Truth in History
According to private critical reviews, the story about Stalin's stand-up comedy and Lenin was "really funny" but my idea for a Lenin romantic drama, "also funny, but not as much." The old adage goes, it's funny because it's true.
This is actually a good point to stop and talk a little about a past movement in historical writing. A lot of radical historical comedians up until the middle of the last century took the "funny because it's true" theory to mean that various historical events did not occur because they weren't funny. Diseases we know now to have been devastating were rarely considered historically provable (an exception is the plague--Chaucer is funny) and Native-American history (a bummer) was the realm of pseudo-historians. In fact, the period in American history from the end of the so-called "Era of Good Feelings" (hilarious for obvious reasons) to the time when abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner was beaten mercilessly by pro-slavery Congressman Preston Brooks in the Capital Building was an unverifiable, boring void.
In the 1960s, Paul Venn invented a diagram which systematically proved that while things that are funny are always true, true things are not always funny. This revelation unleashed a deluge of works on not-funny subjects such as the Holocaust, polio and slavery among others, which were thought to be false previously.
(The verity of polio was controversial before Venn. Some historical comedians considered President Roosevelt's affliction ironic because the formerly freewheeling Roosevelt gained the austerity while confined to a wheelchair that led to his election. Thus, some argued, if Roosevelt's polio had been funny, the disease happened. Others disagreed, citing the fact that the disease itself was not funny but was the cause of humor. Was it not more likely, they asked, that Roosevelt's disease was a proven entity, like scoliosis or plague?)
Getting back to Lena's Vladimir, I realized it wasn't as funny as the history of Lenin's death because it wasn't as true. In the former, I presented some linguistic evidence that young Lenin was involved in a torrid love affair with a woman named Elena and that, in the course of the Revolution, he chose to have her killed for political crimes in spite of his love for her. Stacked against the rock hard archival evidence I produced to prove my theory about Lenin's death, the evidence for Lena's Vladimir was a little soft.
Over the last week I was working in the Ulyanovsk State Archive and, though I was unable to find conclusive evidence, I found the following correspondence between a certain E. Andreeva and a "Vladimir," without a doubt, Lenin (my translation):
Andreeva to Vladimir
June 3, 1889
Dear Vladimir,
Your words brought hope to my heart. Inside you burns a revolutionary fire as red as the hair that covers your loins. Come hither as soon as you can leave the socialist front. [Emphasis mine--F.B.]
Love,
E. Andreeva
I emphasized the word "socialist" in the last sentence to point out the ideological difference between the lovers. Andreeva considered socialism to be the end goal of the future revolution, while Lenin, by this time a devoted Marxist, considered socialism a stopping point on the way to communism. Forbidden love if I've ever seen it.
Showing posts with label Lenin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lenin. Show all posts
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
More about Lenin (a love story)
This is a revelation I had a couple months ago when I was talking to a lady I work with named Elena (shortened, Lena) about Lenin. I mentioned Lenin's room and she said, "My room?" I said, "No, Ulyanov's." She said, "Oh, I was confused there for a minute."
The confusion comes from the fact that the Russian adjective lenin means Lena's, so when I said "room of Lenin" (which sounds fine in Russian but may have been weird in context) she heard "room Lena's" (which sounds weird in Russian but works grammatically). She said that she frequently had trouble with these kinds of mix-ups, since people talk about Lenin a lot and people also talk about her in the third person frequently. (She's an avant-garde performance artist who has turned her life into an act she calls "Third Personal.")
But since Lenin's name is a pseudonym, what does that mean about him? This crappy website talks about two possibilities that have been ruled out: a reference to the Lena River as opposition to Georgi Plekhanov (real name), whose one time pseudonym referred to the Volga River, and the Lena execution, which happened after Lenin used the pseudonym.
I'm going to put forward here a totally unverifiable story about Lenin falling in love with a girl named Elena when he was young (before he met Mrs. Lenin, whose name was Nadezhda) and then using her name as his pseudonym as a sign of everlasting love/youthful lust. I'm also going to write this as a movie script, sort of like that bad Chris O'Donnell, Sandra Bullock movie about Hemingway in Italy, but with Lenin. And yes, plenty of nudity. Also, I think the end of the movie will be Lenin personally signing her death sentence, or personally watching Dzerzhinsky or Trotsky do it, and crying. (They had to kill her because she was a Social Revolutionary, not a Bolshevik.) Maybe she escapes, but probably not. I'm still working out the kinks. Any suggestions for the role of young or old Lenin?
This is a revelation I had a couple months ago when I was talking to a lady I work with named Elena (shortened, Lena) about Lenin. I mentioned Lenin's room and she said, "My room?" I said, "No, Ulyanov's." She said, "Oh, I was confused there for a minute."
The confusion comes from the fact that the Russian adjective lenin means Lena's, so when I said "room of Lenin" (which sounds fine in Russian but may have been weird in context) she heard "room Lena's" (which sounds weird in Russian but works grammatically). She said that she frequently had trouble with these kinds of mix-ups, since people talk about Lenin a lot and people also talk about her in the third person frequently. (She's an avant-garde performance artist who has turned her life into an act she calls "Third Personal.")
But since Lenin's name is a pseudonym, what does that mean about him? This crappy website talks about two possibilities that have been ruled out: a reference to the Lena River as opposition to Georgi Plekhanov (real name), whose one time pseudonym referred to the Volga River, and the Lena execution, which happened after Lenin used the pseudonym.
I'm going to put forward here a totally unverifiable story about Lenin falling in love with a girl named Elena when he was young (before he met Mrs. Lenin, whose name was Nadezhda) and then using her name as his pseudonym as a sign of everlasting love/youthful lust. I'm also going to write this as a movie script, sort of like that bad Chris O'Donnell, Sandra Bullock movie about Hemingway in Italy, but with Lenin. And yes, plenty of nudity. Also, I think the end of the movie will be Lenin personally signing her death sentence, or personally watching Dzerzhinsky or Trotsky do it, and crying. (They had to kill her because she was a Social Revolutionary, not a Bolshevik.) Maybe she escapes, but probably not. I'm still working out the kinks. Any suggestions for the role of young or old Lenin?
Thursday, February 07, 2008
A Story I Can't Put on the Internet; Seth Update; A Story I Can Put on the Internet (About Lenin)
Well, my days of flying under the radar registrationwise caught up to me and over the last week I was led into the Kafkaesque world of Russian justice, if only a for a day or so. On a side note, when I described to a friend the situation at the local police/registration office as кафкаский [kafkaskii], (which isn't a word) I mispronounced the word and it came out as какаский [kakaskii] which sounds more like poopy (also not quite a real word).
In other news, I signed away my life for the next five or so years to the University of Toronto's History department. I think most people knew who read this knew that but I confirmed it recently so why not post it.
The last story is related to my start as a professional historian. While digging through some 1920s Rostov Party documents I found an important missing piece of Soviet history. That Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky struggled for power and that the former benefited from Lenin's demise before Trotsky could fully establish himself in power is quite well known. Some "conspiracy theorists" have even supposed that Stalin went as far as to kill Lenin for political benefit. This theory was unsubstantiated...until now.
Stalin was well aware that he could not kill Lenin in a way that would leave evidence. This precluded most conventional means of murder. At the Tenth Party Conference in March, 1921, Stalin overheard Trotsky tell Marshal Tukhachevsky that Lenin had "laughed himself silly" that night and would be in no condition to speak the next day. Stalin deduced, correctly, that if he could tell a stunningly hilarious joke, or several very funny jokes, Lenin would laugh himself to death.
Perhaps the most intriguing facet of Stalin's plot is that it forced both Stalin and Trotsky to play to their weaknesses. Stalin, a noted and ruthless political tactician, was dour with a very dark sense of humor. (Funny hmm rather than ha ha .) Trotsky, on the other had, was known as "the original Marxist brother" and Lenin himself frequently called Trotsky "the funniest Jew I know." This coming from a man who knew a lot of Jews in his lifetime.
Stalin's first attacks (the self-deprecating and avant-garde "Black Ass Series," largely written by up-and-coming Georgian Party member Anastas Mikoyan) came as a complete surprise to Trotsky and sent Lenin to the hospital several times. Trotsky's first attempt to foil these assaults was to calm Lenin by saying "that's not funny" or "respect the solemnity of the Kremlin." Lenin, however, frequently mistook these remarks as deadpan follow-up jokes, inducing even more laughter.
Eventually Trotsky gained the upper hand by ensuring that Lenin's wife, who had no taste for racial humor, (even if it was true) was always in the room when Stalin was around. By 1923, Trotsky had practically defeated Stalin's plot by introducing the Lenin's Little Interns program, for which a rotating group of 11 year-olds followed Lenin around the clock. (Stalin had practically defeated himself with the self-written bomb, "You Might Be a Communist If..." which Lenin dismissed as "hokey" and "too populist" for his taste.) In fact, Soviet history may have taken an entirely different path if not for the Donskoi Oblast Union of Municipal Service Workers.
On March 23, 1923, the Union named Lenin an honorary pipe fitter--just the weapon that Stalin needed. At that point in Russian humor the technology of inuendo was underdeveloped. (To this day, most Russian humor is relatively crude.) Yet a young Vyacheslav Molotov was cracking sides with the insinuation that Lenin's honorary pipe was located in his pants. Stalin managed to spirit Molotov to his Moscow dacha before Trotsky had heard of the new weapon. Over the next three months, Molotov developed a routine hilarious to adults yet undetectable to children.
In a final affront to what he thought was a defeated opponent, Trotsky invited Stalin to speak at the Lenin's Little Interns' alumni meeting in August, 1923. Stalin's act ("If the Pipe Fit, Get to It") proved a fatal blow to Lenin and sent several of the Little Interns--the oldest of whom were 14-- to the hospital. Particularly damaging were the bits about "Comrade Lenin laying more pipe in Buriatia than railroads," followed by the slanty eye face, and the one about Lenin's expertise, or lack thereof, in dealing with Mrs. Lenin's plumbing.
For the next five months, Lenin languished in the hospital, occasionally showing improvements but falling to pieces every time Stalin's name was mentioned. On January 21, 1924, Stalin bribed a busty nurse to serve Lenin, along with his lunch, a wrench, and suggest that she was leaking. This was more than Lenin's fragile health could stand. His last words, barely discernable through violent laughter, were, "Stalin, you are the king!"
Well, my days of flying under the radar registrationwise caught up to me and over the last week I was led into the Kafkaesque world of Russian justice, if only a for a day or so. On a side note, when I described to a friend the situation at the local police/registration office as кафкаский [kafkaskii], (which isn't a word) I mispronounced the word and it came out as какаский [kakaskii] which sounds more like poopy (also not quite a real word).
In other news, I signed away my life for the next five or so years to the University of Toronto's History department. I think most people knew who read this knew that but I confirmed it recently so why not post it.
The last story is related to my start as a professional historian. While digging through some 1920s Rostov Party documents I found an important missing piece of Soviet history. That Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky struggled for power and that the former benefited from Lenin's demise before Trotsky could fully establish himself in power is quite well known. Some "conspiracy theorists" have even supposed that Stalin went as far as to kill Lenin for political benefit. This theory was unsubstantiated...until now.
Stalin was well aware that he could not kill Lenin in a way that would leave evidence. This precluded most conventional means of murder. At the Tenth Party Conference in March, 1921, Stalin overheard Trotsky tell Marshal Tukhachevsky that Lenin had "laughed himself silly" that night and would be in no condition to speak the next day. Stalin deduced, correctly, that if he could tell a stunningly hilarious joke, or several very funny jokes, Lenin would laugh himself to death.
Perhaps the most intriguing facet of Stalin's plot is that it forced both Stalin and Trotsky to play to their weaknesses. Stalin, a noted and ruthless political tactician, was dour with a very dark sense of humor. (Funny hmm rather than ha ha .) Trotsky, on the other had, was known as "the original Marxist brother" and Lenin himself frequently called Trotsky "the funniest Jew I know." This coming from a man who knew a lot of Jews in his lifetime.
Stalin's first attacks (the self-deprecating and avant-garde "Black Ass Series," largely written by up-and-coming Georgian Party member Anastas Mikoyan) came as a complete surprise to Trotsky and sent Lenin to the hospital several times. Trotsky's first attempt to foil these assaults was to calm Lenin by saying "that's not funny" or "respect the solemnity of the Kremlin." Lenin, however, frequently mistook these remarks as deadpan follow-up jokes, inducing even more laughter.
Eventually Trotsky gained the upper hand by ensuring that Lenin's wife, who had no taste for racial humor, (even if it was true) was always in the room when Stalin was around. By 1923, Trotsky had practically defeated Stalin's plot by introducing the Lenin's Little Interns program, for which a rotating group of 11 year-olds followed Lenin around the clock. (Stalin had practically defeated himself with the self-written bomb, "You Might Be a Communist If..." which Lenin dismissed as "hokey" and "too populist" for his taste.) In fact, Soviet history may have taken an entirely different path if not for the Donskoi Oblast Union of Municipal Service Workers.
On March 23, 1923, the Union named Lenin an honorary pipe fitter--just the weapon that Stalin needed. At that point in Russian humor the technology of inuendo was underdeveloped. (To this day, most Russian humor is relatively crude.) Yet a young Vyacheslav Molotov was cracking sides with the insinuation that Lenin's honorary pipe was located in his pants. Stalin managed to spirit Molotov to his Moscow dacha before Trotsky had heard of the new weapon. Over the next three months, Molotov developed a routine hilarious to adults yet undetectable to children.
In a final affront to what he thought was a defeated opponent, Trotsky invited Stalin to speak at the Lenin's Little Interns' alumni meeting in August, 1923. Stalin's act ("If the Pipe Fit, Get to It") proved a fatal blow to Lenin and sent several of the Little Interns--the oldest of whom were 14-- to the hospital. Particularly damaging were the bits about "Comrade Lenin laying more pipe in Buriatia than railroads," followed by the slanty eye face, and the one about Lenin's expertise, or lack thereof, in dealing with Mrs. Lenin's plumbing.
For the next five months, Lenin languished in the hospital, occasionally showing improvements but falling to pieces every time Stalin's name was mentioned. On January 21, 1924, Stalin bribed a busty nurse to serve Lenin, along with his lunch, a wrench, and suggest that she was leaking. This was more than Lenin's fragile health could stand. His last words, barely discernable through violent laughter, were, "Stalin, you are the king!"
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