Kalevala. A new version Automatic translate

In 1835, the first edition of the great epic “Kalevala,” collected by Elias Lönnrot, was published, and in 1849, the second, most complete one. That is, in 2024 the complete “Kalevala” will turn 175 years old.

Over the past 175 years after the release of “Kalevala,” a wide variety of artists have created their own versions of the vision of the heroes and plots of the epic: from national romanticism, academicism, realism, analytical art, high-quality graphics of socialist realism, neo-expressionism, neo-avant-garde with elements of popular prints and primitivism to comics, children’s style, glamorous illustration, postmodernist experiments, including photo installations.

I offer a new reading of “Kalevala” in the form of 18 works, emphasis on some plots that no one has illustrated, new technique and style of execution. My personality and creative style are a product of the chaos of the 1990s, and I saw in “Kalevala” an aesthetic of collage close to me, scraps assembled into a whole, sometimes quite arbitrarily. I wanted to use color to emphasize the decrepit brightness of worn-out myths, and I built the plots as action plans or theatrical scenes. Kalevala seemed to me almost like the life of a certain ancient rock singer and his bohemian friends, who were rigidly infiltrated into the philistine conservative order of life.

Of course, my works are far from the sublime, almost classical pathos of Axel Gallen, from ethnographic reconstructions, from wonderful landscape and village atmospheres, and from the faces of the heroes almost carved into birch bark performed by Filonov and the avant-garde expressions of Vita Nova.

I deliberately did not delve into the study of the costumes and life of Karelia in ancient times; my heroes are a blooming reality, animation through fabric painted by other artists, stripes, polka dots, and plant patterns appearing everywhere. They connect the Finnish epic with Russian, Soviet reality, Karelian and Slavic antiquity.

Unlike previous “political rugs”, which are typical for me, in these works I do not use texts. And in the first place, in addition to the concentration of meanings and plots, I have the decorative luxury of chintz fabrics from different eras (from chintz from the times of the USSR to modern ripped textiles from different countries from second-hand stores).

From the history of the design of “Kalevala”

The first illustrators of the great epic in Finland in the 19th century were Robert Ekman (1808-1873), Siegfried August Keinänen (1841-1914), his student Axel Gallen Kallela (1865-1933), Pekka Halonen (1865-1933). In the 20th century, illustrations for the Kalevala were created by Bern Landström, Erki Tantum, Matti Visaeti, Aarno Karimo, Christian Guitula (comics 1998-2003),

The most outstanding illustrator Axel Gallen influenced Nicholas Roerich and his interest in the epic. Bilibin also illustrated the Kalevala. In 1933, an illustrated edition of the epic was published in Russia, the Academy publishing house entrusted the work on it to Pavel Filonov, and he passed the order on to his 14 students of the “Masters of Analytical Art” school (the most active of them were Mikhail Tsybasov and Alisa Poret).

In 1949, the Karelo-Finnish SSR widely celebrated the centenary of the publication by Elias Lönnrot of the complete version of the Kalevala epic, and the all-Union competition for creating illustrations was won by artists Georgy Stronk, Osmo Borodkin and Myud Mechev. Later, “Kalevala” was illustrated by Tamara Yufa (1937-2022), Malevich’s student Valentin Kurdov (1905−1989) (the book was published by the Khudozhestvennaya Literatura publishing house in 1979). In 2012, the Nigma publishing house published a gift edition of “The Kalevala,” retold for children by Alexandra Lyubarskaya with illustrations by children’s book artist Nikolai Kochergin (1897−1974). Vivid images of the epic were created by Boris Akbulatov and Yuri Lyukshin, Vladimir Fomin, Anastasia Trifanova (her book was published in 2015).