The SKVR Database of Ancient Poems of the Finnish People in Kalevala Meter and the Semantic Kalevala

Abstract

This essay presents the principal aims of establishing a web-based infrastructure for epic research and demonstrates possibilities for using this infrastructure for textual research on epics. The web infrastructure discussed here has developed out of the Finnish Literature Society’s pioneering open-access digitized edition of Kalevala-meter poetry Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot (“The Ancient Poems of the Finnish People”; 34 volumes, SKVR) and the Semantic Kalevala, an electronic indexing of the Finnish national epic Kalevala that uses the Culture Sampo web portal.

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A visualization of the narrative structure of one of the poems of the Kalevala in the Culture Sampo.

Image: http://www.kulttuurisampo.fi/kulsa/kalevala.shtml?itemUri=http%3A%2F%2Fkulttuurisampo.fi%2Fannotaatio%23Instance_ID1220963995343&fromplot=true&selectedScene=http%3A%2F%2Fkulttuurisampo.fi%2Fannotaatio%23Instance_ID1221041435134#221-226.

A screenshot from the SKVR database: a search of poems containing the formula The kantele got finished.

Image: http://dbgw.finlit.fi/skvr/.

A screenshot from the SKVR database: a search of poems containing the formula The kantele got finished.

Image: http://www.folklore.ee/regilaul/avaleht/.

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