Elias Lönnrot was born on the 9th of April 1802 in a small wooden cabin called Paikkarin torppa located in the village of Sammatti. He grew up during a time when Finland belonged to Sweden rather than being an independent nation.
Elias Lönnrot worked as district doctor of Kajaani in Eastern Finland starting from 1827. While treating patients in remote areas marked by famine and pestilence, he began collecting folk tales from rural people across Finland, Sapmi or Lapland, and nearby portions of Russian Karelia.
The final result of the first Finnish-Swedish dictionary compiled by Elias Lönnrot between 1866 and 1880 comprised over 200,000 entries within its pages. Many of the Finnish translations were coined directly by Lönnrot himself to replace foreign roots with words derived from existing Finnish vocabulary.
The first edition of Kalevala written by Elias Lönnrot was published in 1835. This version represented a mythology for Finland based on collected material before he later created an enlarged edition released in 1849 known as the new Kalevala.
Elias Lönnrot published the first Finnish-language Flora Fennica titled Suomen Kasvisto in 1860. This book translated to Flora of Finland in English and stood among the first common-language scientific texts available at the time.