and reconstruct the prehistoric period of the nation's past independence. Both the political right and the political left used folklore to battle each other. This instructive book is the story of that battle as well as of the struggle for independence.
language: English
title: Folklore and Nationalism in Modern Finland
publisher: Indiana UP