Lenin Lives: The Making and Unmaking of a Cult of Personality

‘Lenin, even now, is more alive than the living’, declared revolutionary poet Vladimir Mayakovsky at the Communist leader’s Moscow funeral in 1924.

Is it symbolic that the embalmed body of the man who toppled one empire only to construct another far more ruthless one, should still be on display in the heart of the contemporary Russian capital?

100 years on from the Russian Revolution, monumental propaganda retains the memory of Soviet rule in former republics of the USSR and the Eastern bloc states. This talk by Myroslava Hartmond will consider Lenin the man and his motivations, as well as the cult of the personality that was built around him.

Myroslava Hartmond (University of Oxford) is a researcher, cultural critic and co-curator of ‘Fallen’ exhibition, currently on show at Art Exchange

Free entry, no ticket required. Find out more on the Art Exchange website.