Elias Lönnrot worked as a district doctor in Kajaani for twenty years in the early 19th century. These were the years of Lönnrot's manhood, when he created the Finnish national epic Kalevala. Based on Lönnrot's travelogues, letters and other written documents, this book examines the contribution of the Kainuu province to the creation of Finnish national epic and the conditions in which the poor region lived at that time. The illustrations are paintings by the Karelian artist Vitali Dobrinin of Kainuu during Lönnrot's time and about 150 years later. The English-language work provides international readers with information about the Finnish national epic. It is a work that will not get old, but rather provides an interesting perspective on the times when Finnish identity was being built.