The Kalevala is a book and epic poem which Elias Lönnrot compiled from Finnish and Karelian folklore in the nineteenth century. It is held to be the national epic of Finland and is traditionally thought of as one of the most significant works of Finnish literature. Karelian citizens and other Balto-Finnic speakers also value the work.

The Kalevala is credited with some of the inspiration for the national awakening that ultimately led to Finnish government's independence from that of Russia in 1917. The name can be interpreted as the "lands of Kaleva" (by the Finnish suffix -la/lä for place). The epic consists of 22,795 verses, divided into fifty cantos or "chapters" (Finnish runo).

Elias Lönnrot (1802–84) was a scholar and a district health officer in Kainuu, an eastern region of Finland which in his time was an autonomous Grand Duchy. The son of a tailor in the village of Sammatti, he entered the University in Turku (the successor of which is the University of Helsinki) in 1822 and started his poem collection journeys in 1827. He made a total of eleven field trips during a period of fifteen years.

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