President of the Republic of Finland Alexander Stubb presented the Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland to singer and songwriter Eva Dahlgren and musician Tomas Ledin in Helsinki on Saturday 14 December 2024.
The medals were conferred on the artists on 22 March 2024, prior to the President’s state visit to Sweden.
The Pro Finlandia Medal was awarded to Eva Dahlgren and Tomas Ledin in recognition of their outstanding contribution to culture. They have both meritoriously promoted relations between Finland and Sweden and helped to forge cultural ties between our countries.
Eva Dahlgren (b. 1960) is one of Sweden’s best-known and most acclaimed artists. She made her breakthrough in 1979 and established herself as an icon of Swedish pop music in the 1980s. In Sweden, Eva Dahlgren has won numerous Grammis Awards for outstanding achievements in the music industry, and at the 2021 Grammis Gala, she received an Honorary Award for her distinguished career as an artist. Eva Dahlgren has also won the hearts of her audience in Finland, where five of her albums have gone gold.
Tomas Ledin (b. 1952) counts among the most popular Swedish musicians. His extensive career began in 1972 when he got his first record deal and his first hit in Sweden. Over the years, Tomas Ledin has also performed extensively in Finland. In 2023, he was honoured for the fourth time with Sweden’s most prestigious music award, Grammis, when he received an Honorary Award for his five decades on stage.
The Pro Finlandia Medal is awarded to distinguished artists, authors and other persons of merit in the field of culture. It is the only Finnish decoration with the name of the holder engraved on it.
The first Pro Finlandia Medals were awarded in 1944 to four Swedish and one Danish cultural figures. The first Finnish recipient of the Pro Finlandia Medal was theatre manager Mia Backman in 1945. A total of 1,002 Pro Finlandia medals have been awarded, 40 of them to foreign artists, authors and performers.
