State Prize winner represents Lenin as a Muslim believer

08-08-2008

Ufa, August 7, Interfax - Russian State Prize winner in literature and art Rinat Voligamsi (Ufa, Bashkiria) published his version of Lenin's life.

"The song inspired me to dream on the theme "Lenin is alive, he is more alive than all the living" 15 years ago," Voligamsi has told Interfax on Thursday.

The artist imagines the leader of the world revolution didn't die in 1924, but abandoned politics and started living as a good Muslim because his relatives were of Bashkir origin. Then "renovated Lenin" begins associating with his fictitious twin-brother Sergey and goes on Hajj to Mecca and even writes a work entitled Islam as the last hope of revolution.

"I imagine Lenin as an ordinary villager sitting near his peasant's house and smoking tobacco he grew with his own hands in the garden or married to three women or going to Mecca late in life because I think that every atheist has his way to God and Lenin could have found this path," the artist tells.

The author's fantasy goes on: Lenin is hiding away in Latin America during World War II where he consults Castro and Trotsky on various questions and he spends the last days of his life with his family in Zurich, where they have an antiques boutique.

The artist realized his unusual project in 2005 when he made 21 photo collages. He used hundreds of authentic old pictures in his work and turned them to "real fantasy" with Photoshop.

"No one saw any mockery in such a creative presentation and vision of Lenin's life. He was an ordinary man and could have lived the way represented by the artist," the Bashkir Union of Artists told Interfax.
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