Za Krasnii Petrograd! Za Krasnuyu Finlandiyu! [For Red Petrograd! For Red Finland!], a poster by Jiri(?) Arrak. Published by PUR RVSR (the Political Directorate of the Revolutionary Military Council), [Petrograd or Moscow], 1919. 106.5 x 71 cm.

This poster of the short but intense Defense of Petrograd campaign aims to raise the morale of one group of city defenders — the soldiers of the 1st Finnish Rifles Regiment, formed from the Red Guardsmen that fled Finland in the end of the Finnish Civil War and joined the Russian Red Army.

Our Internet and literature search yielded a number of references to the poster, but no information about the artist except the name, apparently transliterated from the in-plate signature. While everybody seems to agree on the last name (Arrak), the first name is rendered in a variety of ways - Jiri, Liri, or even Siri. It is tempting to assume that the artist was a Red Finn himself (the in-plate signature is in a Latin-based alphabet, suggesting that Russian was not the artist’s native tongue), but the Revolution had many international supporters. Notably, the last name Arrak is shared by several prominent Estonian artists.

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