Celebration of Finnish Kalevala Day in the Twin Ports
On February 23rd, an annual celebration of Finnish culture happened at Our Savior’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. The celebration is called Kalevala Day. A national holiday in Finland that celebrates the Finnish language, culture, and identity.
The day is celebrated on February 28th, in Finland, but many people in the Northland celebrate it here as they find ancestors and pride in their roots. Kalevala day celebrates a national epic called the Kalevala, an folk epic of the Finnish people.
Family and friends, Finnish and non-Finnish all come to appreciate the culture as often many baked goods fill the room. The Ladies of Kalevala host the event each year. As the group was started in the late 1800s, when a lot of immigrants from Finland were in America.
Kalevala Day is filled with several events for the celebration of the Kalevala. This event had Steve Sokola, the one-man band, preform. They had Dan Reed, an expert in the Kalevala, give a speech, as well as local members share stories about the Kalevala and the Finnish culture. All this celebration for the Kalevala comes for this epic being the first time the Finnish language was recorded.
It is from the time of the Kalabala, which when it was actually a song. One of the few surviving stories that was passed from one generation to another by Runo singers. That was until the mid 1800s, when a doctor went about the countryside and wrote down what people were signing.
Now the celebration continues and shares the education. “”And so, we continue more than a hundred years later with this education,” Lisa Fitzpatrick said. “Educating people about this wonderful Kalevala epic, which influenced J.R.R. Tolkien in his writings, as well as Longfellow, Writing Walsang of Hiawatha,”
Dan Reed used the translation of Eno Freeberg, a man who became blind and was well known for his English translation, to share the national epic from Finland.
The event happens every year last Sunday of February here in the Northland, as the Ladies of Kalevala invite any and all, to come learn and join in the celebration.