The Crosses of Liberty and the Medals of Liberty are the oldest decorations of independent Finland. They were established on the basis of a proposal made by General Gustav Mannerheim by the decision of the Senate of Finland on 4 March 1918 on temporary decrees on the Medals of Liberty and the Crosses of Liberty.

The Order of the Cross of Liberty is considered to have been established on that day. It is mentioned at the level of statutes as an order of merit for first time in a decree of the President of the Republic (748/1940). The statutes of the Order were adopted by a decree of the President of the Republic (550/1944), which still governs the activities and lays the basis for provisions given later.

1918-1945

Between 1918 and 1919, approximately 28,311 decorations of the Order of the Cross of Liberty were awarded. The conferral of decorations of the Order of the Cross of Liberty was discontinued at the beginning of 1919, when the Order of the White Rose of Finland was founded for awarding honours for merits in peacetime. The conferral of decorations of the Order of the Cross of Liberty continued from December 1939. Between 1939 and 1945, a total of 572,980 of them were awarded. Of them, Crosses of Liberty numbered 89,148 and Medals of Liberty 572,980.

1960

In 1960, the conferral of decorations of the Order of the Cross of Liberty was again discontinued almost entirely. By then, 2,010 of them had been awarded after the war. In the almost three decades after 1960, the decorations were conferred only in special cases and totalled 8.

1989

The Order became active again in 1989, when President Mauno Koivisto decided to begin to confer decorations of the Order of the Cross of Liberty upon persons who had distinguished themselves in voluntary national defence work. In the following decades, the criteria for awarding honours were further extended, while the number of the decorations awarded annually remained at approximately thirty, which it still is.

From 1998 onwards, the decorations of the Order of the Cross of Liberty could be used to award honours to persons who had gained merits in international military tasks and since 2002, to persons who as security policy influencers, researchers, authors or in some other way have contributed to strengthening Finland’s security or increased awareness and understanding of it in Finland and abroad.

2008

Since 2008, decorations of the Order of the Cross of Liberty have been awarded to officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers for military merits in peacetime. In the 2010s, attention has been paid to applying the concept of national defence in a broad-based manner in the criteria for awarding honours.

After the entry into force of the statutes of the Order (in 1944), decorations of the Order of the Cross of Liberty have been awarded to a total of eight NGOs or communities and to three military teaching institutions of the Finnish Defence Forces.

In the history of the Order of the Cross of Liberty, clearly distinct periods can be seen, during with the operation has been adapted to the circumstances and current societal development trends prevailing at the time. When society and human activities change, the reasons for conferring honours and their justifications are also modified and gain new additional dimensions, so the order must keep up with the times. This has been and will be necessary also in the future for the Order to be able to fulfil its task of being an instrument for the state’s leadership to use when public recognition is given by conferring decorations upon persons who have deserved it. The operation has been adapted to the different periods in accordance with the criteria, the guidelines and the spirit of the Order’s statutes (decree 550/1944).