Elias Lönnrot

Elias Lönnrot was a Finnish polymath, physician, philosopher, poet, musician, linguist, journalist, philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. He is best known for synthesizing the Finnish national epic, Kalevala (1835, enlarged 1849) from short ballads and lyric poems he gathered from Finnish oral tradition during several field expeditions in Finland, Russian Karelia, the Kola Peninsula and Baltic countries.

9 April 1802

Born on the same birth day (9 April): Carl Perkins • David Gordon Green • Ezequiél Moreno y Díaz • Hannah Gordon • Helen Alfredsson • Mance Lipscomb • Margo Smith • Mary Killman • Megan Connolly (actress) • Michael Learned • Peter Penashue • Simon Brown, Baron Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood • Tom Lehrer • Victor Gollancz • Victor Vasarely • Viktor Chernomyrdin

Born in the same month (April 1802): Dorothea Dix • Leopold Fitzinger