Beyond the old border
Click for larger images
"Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother", Mänttä Art Festival, Mänttä, Finland, 12 June - 31 August 2011
The sculpture installation Beyond the Old Border / Vanha raja ylitetty (Munakukkula), sculpture installation, 7 parts, wood, 2011 is based on my father’s notes, drawings and photographs he made in the front during the Winter and Continuation Wars in 1939-1944.
His war time “black booklet” includes an epilogue written after the wars:
It was quite a time when this notebook was bought
and quite a time when it was written.
It’s in the past and it’ll stay there, no hoping for it
again, for there were never worse times in the Finnish
army during the years of “freedom”.
4 years, 10 months service without interruption,
including the Winter War and the Continuation War,
which began on 10 June 1941.
Demobbed on 19 November 1944.
No one can envy this. Finally it was over.
“Peace on Earth andgoodwill to all men.”
Heimo Koskinen
Oli se aikaa se, jolloin
tämä vihko on ostettu.
Oli se myös aikaa, jolloin
tämä vihko on täytetty.
Takana on ja pysyy,
toivoa ei voi uudelleen,
sillä Suomen armeijassa
ei koskaan ”vapauden”
aikana ole sen kurjem-
pia aikoja vietetty.
4 v. 10 kk. yhtäjaksoista
palvelusta, joka sisälsi
talvisodan ja jatkosodan
joka alkoi 10.6.1941.
Siviili koitti 19.11.-44.
Ei voi kukaan kadehtia.
Onneksi lopulta ”Ohi!”
”Rauha maassa ja ihmisillä hyvä
tahto.”
Heimo Koskinen