University of Helsinki
Anchor study 1, led by Tuukka Karlsson, examines three genres of Kalevala-metric poetry: incantations, epic, and lyric. The study is interested in emic conceptions of the materialities of these text types. Theoretically, the investigation engages with linguistic anthropologic discussions on semiotic ideologies, registers, and affordances residing in material and immaterial signs. In addition, methods developed in folklore studies are applied to the large corpora of texts the study makes use of.
The study uses the digitized corpora of published Kalevala-metric poetry (skvr.fi), which comprises approximately 89,000 texts and fragments of various genres. Additionally, approximately 60,000 unpublished archived texts and fragments are used as a complementary research corpus. The poetic material constitutes the data that will be investigated for implicit and explicit evaluations and (re)valorizations of the material aspects residing in the tradition. Collectors’ correspondence and field notes, such as those of Iivo Marttini, are also examined to explore differences between performers’ and collectors’ conceptions of text and text-type valorizations.
This anchor study is interested in the material affordances of various genres and the potential differences in how texts of various genres are connected with different materialities in vernacular metadiscourse.
From vernacular considerations of oral texts and genres, this anchor study advances to the reception, utilization, and vernacular conceptions of Lönnrot’s Kalevala in Viena Karelia during the latter half of the 19th century. This stage situates vernacular conceptions of texts and their evaluation in relation to those of researchers. Especially toward the end of the 19th and early 20th century, the research and archival paradigms guiding the collection of Kalevala-metric poetry conceived some performances as ‘inauthentic’, such as poems thought to be learned from Lönnrot’s epic. A category “Learned from The Kalevala” was even used to separate poems seen as less valuable than the so-called authentic texts in the publication of an edition of the corpus, placing them in a separate section rather than with other poems of the same genre, subject, or formal type. This part of the study examines the material and immaterial aspects of language ideologies and registers (those of the collectors and those of the community members). It investigates both sides of the oral tradition’s reception in material form outside its domain of everyday use. On the one hand, it examines how vernacular mythic and ritual poetry was treated and discussed in circles outside of its traditional use, as in newspapers from the 19th and early 20th century. On the other hand, it analyzes the re-introduction of this poetry to the oral poets or original authors.
Finally, this anchor study looks into diachronic enregisterment processes and changes in how the poems have been interpreted, becoming bundled together with materialities during the 19th and early 20th century. This study will offer new perspectives on how the poetry’s affordances have changed from pre-modern times to the early years of modernization.