Oil painting on stretched canvas 80 x 70 cm, painted in 2025 by artist Mārtiņš Virsis. 

The painting as seen by the title is a tribute to a special celebratory day in Latvia – Lāčplēsis Day. 

“In the last couple of years I’ve become deeply aware of the simple truth that despite everything, despite all these centuries, we’re still here. We’re still here, and there’s great value in that. No matter how small, no matter how irrelevant on the grand stage of the world, we still speak in the tongues of our ancestors, maintain their traditions and keep fighting to stay here. And, in my opinion, the reason for that is that there are so many great people among us. Those, who did not break or bend under the German or Russian rule that spanned centuries, those who believed, that a dream of a unified Latvian country isn’t impossible, those boys who fought on the iron bridge and never got to live this dream. Those great people in our lives, who refuse to give into hatred and worthless ”us against them” rhetoric in regards to their contemporaries, who understand that the backbone of the greater good for all of us is working together, because, damn it, there are so few of us, and by ourselves we’ll get consumed. To be great does not necessarily mean to move mountains, to destroy your rivals or etch your name into the annals of history, no, to be great means finding courage when others stumble, to find love when it is so easy to hate, understand, when it is so easy to dismiss. Let’s be kind to each other. Let’s be great. Let’s be such Latvians that the next generations will be proud of us, even when we’re buried deep underground.” artist Mārtiņš Virsis about the painting.

Painting has been featured in the travelling exhibition “Fragments of Imagination” in:

• Ogre Kulturas Centrs (2026 March – April)
• Stāmerienas castle (2026 May – autumn)