Suomen kansan vanhat runot (The Ancient Songs of the Finnish People), or SKVR, is an edition of traditional Finnic-language verse containing around 100,000 different songs, and including the majority of the songs that were the sources of the Finnish epic Kalevala and related poetry. The collection is available, free, online.
Contents
The original fourteen volumes (published in around 32 physical volumes) were published by the Finnish Literature Society from 1908 to 1948.Tuukka Karlsson, '"Come here, you are needed": Registers in Viena Karelian Communicative Incantations' (PhD thesis, Helsinki University, 2022). A supplement, containing, among other things, some of the field notes of Cristfried Ganander and Elias Lönnrot, was added in 1997. The supplement also contains poems on highly sexual subjects, such as spells to obtain a sexual partner or to improve sexual performance, which had previously been considered unsuitable for publication.Housumato ja sudenkita – seksi kansanrunoudessa (Arkistoitu artikkeli) Most of the songs in the collection come from the archives of the Finnish Literature Society, but many come from elsewhere, including archives in other countries.
SKVR includes over 89,000 poetic texts in Kalevala-meter, though it is also rich in prose stories and other poetic forms. It does not include all Finnish folklore; around 60,000 texts, for example, are held in unpublished form by the Finnish Literature Society.
The songs in SKVR are organised into fourteen regions from which they were collected; most volumes then arrange the material by geographical location within the region, and then into four genres: lyric songs epic or narrative songs occasional songs (in genres such as wedding songs or lullabies) incantations.
Each of these genres is further divided into several subgroups. For example, in 1918 F. A. Hästesko published a sub-genre classification for incantations, which was used in SKVR.Frans Aleksi Hästesko, Länsisuomalainen loitsurunous (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 1918).
The regions covered are as follows: +SVKR series numbernumber of partsSuomalainen kirjallisuuden seuran toimitusksia series number(s)editorpublication yearsregionI4121A. R. Niemi1908–21White KareliaII1144A. R. Niemi1927Olonets, Tver, and Novgorod KareliaIII3139Väinö Salminen and V. Alava1915–24Western IngriaIV3140Väinö Salminen1925–28Central IngriaV3141Väinö Salminen1929–31Eastern and Northern IngriaVI2142J. Lukkarinen1934–36SavoniaVII5143A. R. Niemi, Kaarle Krohn and V. Alava1929–33Border and North KareliaVIII1145Y. H. Toivonen1932Finland ProperIX4146 (first publ. Monumenta Tavastica – Hämeen muistomerkkejä 1–2)Hämäläis-Osakunta1917–18 (first publ. 1915–17)TavastiaX2147T. Pohjankanervo and J. Lukkarinen1933–34SatakuntaXI1148J. Lukkarinen1933South OstrobothniaXII2149Martti Haavio1934–35North OstrobothniaXIII4150Väinö Salminen1936–45South KareliaXIV1151Väinö Salminen1948UusimaaXV1685Matti Kuusi and Senni Timonen1997various
English translation
A selection of poems is presented in normalised Finnish and in English translation in Finnish Folk Poetry: Epic. An Anthology in Finnish and English, edited and translated by Matti Kuusi, Keith Bosley and Michael Branch (Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran toimituksia, 329, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 1977).
References
External links
SKVR online Vol. 1 part 1, part 2, parts 3-4 Vol. 3 part 1, part 2 Vol. 6 part 2 Vol. 7 part 3, part 4 Vol. 9 parts 1-2 parts 3-4 Vol. 10 part 1 Vol. 13 part 1