"Lenin lives" (was Mr. Mayakovsky too died in the gulag)

[John Dunn]

Perhaps this question has already been pursued by someone who knows more about these things than I do, but it struck me some time ago that the poem 'Vladimir IIl'ich Lenin' is a (presumably intentional) imitation of a medieval житие [zhitie].

John Dunn.

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Rancour-Laferriere <darancourlaferriere at COMCAST.NET>
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 22:09:46 -0800
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] "Lenin lives" (was Mr. Mayakovsky too died in the gulag)

Dear colleagues,
These are fascinating connections, and it is difficult to believe that  
they have not already been explored somewhere in the historical  
literature (maybe someone from the H-Russia list could enlighten us;  
didn't Nina Tumarkina write a book about this?).  I do know that some  
theologians (e.g., Hick) have made serious attempts to classify  
Leninism/Communism as a "religion."  Certainly religious utterances  
from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) could be hunted down and certain dots  
could be connected.  For those Orthodox Christians whom the new  
Bolshevik regime was trying to persuade there must also have been  
subtexts from the Christian Bible.  What comes to mind for me are the  
so-called "I am" ("egō eimi") sayings of Jesus.  For example: "Before  
Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58).  The grandiosity (sic) in the  
utterances of this peasant preacher from Galilee is breathtaking,  
virtually erasing time, or tense, if you like.  Jesus was, is, will  
be.  Or, more prosaically in Matthew: "I am with you always, to the  
end of the age" (28:20).  And imagine: Jesus does this with no  
embalmed body left behind, just an empty tomb, and texts which changed  
the world.

With regards to the list -

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere


John Dunn
Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
University of Glasgow, Scotland

Address:
Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6
40137 Bologna
Italy
Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it

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