Poetry
The Tales of Ensign Stål
Fänrik Ståls sägner
Johan Ludvig Runeberg · 1860
Opening lines
Vårt land, vårt land, vårt fosterland,
Ljud högt o dyra ord!
Ej lyfts en höjd mot himlens rand,
Ej sänks en dal, ej sköljs en strand,
Mer älskad än vår bygd i nord,
Än våra fäders jord.
Our land, our land, our fatherland,
Ring loud, O precious word!
No height rises toward heaven's rim,
No valley sinks, no shore is washed,
More loved than our northern home,
Than our fathers' earth.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from litteraturbanken.se
Synopsis
Tales in verse of the war of 1808-1809, in which Sweden lost Finland: historical and imaginary figures, heroism, sacrifice and solidarity, but also cowardice and betrayal. There pass before us the king, the marshal who conducts the war badly, the soldier Sven Dufva who stops the enemy on a bridge, through orderly retreats and counter-attacks that carry us from discouragement and bitterness to the intoxication of victory.
Context
Thirty-five ballads appeared in two parts, in December 1848 and December 1860. The opening poem, Vårt land, written in 1846, was set to music by Fredrik Pacius in four days and sung on 13 May 1848 in Helsinki; its first and last stanzas became the national anthem. The Whites made it their song during the civil war of 1918, and parliamentary initiatives proposed in 2003 to replace it with Sibelius's Finlandia. The book was translated into German as early as 1852 and into Finnish in 1867; the only French version, partial, is by Hippolyte Valmore (Garnier, 1879).
Who it is for
Thirty-five poems, in Swedish. One needs to know that the war it recounts was lost, and that the country which reads it has belonged ever since to the victor.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as a masterpiece from its publication, it gave Finland a moral identity according to the historian Matti Klinge.