“One of the greatest problems confronting Finnish culture is the relative absence of critical attitudes with any measure of influence,” says the composer Olli Kortekangas in...

Elias Lönnrot's Kalevala was part of a return to mythology, a desire to discover the roots of the nation's culture and history that prevailed in all...

Runes were sung by people of all ages: children and adults, old and young, men and women. They were sung on all sorts of occasions: on...