Kalevala and Finnic Mythology in Italy : Translations, Scholarship and Literature

Conference: Kaleva - epica, magia, arte e musica. Cividale del Friuli, Italia, 28.5.2011-29.5.2011.Non peer reviewe

Bear Hunt Rituals in Finland and Karelia : Beliefs, Songs, Incantations and Magic Rites

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The ritual art and paraphernalia of the Nepalese jhankris and Tamang bombo

Publishers: Akadémia Kiadó ; Warsaw : Polish Institute of World Art Studies ; Torun : Tako Publishing House, 2014Peer reviewe

Bear Hunt Rituals in Finland and Karelia : Beliefs, Songs, Incantations and Magic Rites

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Symbolic Dances from Folklore ao Avant-Garde : Le Sacre du Printemps and Petroushka from Stravinsky to Tero Saarinen

The present article is focused on the detailed analysis of how Stravinsky, Nijinsky and other artists of the Ballets Russes’ company reinterpreted Russian folklore elements in order to create two famous ballets: Le Sacre du Printemps and Petroushka. Puppet theatre, folk and popular tunes, rituals and myths of a fantastic Russian paganism were used by the company not to revitalize a nostalgic idea of the past, but to forge an innovative avant–garde art and to shatter the most oppressive classic ballets’ stereotypes and clichés. Their project had an impressive outcome, in spite of the initial scandals and the painful conflicts among the egocentric company’s members. Stravinsky’s and Fokine’s ideas were fundamental for the formation of modern and contemporary dance’s aesthetics. Choreographers of different nationalities and backgrounds had build up more than five hundred Sacre’s versions, and most of them are quite different from the original. Nowadays being faithful to Stravinsky means to follow the iconoclastic spirit of this cosmopolitan composer. In the first years of the new millennium the Finnish choreographer and dancer Tero Saarinen created innovative and quite surprising versions of the two Stravinski’s ballets: using video–art and presenting introspective performances, the dancing bodies expressed existential problems and a touching protest against our voluntary self–sacrifice to technocracy and sadistic competition. Some reflections of well known musicologists and experts of dance history, and in particular some relevant concepts of semiotics of culture — as Juri Lotman’s ideas about the dynamic adaptation of archaic symbols to the cultural context’s changes — can help us to analyze challenging phases in the creation of substantial philosophical fundaments of modern and contemporary dance.Peer reviewe

Il Kalevala e la mitologia finnica in Italia : traduzioni, ricerche e letteratura

New version (2021) of the Italian chapter previously published in 2014 (bilingual edition of the book - Italian and English) and in 2015 (Italian edition): the original Italian text has been reviewed and corrected, the bibliography improved and standardized, and there are new footnotes for Italian readers written by the reviewers of the mythological series "Bifröst" (VociFuiriScena): Dario Giansanti and Elisa Zanchetta. The chapters are based on the papers of the scientific symposium: "Kalevala: Epica, Magia, Arte e Musica / Kalevala: Epic, Magic, Art and Music" organized in Bottenicco di Moimacco / Cividale del Friuli (Udine, Italy) for the centenary of Kalevalaseura (2011).Non peer reviewe

Babbo natale giustiziato : le riflessioni di Lévi-Strauss sulla storia culturale di uno dei più complessi ibridi culturali

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Kullervo: Victim of a Failed Education or a Warrior comparable with Herkules? : Artistic Interpretations of the Myth of Kullervo, part I: Elias Lönnrot, Zachris Topelius, Fredrick Cygnaeus, Robert Wilhelm Ekman and Carl Eneas Sjöstrand.

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Introduction

New version (2021) of the Italian introduction (Piludu & Frog) previously published in 2014 (bilingual edition of the book - Italian and English) and in 2015 (Italian edition): the original Italian text has been reviewed, standardized and corrected, and there are new footnotes written for the Italian readers by the reviewers of the mythological series "Bifröst" (VociFuoriScena): Dario Giansanti and Elisa Zanchetta. The chapters are based on the papers of the scientific symposium: "Kalevala: Epica, Magia, Arte e Musica / Kalevala: Epic, Magic, Art and Music" organized in Bottenicco di Moimacco / Cividale del Friuli (Udine, Italy) for the centenary of Kalevalaseura (2011). Non peer reviewe

The Songs and rituals of the Finno-Karelian bear hunt : Gifts, seduction and mimesis in the forest

In this chapter, I analyse the first stage of Finnish and Karelian bear ceremonialism – the songs and rituals performed during the bear hunt in the forest. First, I present the whole structure of Finno-Karelian ceremonialism and its socio-economic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. I examine the conceptions of the bear and the forest in Finno-Karelian folk belief, emphasising the importance of the personalisation of the forest and the bruin – the bear. The forest was considered a mythical world with a social structure: Its inhabitants, the forest haltias (guardian spirits) and the bear, were considered as persons of the forest, with whom the hunters tried to establish a complex ritual relationship both during and after the hunt. After this introduction, I will analyse the songs and rituals of the bear hunt, focusing: 1) on offerings to forest spirits, 2) on seductive songs for female forest spirits, 3) on songs to wake up the bear from its hibernation in its den, which were performed before the kill, and 4) on songs that portrayed the kill as an accident and denied the hunters’ responsibility. The goal of the ritual communication during the hunt was to please the forest spirits and to avoid the revenge of the bears. My interpretation is based on theoretical reflections: 1) on the personhood of the bear and forest spirits, ontology, animism, and human-environmental ritual relations, and 2) on the status of the hunter as a mimetic suitor and groom of female forest spirits and bears. Keywords: Finnish and Karelian bear ceremonialism, ritual hunt, ontology, animism, personalisation of forest and bear, mimesis, ritual seductionPeer reviewe