My wife has always wanted to visit the town of Porvoo in the Christmas season. We visited it today.
Apart from a stroll in the old town, we were primarily interested in the Runeberg museum. Johan Ludvig Runeberg (1804-1877) was a Finnish minister of the church, a teacher and a lyric and epic poet. He authored the lyrics of the national anthem and over 60 Lutheran hymns among other works. Runeberg's native tongue was Swedish and he wrote all of his works in Swedish. J.L. Runeberg was a theologian and an ordained minister and he had also studied classical languages. He was a docent at Imperial Alexander University in Helsinki. Runeberg and his family lived in the port town of Porvoo about 50 km to the east of Helsinki where he taught Latin at Borgå Gymnasiet (a secondary school) since 1837.
This is the museum and former Runeberg's family home.
Some of the buildings in the yard
There were no guided tours at the Runeberg museum, his former family home, at the time we visited it. But I had an interesting conversation with the guides at the desk. They told me that practically all secondary school teachers had to be ordained ministers at the time and that they had duties at the church as inspectors of some type (we did not discuss that further). This was completely new to me.
In Runeberg's literary work, his theological education was an obvious advantage as much of it was religious.
Runeberg was a key figure among intellectuals of the national romantic period.
One of J.L. Runeberg's hobbies was hunting. Those flat, long objects above the skins and the guns are blue whale baleens donated to him by a ship captain. The room is the men's tea room. The Runeberg's had about 1000 different books in their collection.
This kantele was designed and donated to Runeberg by his friend Elias Lönnrot who compiled our national epic Kalevala. Lönnrot spent years traveling across the country and over in present-day Karelia collecting epic and lyrical folk poetry. Lönnrot was an accomplished player of kantele himself and he played a major role in developing and promoting it.
Runeberg and Lönnrot were both founding members of the Saturday Society of young intellectuals constructing a national identity for Finland in the 19th century.
This is a model of Runeberg's torte invented by J.L. Runeberg's wife Fredrika Runeberg who was a journalist, one of the first women in the profession in the country, and a member of Saturday Society herself.
Christmas tree decorations were white at the time. The presents would be wrapped in brown paper.
Runeberg's wheelchair in the master bedroom
Johan Ludvig Runeberg himself. He is often dressed as a minister of the church in portraits because, well, he was. He never did have a parish of his own, though.
After visiting the museum, we took a stroll in the old town.
The cathedral on the hill across the river Porvoo, was built most likely between 1410 and 1420 and represents 15th century late Gothic style.
The town hall
This is where the old town ends. The population of the town of Porvoo is circa 51,000. There isn't much to see on the new side.
A department store
The river towards the north (inland)
Towards the south