Many of the Blog Articles produced will include a Timeline.

This is one of the better ways for myself that I can organise my information.

This page will be an amalgamation of all those timelines.

• C. – Potentially earliest recording of Kaleva, in the OE poem Widsith:
  •                                            “Casere weold Creacum ond Cælic Finnum…
  •                                  …Mid Creacum ic wæs ond mid Finnum”
  •                                            “Caesar ruled the Greeks and Kaleva(?) the Finns…
  •                                  …With the Greeks I was and with the Finns”
  • Widsith p212
• 1802 – 9th April, Elias Lönnrot born to Fredrik Johan Lönnrot , tailor, and Ulrika Wahlberg
• 1809 – Finland becomes an autonomous Grand Duchy of Russia
• 1822 – Lönnrot enrols at the Academy of Turku
• 1823 – Maria Piponius born to Elias Piponius, master dyer, and Anna Jacobina Snellman
• 1824 -14th February, Lönnrot submits his Swedish translation of the Russian poem, “Hamnen” to a Swedish newspaper
• 1827 – Lönnrot writes his doctoral dissertation “De Väinämöinen priscorum Fennorum numine” (about Väinämöinen, the ancient god of the Finns)
• 1827 – City of Turku burns down
• 1828 – April, Lönnrot sets out on his 1st Field Trip, to Hamë and Savo, reaching Northern Karelia and Valamo
• 1828 – June, Lönnrot meets the traditional singer Juhana Kainulainen
• 1828 – Academy of Turku relocated to Helsinki
• 1828 – September, Lönnrot returns to Helsinki
• 1828 – Lönnrot begins work on “Kantele”, a four volume work of the poems he collected on his 1st field trip
• 1831 – February, Finnish Literature Society (Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura) founded 
• 1831 – Lönnrot completes the fourth, and final volume of “Kantele”
• 1831 – Lönnrot journals his travels from his first expedition into “Vandraren” (“The Wanderer”)
• 1831 – May, Lönnrot begins his 2nd Field Trip
• 1831 – August, Lönnrot summoned back to Helsinki to assist in fight against a cholera epidemic.
• 1832 –   May, Lönnrot graduates from the University of Helsinki (Medical degree), with his thesis “Afhandling om Finnarnes Magiska Medicin”, which dealt with Finnish healing methods based on magic
• 1831 – 13th July, Lönnrot starts his 3rd Field Trip, reaching Eastern Karelia
• 1831 – Lönnrot meets the traditional singer Trohkimai’ni Soava
• 1831 – 17th September, Lönnrot returns from his 3rd Field Trip
• 1833 -August, Lönnrot is made a member of the learned society, Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskrift Selskab                                                 
• 1833 – Autumn, Lönnrot undertakes an official medical trip (4th Field Trip) checking vaccinations, in Kajaani.
• 1833 – Meets the singers Ontrei Malinen and Vaassila Kieleväinen; Lönnröt’s experience here is regarded as the birth of the Kalevala
• 1834 – Lönnrot writes (but doesn’t publish) Runokokous Väinämöisesta, a collection of poems about Väinämöinen.
• 1834 – 13th April, Lönnröt’s 5th Field trip.
• 1834 – Lönnrot meets the singer Arhippa Perttunen. He also meets Martiska Karjalainen, Jyrki Kettunen and Lari Bogdanoff, each of whom provide Lönnrot with valuable information on old poems
• 1834 – Autumn, Lönnrot puts finishing touches to the Kalevala during another vaccination trip
• 1835 –   Lönnrot signs the preface of the first Kalevala on 28th February “Kalewala taikka Wanhoja Karjalan Runoja Suomen kansan muinosta ajoista” (‘Kalewala, or old Karelian poems from the ancient times of the Finnish people’): 32 poems totalling 12,078 lines
• The Kalewala is published in two volumes between 1835 and 1836
• 1835 – April, Lönnrot begins his 6th Field Trip
• 1835 – May, Lönnrot returns from his 6th Field trip
• 1836 -Lönnrot produces his periodical “Mehiläinen” (“The Bee”), Finland’s first Finnish periodical.
• 1836 – September, Lönnrot begins his 7th Field Trip
• 1837 – November, Lönnrot returns from his 7th Field Trip
• 1838 – September, Lönnröt’s 8th Field Trip
• 1838 – Meets Mateli Kuivalatar, who sings for 2 days for Lönnröt. This the foundation of the “Kanteletar taikka Suomen Kansan Wanhoja Lauluja ja Wirsiä” (“Kanteletar, or old songs and hymns of the Finnish people”)
• 1839 –   Lönnrot publishes “Suomalaisen Talonpojan Koti-Lääkäri” (“The Finnish Peasant’s Home Doctor’)
• 1840 -“Kanteletar” published in three volumes.
• 1840 – Lönnrot assists in the founding of Finland’s oldest periodical “Suomi” (still published today).
• 1840 – Lönnrot carries out his 9th Field Trip
• 1841 -January, Lönnrot begins his 10th Field Trip. Lönnrot is accompanied, in parts, by the Norwegian linguistic scholar Nils Stockfleth and by the discoverer of the ‘Finnish tribe’, Mathias Alexander Castrén
• 1842 – Lönnrot returns from his 10th Field Trip
• 1842 – Lönnrot publishes “Suomen Kansan Sanalaskuja” (‘Finnish Proverbs’)
• 1844 – June, Lönnrot begins his 11th Field Trip
• 1844 – Lönnrot meets F. R. Kreutzwald (The Kalevipoeg) in Estonia 
• 1844 – Lönnrot publishes “Suomen Kansan Arwoituksia” (“Finnish Riddles”)
• 1845 – Lönnrot returns from his 11th Field Trip
• 1848 – August, Lönnrot and Maria Piponius get engaged
• 1849 – 13th July, Lönnrot marries Maria Piponius
• 1849 – An enlarged edition of The Kalevala published – 50 poems, 22,795 lines (This is the one we’re more familiar with)
• 1850 – 17th April, Elias and Maria’s first child, Elias, is born
• 1852 – Maria Ulrika Lönnrot born to Elias and Maria
• 1852 – 16th September, Elias Lönnrot (junior) dies of meningitis
• 1854 – Lönnrot begins his post as Professor of Finnish Language at the University of Helsinki
• 1855 – Ida Lönnrot born
• 1855 – H. W. Longfellow publishes “The Song of Hiawatha”. JRRT had something to say about Longfellow and his poem in his 1914 paper “On The Kalevala Or Land of Heroes”:
• “This [‘Hiawatha’] was pirated as was the idea of the poem and much of the incident (though none of its spirit at all) by Longfellow – a fact which I merely mention because it is usually kept dark in biographical notices of that poet.” (The Story of Kullervo, p78)
• 1858 – Elina Sofia Lönnrot born to Elias and and Maria.
• 1860 – Tekla Lönnrot born to Elias and Maria
• 1860 – Lönnrot publishes “Flora Fennica”, the first book on Finnish flora
• 1863 – April, Lönnrot appointed as a member of their Hymnal Committee; from 1864 – 1880, Lönnrot produces hymns every year.
• 1868 – Maria Lönnrot (née Piponius) dies of tuberculosis
• 1874 – Maria Ulrika Lönnrot dies of tuberculosis 
• 1876 – Elina Sofia Lönnrot dies of diphtheria 
• 1879 – Tekla Lönnrot dies of tuberculosis 
• 1880 – Lönnrot publishes “Suomen kansan muinaisia loitsurunoja” (“Ancient Finnish Incantations”)
• 1880 – Lönnrot completes his “Suomalais-Ruotsalainen Sanakirja” (Finnish-Swedish Dictionary)
• 1884 – 19th March, Elias Lönnrot dies
• 1902 – 18^th October, Elias Lönnrot’s sculpture in Helsinki is unveiled.
• 1911 – First publication of “Vandraren”
• 1911 – J. R. R. Tolkien reads the 1907 translation of the Kalevala by W. F. Kirby whilst at King Edward’s School, Birmingham
• 1911 – J. R. R. Tolkien writes “The New Lemminkänen”, a poem in the style of the Kalevala
• 1911 – 25th November, J. R. R. Tolkien checks out “A Finnish Grammar” by C. N. E. Eliot from Exeter College Library.
• 1912 – 1914 –     Tolkien writes “The Story of Kullervo”; he never fully completes the story but he does transform it into the tale of “Túrin Turambar, one of the most                                                       important episodes in his mythology” (“J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide“, Hammond & Scull, Chron. p.62)
• 1914 –   22nd November, Tolkien delivers a paper on the Kalevala, “On ‘The Kalevala’ or Land of Heroes” to the Sundial Society at Corpus Christi College, Oxford;
• 1914 – December, Tolkien paints his watercolour “The Land of Pohja”; this painting and the part of the Kalevala from which it is inspired perhaps foreshadows the destruction of the Two Trees in the Silmarillion.
• 1915 –   Ida Lönnrot dies
•  1915 – February, Tolkien delivers the paper, “On ‘The Kalevala’ or Land of Heroes” to the Exeter College Essay Club, Oxford. Within this essay lies this quote:
  •  “We have here then a collection of mythological ballads full of that very primitive undergrowth that the litterature (sic) of Europe has on the whole been cutting away and reducing for centuries with different and earlier completeness in different peoples…Therefore let us rather rejoice that we have come suddenly upon a storehouse of these popular imaginings which we had feared lost, stocked with stories as yet not sophisticated into a sense of proportion; with no thought of the decent limits of imagination…” (“The Story of Kullervo”, Tolkien p.71)
• 1917 – 6th December, Finland declares its independence 
• 1918 – 28th February, first Kalevala Day and Day of Finnish Culture
• 1921-1924 – Tolkien makes changes to his “On ‘the Kalevala’ or Land of Heroes” paper. Part of the changes is the addition: “I would that we had more of it [Kalevala] left – something of the same sort that belonged to the English” (“The Story of Kullervo“, Tolkien, p.105
• 1973 –   May(?), “Lisa Lautamatti, a recent recipient of a doctorate from the University of Helsinki, visit[s] Tolkien at Merton College. Dr. Lautamatti and Tolkien discuss her thesis and recent research in medieval studies. Dr. Lautamatti will later write: ‘His own field was Old and Middle English literature, while mine was language structures and meanings, but we had enough of common ground. Tolkien also described the influence of the Kalevala and old Scandinavian literature on his fiction. I told him how my family had been driving along the northern coast of Norway as I read out The Hobbit for my sons, and how the Nordic scenery with gloomy grottos, steep mountainsides and the wild sea had formed a perfect context for the adventures’” ((“J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide“, Hammond & Scull, Chron. p. 810)