Kanttila

Address: Minna Canthin katu 20–22

Programme:

- Guided tours every hour on the hour
- Guided tour in English at 12.45
- Choral singing in the courtyard at 10.30 and 11.30
- Music & workshops in the courtyard
- Bicycle repair station

Kanttila dates from the early 19th century in its oldest parts. The building has housed, among other things, the first bookshop in Central Finland (1820–1846), the home and business premises of Minna Canth (1854–1897), and the company Minna Canthin Perilliset Oy until 1974.

City of Kuopio, District 1, Block 3, Plot no. 6 (property identifier 297-1-3–6). The log-framed building is protected under the current local development plan with the designation sr-7 — a building of cultural-historical value protected in the city plan. The building may not be demolished.

The right to vote started at Kanttila!

It was the final years of the 19th century. The Kuopio Women’s Association was meeting at the home of its secretary Minna Canth in Kanttila when a revolutionary idea took shape: the association’s leading women — Minna, Elisabeth Stenius and Selma Backlund — would recruit three male politicians to advocate for women’s suffrage in the Diet. The men agreed, but in the corridors of power the proposal was rejected as inappropriate. The wish was not fulfilled until nine years later, in 1906. The issue concerned not only women’s right to vote, but also the voting rights of hundreds of thousands of poor men — and women’s right to stand as candidates in elections.

Minna Canth

Minna Canth lived at Kanttila in Kuopio during her youth from 1853 to 1863, and again after being widowed from 1880 to 1897. She was one of the most influential public voices in Finland of her time and a conduit for European ideas. Minna Canth was a reformer of Finnish literature, a pioneer of Finnish realism, and the first woman to write journalism in the Finnish language.

Kanttila

Katso lisää

Old Rectory

Kuopio Club

Old Kuopio Museum

School for Poor Girls

Bishop’s House

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