News
26/03/2016. Runes of Kalevala in the Languages of the World
March 24, 2016:
The National Library of the Republic of Karelia held a literary evening Runes of Kalevala in the Languages of the World. Due to translations of the epic poem into various languages the peoples of the West and East, Europe and Asia got acquainted with the Karelian-Finnish epos, collected and processed by Elias Lönnrot. Today Kalevala is fully translated into 60 languages, and its abridged versions are translated into more than 120 languages.
The National Library of the Republic of Karelia houses a collection of more than 150 different editions of the epic poem. The pride of the collection is pre-Revolutionary books in Finnish and Russian, more than 40 editions in different languages: Armenian, Hungarian, Vietnamese, Georgian, Romanian, Swedish and others.
Runes of Kalevala sounded at the evening in different languages: Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Komi, Mari, Italian, English, German, Chinese and Latin. Runes were read by people of different ages and nationalities: students and teachers, specialists in various fields. Participants of the meeting learned a lot of interesting facts about translators of the epic poem and its editions in different countries.
The wonderful background music was played by Igor Solovyov, the Assistant Professor of the Department of Music of the Finno-Ugric Peoples of the Petrozavodsk State Conservatory.
An exhibition Inspiring World of Kalevala and exhibition of editions of the epic poem in different languages from the collection of the National Library were presented at the evening.