("Protecting the Sampo" by Akseli Gallen-Kallela) decent NYT on the Kalevala--

"The German poet Johann Gottfried von Herder was urging Europeans to seek their cultural identity in their ancient folklore, which he termed 'the mirror of the soul of the people.' Finland, a province of Sweden since 1155, had been annexed as an autonomous Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire in 1809 and was beginning to hatch dreams of nationhood..."