Julius Krohn

Life Krohn's mother was Julie Dannenberg, a daughter of the Baltic German family at Kiiskilä manor near Vyborg. The versatile and talented Julie spoke eight languages and played the piano brilliantly. The other half of Dannenberg's family was of Ingrian background.

From 1857 he taught Finnish at Elisabeth Blomqvist's girls' school, and that same year he co-founded one of the first Finnish-language primary schools in the country together with a group of friends.

Works and influence Krohn mostly preferred not to write under his foreign surname, but either adopted a pen name or worked as part of a collective, such as the fennomans, of which he was a leading member. Using pseudonyms, he translated many of Johan Ludvig Runeberg's works into Finnish, and researchers also concluded that he penned the Finnish lyrics for the Finnish national anthem.

Under his most notable pseudonym Suonio, he published poetry; e.g. Mansikoita ja mustikoita 1856–61 ("Strawberries and blueberries") and Kuun tarinoita ("Tales of the moon"). Under this pseudonym he also published children's literature, including five picture books which became widely popular. His rhythmic verses and rhymes were particularly well received. Krohn was also the first to develop a scientific method for the study of folklore, the historic-geographic method. This method, which is connected with nationalist understandings of folk culture, involves careful comparison of variant texts of an item of folklore to the end of identifying the "original" version (as well as its origin).

Julius Krohn died by drowning in Bay of Vyborg in a yachting accident at the age of 53. His work with folklore and the Finnish language was continued by his son Kaarle Krohn, who published much of his scientific work posthumously. This work was further developed by their student Antti Aarne.

Children Back row from left , Kaarle, Helmi with E.N. Setälä; in front Aune Krohn, Helena née Cleve and Aino Apart from Krohn's son Kaarle, mentioned above, his son Ilmari became a composer of church music. His daughter Aino married the Estonian nationalist Oskar Kallas and was known as a writer by the name Aino Kallas. His daughter Helmi Krohn, also an author, married Eemil Nestor Setälä, later the acting head of state of Finland in November 1917, after the abdication of Nicholas II of Russia.

Publications

Etext books on-line at the Project Gutenberg site Yrjö Aukusti Wallin ja hänen matkansa Arabiassa (in Finnish) Non fiction work on the ethnographer and adventurer Georg August Wallin Maksimilian Aukusti Myhrberg (in Finnish) Vanha tarina Montrosesta Finnish translation of A Legend of Montrose by Sir Walter Scott