Concerning the Origin and Nature of the Finnish Nation

GA 158/1914-11-09/p004 ·1914-11-09 · English MediumMedium alignmentSome paragraph re-numbering between this translation and the German original — the locus may slip by a paragraph or two.
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Such a nation really existed in Europe and it left behind an important monument of culture, concerning which I have already spoken to you. This nation once experienced within the soul the soul's threefold character—and just there, where it should exist—and this was the Finnish nation. This stage of culture is expressed in the epic poem “Kalevala”. What is set forth in “Kalevala”, contains a clear consciousness of the soul’s threefold nature. Thus, the ancient seers, upon whose visionary power the “Kalevala” is based, felt: “The world contains an inspiring element and one of the members of my soul is connected with it; my sentient soul receives its impulses from there.” This nation, or these ancient seers, experienced the inspiring element of the sentient soul almost as a human-divine, or a human-heroic essence, and they called it “Wainamoinen”. This is nothing but the inspiring element of the sentient soul, inspiring it from out [of] the cosmos, and all the destinies of Wainamoinen, described in “Kalevala”, express the fact that this form of consciousness once existed in a nation that was widely spread in the north-eastern territory of Europe, a nation that experienced the three parts of the soul separately and felt that the sentient soul was inspired by Wainamoinen.

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Cite: GA 158/1914-11-09/p004 · edition English