Lauri Honko

Lauri Honko ( born March 6, 1932 in Hanko, † July 15, 2002 in Turku ) was a Finnish folklorist and scholar of religion and co-founder of empirical cultural research in Scandinavia.

Career

Honko his doctorate in 1959 with the work of disease projectiles. Study on a primitive disease explanation at the University of Helsinki. From 1961 to 1963 he was a lecturer there for folklore and comparative religion, then became Professor of these two subjects at the University of Turku and 1971 finally professor. He retired in 1996. In 1998 he founded the Kalevala Institute at the University of Turku for the planning, execution and publication of studies on international epics as well as epic and ritual seals.

He was from 1972, Head of the Nordic Institute of Folklore in Turku (NIF; facility to coordinate and promote the exploration of folk traditions in Scandinavia) and 1974-1989 President of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research. In addition, he was editor in chief of the Folklore Fellows ' Communications (from 1969), Temenos ( 1965-1968, 1975-1990 ), the NIF newsletter (from 1972 ) and of Studia Fennica (1981 to 1989).

In 1990, he was head of a Finnish- Indian research group at Udupi in the southwest of the Indian state of Karnataka, the tulusprachige epic Siri paddana on, which forms the basis for the annual obsession rituals Siri jatre. The entire text was published in two volumes in 1998.

Publications

• Disease projectiles. Study on a primitive disease explanation. Helsinki 1959 ( Folklore Fellows ' communications; 178).
• Belief in spirits in Ingria. Helsinki 1962 ( Folklore Fellows ' communications; 185).
• Textualising the Siri epic. Helsinki 1998 ( Folklore Fellows ' communications; 264 = Vol 118).
• Together with Chinnapa Gowda, Viveka Rai, Anneli Honko (ed.): The Siri Epic as Performed by Gopala Naika I-II. ( Folklore Fellows ' Communications 265-6 ) 2 volumes, Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki 1998, ISBN 951-41-0814-0