A clear autumn day is to be highly valued, the supply of them being so low at the moment...

So, just to cheer myself up, I post an autumn morning shot off the ferry at Turku (åbo in Swedish). Turku is Finland's second largest city (I think)...anyway, it is the old capital of Finland, before the Tzar moved it to Helsinki (invariably pronounced Char by my Finnish friends). The highlight there would be the Turku Art Museum which currently houses the Kalevala artworks exhibition, ongoing till 10 January. It has all the major pieces of Kalevala artwork collected from the various museums in Finland. I had been puzzled not to find any artwork on the Kalevala at the Ateneum, Helsinki's main art museum, but now I know that it's been collected at Turku in conjunction with the 160th anniversary of the publication of the Kalevala. I strongly recommend a visit, if you're taking the Stockholm-Turku ferry to get to Finland. It's very cheap for students, about 3 euro compared to the horrible prices for museum admission in Helsinki.

Anyway, although I started out about Autumn, the picture has reminded me of my time in Turku and the Kalevala exhibition. The Kalevala deserves a few words, because a nationally adopted myth tells a lot about how a people call themselves a nation. It is interesting that the Kalevala is one of the latest oral epics to be transcribed. It was published only in the nineteenth century, and there are voice recordings of the singers of Kalevala stories. Compare this to the existence of only a handful of known manuscripts of The Oddysey and the Iliad, Greek epics dating back to 900 BC.
The Kalevala is a Finnish oral epic which originated from Karelia. As far as I can make out, that's some area between Finland and Russia--and mostly lost to Russia during the second world war. I was told this by my host in Turku, whose parents were apparently Karelian refugees. In an attempt to express Finnish-ness and find a national spirit, Finnish artists turned to the Kalevala. Many of them made research trips to the Karelian songlands to find out about traditional Karelian life and Karelian landscapes.
My favourite artist of the Kalevala is Akseli Gallen-Kallela. He depicted the myth with the most dynamism, and many critics felt that he had portrayed the spirit of the Kalevala.

Defending the Sampo, by Akseli Gallen Kallela.

The centre of a myth, if it is to be interpreted for nationalistic purposes, is about the indomitability of a people in the face of what threatens them. In this case, Väinäimöinen of Kaleva must defend the Sampo, a powerful object, from being taken by Luohi, the Mistress of the North.

What the artists leave out of their powerful depictions, though, is the not-so-consistent backstory. The Sampo had originally been given to the Mistress by none other than Väinäimöinen himself, in return for her daughter whom he wanted to marry. I think she eventually marries Ilmarinen, the guy who forges the Sampo. I'm typing from memory here, don't have the time to do research. So forgive any errors. But check out Forging the Sampo : this article has the painting by Gallen-Kallela and a more detailed---and accurate--discussion of the myth. Anyway, when Väinäimöinen hears of the prosperity that the Sampo has brought to the Mistress's land, he decides to go and get it back, with the help of some of the other characters. The Mistress is really just vengefully reclaiming her treasure. Was Väinäimöinen a thief as well as a hero? *

The question is perplexing, because a myth does not really have a straightforward interpretation. It always digresses, and gets reinvented by its storytellers, so when it is compiled (and even the compiler, Elias Lonrött, added his own stanzas to link the various cycles together), it is not necessarily consistent. To interpret for nationalistic purposes means re-inventing the myth yet again for purposes other than the original one.

* The story of Väinäimöinen ends when he leaves the country after a new child-king is crowned. The child-king is born of a woman who eats a berry, rather like the Virgin mother and Christ (the Kalevala was still developing late enough for the Christian influence to show). The woman and child who displace the old man and his values is a very interesting image, but the portrayal and the participation of women in the Kalevala is really a whole other essay... I will just say for now that it is interesting how the men all get into trouble from wooing and winning maidens, like Lemminkäinen, who drowns in an attempt to capture the Swan of Tuonela (realm of death?), one of the tasks set for him in order to win a daughter of Luohi. His mother heroically resurrects him by collecting the pieces of his body and sewing them together. Another figure of interest is Aino, who drowns herself (commits herself to the water spirits) rather than give in to Väinäimöinen's lust.

Hmm, what started as a post on a clear autumn day has turned into a discussion of the Kalevala.

Review: Nation

Best rewrite of Crusoe ever. This time, Pratchett really is guilty of literature.

Day Around Town

I am reproducing my blog posts at gothenburg09.misi.se, a site for foreign students in Sweden. So you will find completely unnecessary details such as shop names and sometimes even directions, if I'm too lazy to edit. Just take it as good to know, in case you ever decide to visit Göteborg.

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Our day of sight-seeing started with a drive around town. A friend I met at church gave us a full tour of the city in her car, and drove us to the Asian supermarket. We wowed at all the different products the shop had, mostly from China and Southeast Asia, then settled for the things we missed the most: rice, ginger and oyster sauce (we already have soya sauce).

This is Masthuggskyrkan, a beautiful brick church situated on top of a rocky point. We would not have known about it, had it not been for my friend. It's great to know a local (or in this case, a Singaporean Chinese residing in Goteborg who claims to never have met people from her region here before). We had a great view of the city and the harbour below from this point.

Then we took a walk around Haga, the old town district. Here you find cafés with tables spilling out onto the pretty cobblestone streets and antique shops stocked with curios from past times. My poor attempt at imitating Henri Cartier-Bresson:

Bicycles are very common around here, and many students buy second hand ones to get around the city without paying for the transport card. It's fine in summer, but in fall and winter you have to get used to cycling in the rain or in slush--snow around here is not the fine, beautiful powdery stuff you get in the movies, according to the locals. Hence my decision to stick with the more expensive but infinitely convenient transport card.

And it is a very rainy city in September. If it's not rainy it is at least cloudy. Many of the locals go outside prepared with hooded rainjackets and/or umbrellas. As I type this now it is raining outside. I can hear the wind blowing the rain about.

Lunch was at Salluhallen, the market hall where traders sell meat, cheese, vegetables, specialty teas and bread. I had panbiff med lök sås och potatis, which was meatballs and potatoes. You thought IKEA had the best meatballs?

Those two beef patties, the serveur tells us, are meatballs.

We waited out the rain by shopping at the second-hand shop, Emmaus, at Linnegatan. The clothes were in decent condition and really great for us students from far away who couldn't bring so many things with us, and who won't use the clothes for more than a season. My buddies bought scarves and cardigans. I bought a winter jacket. It was from Mango and in good condition, only missing a belt. Didn't bother with a new one as I will only use it for this trip. I wore it back to Olofs, and it felt great, just like being back home because I was so warm and toasty, though it was overkill for late summer. I might as well have walked around with a big sign, "I am newly arrived and I have failed to acclimatize."

Finally we headed over to the student club Parken, having dinner at their free buffet. We went early on purpose, because we missed the food last week, and we wanted a taste of it this week. After the food, the tables were cleared to make space for a dance floor, and a DJ started up the music. The DJ mixed the music very well. At one point I recognized the strains of the Imperial Death March from Star Wars mixed in with some other rhythm. I'm not much into music, but this nerd thinks the ability to turn that into dance music is the criteria for a skilled DJ. The dance floor got really crowded, and people were stilling queuing to get into the club at 11pm. We missed our usual bunch of friends, though, so we left pretty early. We ended the day with hot chocolate at my room. It was great, except for this nagging at the back of my mind, that I have not started my essay yet...exchange students do need to get work done at some point.