Monument to Red Prisoners

When the Finnish Civil War ended in May 1918, captured reds and fleeing civilians were gathered on the Fellman estate in Lahti. There were up to 22,000 prisoners, more than three times the population of Lahti at the time. Sixty years later, Erkki Kannosto’s Red Prisoner Memorial was erected on the site. 

Monument to Red Prisoners is an installation measuring 14 x 14 metres. Three granite monoliths form a gateway, through which five human figures cast in bronze are about to embark on their journey to freedom. The total height of the work is 5.7 metres, and the bronze prisoners – four male and one female – are approximately 3 metres tall. Upright and stoic, they stand on a red granite plinth, looking to the future, ready to enter freedom, to build a new life and a new country. Yet the painful past that is written on their faces will never leave their minds, and it is this tragic history that the sculpture reminds us of even today. 

Artwork on the map

In the Fellman Park. –
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