Memorial site "Freedom Road" Memorial site

On May 23, 2017, the Third Awakening Memorial Site “The Path of Freedom” was opened in the square near the Ģederts Elias Jelgava History and Art Museum. The central object of the monument is a fragment of the monument to the liberators of Jelgava “The Bear and the Black Knight” by sculptor Kārlis Jansons, opened in 1932.

In 1922, Jelgava took the initiative to erect a monument in the Forest Cemetery in memory of those who fell in the battles against Bermont – this was the first monument to those who fell in the Freedom Struggles in Latvia. This time too, the initiative to create this memorial site came from the people of Jelgava.

The path of the Lāčplēsis monument fragment to the Jelgava Museum was not easy – in 1942, the Zemgale Regional Commissioner Medems ordered the author himself to carve out the image of the Black Knight, but in 1949 the city executive committee made a decision to remove the monument. Only in 1988, thanks to activists who cared about the preservation of cultural values, was the monument found and included in the museum's collection.

Ten days after the monument was placed at the Jelgava Museum, on May 17, 1988, a public meeting was held at the museum, where for the first time people expressed their dissatisfaction with the events in Jelgava and Latvia. This fragment of the monument became a kind of symbol of the Third Awakening - it is a reminder that we must be responsible for what previous generations have done and for what we are doing.

It should be recalled that the fragment of the monument was cleaned and placed on a granite slab, while cobblestone paths were built in the square, benches were installed, and new greenery was created.