Vytautas the Great [Vytautas Didysis]

Vytautas the Great (Polish, Witold Kiejstutowic, 1350-1430) was among other things the Grand Duke of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the soldier at the vanguard of the 1410 Battle of Grunwald (Lithuanian, Žalgiris. German, Tannenberg), one of the greatest battles in medieval Europe. This copy of an original was unveiled on August 23, 1990, interestingly the anniversary of the secret signing of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and has Vytautas standing triumphant if not somewhat bizarrely over a defeated German, Pole, Russian and Tartar. The original monument was designed by the Lithuanian sculptor and political activist Vincas Grybas (1890-1941), a fervent communist who was one of the main instigators in overseeing the incorporation of Lithuania into the Soviet Union in 1940 before losing his life at the hands of the invading Germans the following year. On July 10, 2010, the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald, a small capsule of soil from the battlefield was buried next to the monument. The spot is marked with a plaque bearing the words 600 Metų Žalgirio Mūšiui 1410-2010.

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