Carl Axel Gottlund (24 February 1796 – 20 April 1875) was a Finnish explorer, collector of folklore, historian, cultural politician, linguist, philologist, translator, writer, publisher and lecturer of Finnish language at the University of Helsinki. He was a colorful cultural personality and one of the central Finnish national awakeners and — later — one of the leading dissidents at the same time.
Gottlund pursued the creation of an autonomous Finnish territory from the Finn Forests on both sides of the Swedish-Norwegian border, with great economic and political independence.
Gottlund is commonly credited with saving the folklore of the Forest Finns. Among the ideas he promoted was the view that all languages are interconnected by the same roots.
Early life
In 1796, Carl Axel Gottlund was born in the Southern Finnish coastal town of Ruotsinpyhtää into the family of a Finnish clergyman Mattias Gottlund, one of the most outstanding representatives of Enlightenment ideas in Finland. Accordingly, Carl Axel was raised in the spirit of the Enlightenment, and the basic structure of his thinking represented rationalistic Enlightenment ideals.
Gottlund's ancestry is traced back to Michel Skotte, a Scottish soldier who after fighting for Sweden in the 17th century was granted a farm in Pyhtää, Finland, marking the beginning of Gottlund's lineage.
Matthias Gottlund, Carl Axel's father, worked as the chaplain of the local congregation at the time. Carl Axel's mother Ulrika Sophia was from the upper-class family of Orraeus in the nearby town of Porvoo.
