From MT:
"Red Square Exhibit Sheds New Light on Soviet Cult of Lenin"
Everyone knew what was in the redbrick 19th-century building by Red Square in Soviet times. It was the Lenin Museum, the home — together with the nearby mausoleum — of the Lenin cult, to which a visit was a rite of passage for Soviet children, sculpting the ideological view of the Bolshevik leader with the help of the vast number of items kept at the museum. The building stood closed for much of the last two decades, until the War of 1812 Museum opened there a few years back. It was only this year that the "Leniniana," as the museum calls the statues, paintings, clothes and documents connected to the Soviet leader, were put back on show. The Lenin Museum's archives still exist and number 100,000 items, collected over about 70 years. A thousand of them are now on show in an exhibit called "The Myth of the Beloved Leader." As the title suggests, the Lenin on show now is shorn of ideology and as much about how the myth was created.
A number of items at the exhibit are on show for the first time, dug out from the archives, where they had been hidden by dedicated museum workers during the intermittent purges that hit the collection as political fortunes switched one way and then the other. "Back then you got a hefty jail sentence for being 10 minutes late for work, and for that kind of thing [hiding artifacts] there would be a very serious sentence," said Olga Grankina, a museum employee who has worked there since 1976. One such item is a bust of Lenin made by Maria Denisova-Shadenko in 1927, where he looks cunning and artful, more a lusty goat than the kind, brave father of the nation that Soviet ideology wanted to portray. "I have huge respect for the courage of the people who did this, because it is only thanks to them that today's visitors can see them," Grankina said. The collection of items connected to the founder of the Soviet Union began almost immediately after Lenin's death in 1924, but it wasn't until 1936 that the museum opened in the building on Red Square that had formerly housed the Moscow City Duma. With Stalin firmly in power, the original exhibit was skewed to show how close Stalin was to Lenin, and purged of anything that could contradict that idea. Portraits were commissioned that had Lenin as the focus but Stalin, the devoted lieutenant and future leader, never far way.
In paintings of Lenin in the 1920s, Stalin was nowhere in sight, Grankina said. "In the 1930s he is always there." In the 1950s, the museum was ideologically cleansed after Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin in a secret speech at a Soviet party congress. "They decided to remove any mention of Stalin from the museum," Grankina said, noting wryly that there was a lot to get rid of as by then it was practically "the museum of Lenin and Stalin." A group of items that would never have been shown in the Lenin Museum are letters and pictures that were used to teach Lenin to speak again after his catastrophic stroke in 1922, which left him paralyzed down the right side of his body.
Soviet history showed that he lived and then suddenly died, Grankina said, "but really it was a very difficult period." After he recovered, Lenin never went back into the room where he had lain ill, and he avoided his sister, who had helped him through his illness, Grankina said. Once he died, "the man was turned into a mystical hero. His image was canonized and considered holy," the museum's curators wrote in a booklet published for the exhibit. The cult produced some strange results, such as portraits of Lenin made from postage stamps, straw and grain, and even a microscopic drawing of Lenin on a single lentil. Party bosses soon put a stop to such frivolity, but Lenin statues mushroomed across the country. A commission in the 1930s tried to calculate how many Lenin statues there were, but gave up as they realized the impossibility of the task, Grankina said.
Grankina speaks passionately about Lenin and the exhibit, which runs till Jan. 13 — as do other members of staff at the museum. "You can say that this collection has had a difficult fate: At the start it was in an ideological squeeze, and then it was closed completely. But it is a curious collection," she said. "It is normal to preserve things, to keep them and think about them," Grankina said. "We want people to come here and think what happened in this country."
^ I will never understand why Russians (and other former Soviet citizens) continue to love Lenin. He merely moved Russia from one dictatorship (that of the Czars) to another (that of the Communists.) He brought about the 1917 October Revolution (which actually happened in November once Russia moved to the Julian Calendar.) He brought about the Russian Civil War, the War Communism, the execution of Czar Nicolas and his family and started the first purges of the Soviets. While he was not the extremist that Stalin was Lenin was no saint. He started the cycle that led to 70 + years of Soviet repression both within the Soviet Union and around the world. Out of curiosity I went to Lenin's Mausoleum on Red Square (after several years of trying - he was always "being repaired.") The guards there looked and acted like the guards from the "Wizard of Oz" and you could only see him for a few seconds with everyone pushing you forward. He looked liked an old raison. With all that said I think Russia needs to preserve all the documents and artifacts of Lenin and other Soviet officials the same way Germany needs to preserve the documents and artifacts of Hitler and the East German officials. ^
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/leniniana-returns-to-red-square-to-dispel-myth-of-beloved-leader/510079.html
"Red Square Exhibit Sheds New Light on Soviet Cult of Lenin"
Everyone knew what was in the redbrick 19th-century building by Red Square in Soviet times. It was the Lenin Museum, the home — together with the nearby mausoleum — of the Lenin cult, to which a visit was a rite of passage for Soviet children, sculpting the ideological view of the Bolshevik leader with the help of the vast number of items kept at the museum. The building stood closed for much of the last two decades, until the War of 1812 Museum opened there a few years back. It was only this year that the "Leniniana," as the museum calls the statues, paintings, clothes and documents connected to the Soviet leader, were put back on show. The Lenin Museum's archives still exist and number 100,000 items, collected over about 70 years. A thousand of them are now on show in an exhibit called "The Myth of the Beloved Leader." As the title suggests, the Lenin on show now is shorn of ideology and as much about how the myth was created.
In paintings of Lenin in the 1920s, Stalin was nowhere in sight, Grankina said. "In the 1930s he is always there." In the 1950s, the museum was ideologically cleansed after Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin in a secret speech at a Soviet party congress. "They decided to remove any mention of Stalin from the museum," Grankina said, noting wryly that there was a lot to get rid of as by then it was practically "the museum of Lenin and Stalin." A group of items that would never have been shown in the Lenin Museum are letters and pictures that were used to teach Lenin to speak again after his catastrophic stroke in 1922, which left him paralyzed down the right side of his body.
Soviet history showed that he lived and then suddenly died, Grankina said, "but really it was a very difficult period." After he recovered, Lenin never went back into the room where he had lain ill, and he avoided his sister, who had helped him through his illness, Grankina said. Once he died, "the man was turned into a mystical hero. His image was canonized and considered holy," the museum's curators wrote in a booklet published for the exhibit. The cult produced some strange results, such as portraits of Lenin made from postage stamps, straw and grain, and even a microscopic drawing of Lenin on a single lentil. Party bosses soon put a stop to such frivolity, but Lenin statues mushroomed across the country. A commission in the 1930s tried to calculate how many Lenin statues there were, but gave up as they realized the impossibility of the task, Grankina said.
Grankina speaks passionately about Lenin and the exhibit, which runs till Jan. 13 — as do other members of staff at the museum. "You can say that this collection has had a difficult fate: At the start it was in an ideological squeeze, and then it was closed completely. But it is a curious collection," she said. "It is normal to preserve things, to keep them and think about them," Grankina said. "We want people to come here and think what happened in this country."
^ I will never understand why Russians (and other former Soviet citizens) continue to love Lenin. He merely moved Russia from one dictatorship (that of the Czars) to another (that of the Communists.) He brought about the 1917 October Revolution (which actually happened in November once Russia moved to the Julian Calendar.) He brought about the Russian Civil War, the War Communism, the execution of Czar Nicolas and his family and started the first purges of the Soviets. While he was not the extremist that Stalin was Lenin was no saint. He started the cycle that led to 70 + years of Soviet repression both within the Soviet Union and around the world. Out of curiosity I went to Lenin's Mausoleum on Red Square (after several years of trying - he was always "being repaired.") The guards there looked and acted like the guards from the "Wizard of Oz" and you could only see him for a few seconds with everyone pushing you forward. He looked liked an old raison. With all that said I think Russia needs to preserve all the documents and artifacts of Lenin and other Soviet officials the same way Germany needs to preserve the documents and artifacts of Hitler and the East German officials. ^
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/leniniana-returns-to-red-square-to-dispel-myth-of-beloved-leader/510079.html
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