Carl Axel Gottlund

Carl Axel Gottlund (February 24, 1796, Ruotsinpyhtää – April 20, 1875, Helsinki) was a Finnish explorer, collector of folklore, historian, cultural politician, linguist, philologist, translator, writer, publisher and lecturer of Finnish language at the University of Helsinki. He was a colorful cultural personality and one of the central Finnish national awakeners and - later - one of the leading dissidents at the same time.

Gottlund pursued the creation on an autonomous Finnish territory from the Finn Forests on both sides of the Swedish-Norwegian border, with great economic and political independence.

Gottlund is commonly attributed with saving the folklore of the Forest Finns. Among ideas promoted by Gottlund was the view that all languages are interconnected by the same roots.

In 1796, Carl Axel Gottlund was born in the Southern Finnish coastal town of Ruotsinpyhtää into the family of a Finnish clergyman Mattias Gottlund, one of the most outstanding representatives of Enlightenment ideas in Finland. Accordingly, Carl Axel was raised in the spirit of the Enlightenment, and the basic structure of his thinking represented rationalistic Enlightenment ideals.

Matthias Gottlund, Carl Axel's father, worked as the chaplain of the local congregation at the time. Carl Axel's mother Ulrika Sophia was from the upper-class family of Orraeus in the nearby town of Porvoo.

In 1805, the Gottlund family settled in Juva, in the Finnish province of Savonia, where Gottlund's father had landed to a financially lucrative job as a vicar.

During his childhood years, Carl Axel Gottlund's interest towards the Finnish culture and language had been inspired by his father, to the most part. The opportunity in his childhood for Carl Axel to meet with the known Finnish nationalist author Jaakko Juteini is also believed to have boosted his future career choices and patriotism.

...
Wikipedia