Afterlives of a Painting: Vereshchagin, Censorship, and the Long Arc of Resistance
In 1871, Russian painter Vasili Vereshchagin destroyed his own painting under pressure from imperial power. Yet its message — the brutal cost of war — refused to die. Reimagined by the artist himself, echoed by musicians and writers, and resurrected more than a century later by Russian activists protesting the Ukraine war, his work shows how ideas outlive censorship.
About Vereshchagin
Vasili Vereshchagin (1842–1904) was one of the 19th century’s most influential Russian war artists, renowned for his unflinching portrayals of the human cost of empire. A veteran of military campaigns himself, he used art to challenge official narratives and expose the brutal realities of conflict.
In 1871, Vasili Vereshchagin painted Forgotten, a stark image of a dead Russian soldier left to decay on a distant battlefield — a quiet yet devastating critique of imperial war. The painting scandalized Tsar Alexander II, who dismissed it as impossible and offensive. Under intense pressure, Vereshchagin destroyed the canvas himself, an act of self-censorship that revealed the precarious position of artists under autocratic power. Yet the image refused to disappear from his imagination, returning in altered forms that continued to question the cost of conquest and the erasure of human suffering.
Echoes Across Time
Although Forgotten was physically lost, its ideas reverberated far beyond the studio. Composer Modest Mussorgsky transformed its imagery into song, while writer Vsevolod Garshin wrote the moral impetus into Four Days, a short story. Vereshchagin himself revisited the theme with new works, shifting the nationality of the fallen soldier but preserving the critique.
Over a century later, Russian activists protesting the current authoritarian regime holding Apotheosis of War aloft in anti-war protests demonstrate that art’s influence can outlast censorship — reshaping itself to speak to new generations and new struggles.
Apotheosis of War
“The Apotheosis of War” is a deliberately ironic title. Apotheosis means the glorification to divine status. Vereshchagin chose the name to expose the emptiness behind such glorification.
Stanislav Karmakskikh, a carpenter from Tomsk in Siberia, was arrested for taking part in a small protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Suggested Further Reading
"The Most Theatrical Entertainment in New York” - An interesting article about Vereshchagin's first exhibition in America
English translation of Garshin's short story Four Days or here
Vereshchagin at the Tretyakov Gallery
The Haunting Return of Vasily Vereshchagin’s ‘The Apotheosis of War’