Are You Helping the Glorious Army Fight the Enemy?
Artist
Sigismunds Didrih Johan Vidberg
1890 - 1970
Printer
T. Kibbel, Petrograd
Russia
Date1916
MediumLithograph
Dimensions25 1/4 x 36 in. (64.1 x 91.4 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LineGift of Peter A. Blatz
Object numberPH.163
DescriptionThis poster, by the important Latvian modernist graphic artist Sigismunds Vidberg, promotes a Russian war loan campaign, offering bonds at 5 1/2 percent after three years. It shows a group of soldiers advancing up a hill, guns at the ready, against the orange background of a fiery conflagration. The Russian government issued six bonds on the internal market in 1914, 1915, and 1916. While the first three of these were sold to private banks and other big companies, the second three were officially promoted as “war bonds” to broaden popular investment in them. The main idea was to encourage the lower classes, especially the peasantry, to subscribe. In spite of the huge propaganda campaign that accompanied these loan issues, of which this poster forms a part, however, only the better-off peasants and the most educated workers ultimately subscribed in significant numbers. Latvian Riflemen were officially allowed by the Russian state to fight against the Germans after their invasion of Latvian territory during World War I, and this engagement ultimately reinforced Latvian claims for sovereign independence, finally achieved in 1920.On View
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