History of the Cottage

Paikkari is the name of the cottage where Elias Lönnrot, collector of folk poetry and compiler of the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, was born and spent his childhood. Under a decision passed by the Senate in 1889 the cottage is to be kept as it was in Lönnrot's day, as a memorial to the early life of this great Finn. Paikkari Cottage in the parish of Sammatti overlooks the beautiful Valkjärvi lake. It was built by Elias Lönnrot's father, Fredrik Johan Lönnrot, in around 1800 in the grounds of the Paikkari military residence on common forest land in the village of Haarjärvi. It originally consisted of only one room, since the bedroom and hall were later added by Elias's older brother Henrik Johan, who bought the cottage from his father in 1825 and lived there until his death in 1838. The cottage remained in the possession of the Lönnrot family until 1875, after which it passed into strange hands and fell into disrepair. In 1895 Th. Homén, later Professor Homén, managed to get a government grant of 700 marks in order to pay for repairs to the cottage, which were carried out by a relative of the Lönnrot's a carpenter by the name of K.Sylvander. Henrik Lönnrot's daughter Miina saw to the furnishing and managed to retrieve much oft he original furniture, which had vanished with the change of owner. Copies of some of the items were made to her instructions. The cottage was made over to the state in 1889 and is nowadays cared for by the National Board of Antiquities. The land around it has been partitioned off from the Valkjärvi small holding. Paikkari is very typical of the type of cottage inhabited by the humble folk of Southwestern Finland and in widespread use in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The shed is the only remaining outbilding, but there was once also a cowshed between the cottage and the lake.