Disappeared Pushkin

‘Vilnius in the Year of War 1916’.

When the Russians abandoned Vilnius in September 1915, they removed the bronze monuments of Catherine the Great, Governor-General Mikhail Muravyov and the poet Alexander Pushkin from their plinths and took them away. The Germans interpreted this as a sign of the Russian authorities relinquishing the city. In Buhe’s drawing, the garden at the foot of Gediminas Hill is shown with a bare pedestal, and no bust of Pushkin; and the visitors to the garden do not miss the absent monument.

‘Vilnius in the Year of War 1916’