Kajaani Castle

The most famous prisoner was the historian Johannes Messenius, who was forced to live in the poor conditions of the castle from 1616 to 1635.

During the imprisonment period, Johannes Messenius from Uppsala University, wrote a work of fifteen parts masterpiece concerning the history of Scandinavia called Scondia Illustrata, which was published more than 60 years later, between the years in 1700-1705 in Stockholm.

The first nine part within the content of the Scondia illustrata form a chronicle called the Chronologia, which describes the history of Scandinavian people starting from times of the Genesis flood narrative until the Gustavus Adolphus reign ergo from 1611 to 1632.

Count Per Brahe ordered major additional construction of the castle in the 1650s, which was completed in 1666.

Shortly after this, the Russians blasted the castle, and its inhabitants were deported to Russia and imprisoned there.