Karl August Engelbrekt Ahlqvist, who wrote as A. Oksanen (7 August 1826 – 20 November 1889), was a Finnish professor, poet, scholar of the

Finno-Ugric languages Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in the 19th centur ...

, author, and literary critic. He is best remembered as the sharpest critic of writer

Aleksis Kivi Aleksis Kivi (; born Alexis Stenvall; 10 October 1834 – 31 December 1872) was a Finnish writer who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, '' Seitsemän veljestä'' (''Seven Brothers''), published in 1870. He is also known ...

, who later rose to the position of the national author of Finland.

Biography

He was born in

Kuopio Kuopio ( , ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of North Savo. It is located in the Finnish Lakeland. The population of Kuopio is approximately , while the Kuopio sub-region, sub-region has a population of approximately . It is the mos ...

, Finland. He was the illegitimate child of Baron Johan Mauritz Nordenstam (1802–1882); his mother Maria Augusta Ahlqvist (1806–1886) was a servant. He became a student at the Imperial Alexander University (now University of Helsinki) in 1844. He was a Philosophy candidate in 1853, a Licentiate of Law in 1854 and took a Doctor of Philosophy in 1859. In 1863, he became a professor of Finnish language and literature at the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

. He became Dean of the History-Linguistic Section 1882–1884. He served as the university's Rector from 1884 to 1887. He resigned as emeritus in 1888. He died in 1889 at Helsinki, Finland. In 1846 and 1847, he traveled through the eastern part of Ostrobothnia, as well as Finnish and Russian

Karelia Karelia (; Karelian language, Karelian and ; , historically Коре́ла, ''Korela'' []; ) is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Russia (including the Soviet Union, Soviet era), Finland, and Sweden. It is currentl ...

, partly gathering local folk tales and partly to investigate minority languages. In 1854–55, he made research trips among the Finnish tribes in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

provinces, the province of

Olonets Olonets (; , ; ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, town and the administrative center of Olonetsky District of the Republic of Karelia, Russia, located on the Olonka River to the east of Lake Ladoga. Geography Olonets is located ...

and eastern Russia and

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

. Between 1856 and 1859, he studied Finno-Ugric languages in the areas of

Volga River The Volga (, ) is the longest river in Europe and the longest endorheic basin river in the world. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchment ...

and the

Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

. In 1861 and 1862, he was in

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

, returning with the results of his ethnographic and linguistic observations. As a scholar, Ahlqvist contributed to reformation of the

Finnish language Finnish (endonym: or ) is a Finnic languages, Finnic language of the Uralic languages, Uralic language family, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official langu ...

, and was highly esteemed for his work in the Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian and related languages. He founded the Finnish language magazine ''Suometar'' in 1847 which was published until 1866 and later also founded the Finnish linguistic journal ''Kieletär'', which was published between 1871 and 1875. Ahlqvist was also the first to translate the works of

Johan Ludvig Runeberg Johan Ludvig Runeberg (; 5 February 1804 – 6 May 1877) was a Finnish priest, lyric and epic poet. He wrote exclusively in Swedish. He is considered a national poet of Finland. He is the author of the lyrics to (''Our Land'', in Finnish) whi ...

(1804–1877) into Finnish. As a literary critic, Ahlqvist was uncompromising. His pungent criticism of ''

Seitsemän veljestä ''Seitsemän veljestä'' (; literally translated ''The Seven Brothers'', or ''The Brothers Seven'' in Douglas Robinson's 2017 translation) is the first and only novel by Aleksis Kivi, the national author of Finland.Aleksis Kivi Aleksis Kivi (; born Alexis Stenvall; 10 October 1834 – 31 December 1872) was a Finnish writer who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, '' Seitsemän veljestä'' (''Seven Brothers''), published in 1870. He is also known ...

(1834–1872) caused the publishers to postpone its publication.

Works

* ''Satu'', 1847 * ''Bidrag till finska. Finska språkforskningens historia'', 1854 * ''Viron nykyisemmästä kirjallisuudesta'', 1855 * ''Wotisk grammatik jemte språkprof och ordförteckning'', 1855 * ''Anteckningar i Nordtschudiskan'', 1859 * ''Muistelmia matkoilta Venäjällä vuosina 1845–58'', 1859 * ''Läran on verben i mordwinska'', 1859 * ''Laulu kellosta'' (

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, philosopher and historian. Schiller is considered by most Germans to be Germany's most important classical playwright. He was born i ...

), 1859 (translator) * ''Väkinäinen naiminen'' (

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, ; ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the great writers in the French language and world liter ...

) (translator) * ''Kavaluus ja rakkaus'' (Schiller), 1863 (translator) * ''Säkeniä I-II'', 1860, 1868 * ''Versuch einer mokscha-mordwinischen gramatik nebst texten und wörterverzeichniss'', 1861 * ''Suomalainen runousoppi kielelliseltä kannalta'', 1863 * ''Auszüge aus einer neuen grammatik der finnischen sprache'', 1868 * ''Suomalainen murteiskirja'', 1869 * ''Det vestfinska språkets kulturord'', 1871 * ''Uusi suomalainen lukemisto suomalais-ruotsalaisen sanakirjan kanssa'', 1873 * ''Suomen kielen rakennus'', 1877 * ''Täydellinen Kalevalan sanasto'', 1878 * ''Unter wogulen und ostjaken'', 1883 * ''Elias Lönnrot'', 1884 * ''Tutkimuksia Kalevalan tekstissä ja tämän tarkastusta,'' 1886 * ''Kalevalan karjalaisuus,'' 1887 * ''Suomalaisia puhekokeita,'' 1889 * ''Wogulischer Wörterverzeichniss,'' 1891 * ''Wogulische sprachtexte nebst entwurf einer wogulischen grammatik aus dem nacthklasse des verfassers.'' Hrsg. Von Yrjö Wichman, 1894 * ''Oksasen runoja'', 1898 * ''Kirjeet'', 1982

References

External links

* *
August Ahlqvist in 375 humanists 31.1.2015, Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ahlqvist, August 1826 births 1889 deaths People from Kuopio Writers from North Savo Academic staff of the University of Helsinki University of Helsinki alumni Poets from the Russian Empire Finnish male poets Finnish Finno-Ugrists Finnish literary critics 19th-century Finnish poets 19th-century Finnish male writers Rectors of the University of Helsinki