August Ahlqvist

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, author, and literary critic. He is best remembered as the sharpest critic of writer Aleksis Kivi, who later rose to the position of the national author of Finland.

Portrait by Eero Järnefelt

Biography

He was born in Kuopio, 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. 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, 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 provinces, the province of Olonets and eastern Russia and Siberia. Between 1856 and 1859, he studied Finno-Ugric languages in the areas of Volga River and the Ural Mountains. In 1861 and 1862, he was in Hungary, returning with the results of his ethnographic and linguistic observations.

As a scholar, Ahlqvist contributed to reformation of the Finnish language, 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 (1804–1877) into Finnish. As a literary critic, Ahlqvist was uncompromising. His pungent criticism of Seitsemän veljestä by Aleksis Kivi (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), 1859 (translator)
• Väkinäinen naiminen (Molière) (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

External links

• Works by August Ahlqvist at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about August Ahlqvist at the Internet Archive
• August Ahlqvist in 375 humanists 31.1.2015, Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki