This is the first English­language monograph on the poem Kalevipoeg, known today as the Esto­ nian national epic. The epic was not a success story from the beginning, however. It took at least one ge­ neration before the text was received by the emerging Estonian intellectual class. In the meantime the text was received abroad more intensively than at home. In the twentieth and twenty­first centuries it is the most prolific text within Estonian literature, leaving its traces everywhere in Estonian literature and every­ day life. The book includes a summary of the contents of the epic and a comprehensive bibliography.

Cornelius Hasselblatt is a researcher of Finno­ Ugric languages and cultures. He has published several monographs on Estonian literature and studies on Estonian linguistics and culture