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M.A. Castrén considered ethnology as a historical science and an instrument for describing the early periods of Finnish history. On his expeditions, he carried out ethnographic observations and took notes of the dwellings, costumes, way of life, and…

Castrén’s aim was to find the original homeland of the Finns. He approached this question with the aid of linguistics, folklore, archaeology, and history. Castrén was appointed Docent of Finnish and Ancient Nordic Languages and Tribes at the Imperial…

The Khanty grammar is one of the few materials Castrén was able to publish himself. He collected the material over the course of a few weeks in the summer of 1845 in the Irtyš and Surgut areas, where the southern and eastern dialects of Khanty were…

The Fennica volume consists of two parts. The first part is devoted to the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic published by Elias Lönnrot in 1835. Castrén was the first scholar to translate the entire epic into any language other than Finnish, in…

After returning from his last expedition in February 1849, Castrén actively started making preparations for his academic future and personal life. In January 1850, he became engaged to Natalia Tengström, the youngest daughter of Johan Jacob…