On August 29, 2023, Dmitry Medvedev once again threatened Western countries with war in his Telegram channel. He supported his words with several quotes, including an alleged saying of Vladimir Lenin. We decided to check whether this attribution is correct.
Medvedev's post the fact that Ukraine’s allies allegedly “coordinated any strikes on everything Russian” was widely quoted by the Russian media, and many of them, following the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, attributed the phrase “We are remembered while we interfere with others” to Lenin. Among them TASS, Ura.ru, "Sight" and the TV channel website "Constantinople" This phrase, long before the ex-president, was passed off as a statement by the Bolshevik leader, many online quotes (for example, “Quotes.info"), it is found in blogs on the platform "Zen", in "VKontakte"and in Instagram.
Lenin's works have been well studied: five collected works of his were published in Soviet times, last (1958–1966) became the most voluminous - 55 volumes. At the same time, this publication can hardly be called complete, since some of Lenin’s articles were not included in it. Therefore, historians often turn to the first two editions of the collected works: 1920–1927 And 1925–1934. All of them, however, are now available to the reader.
A search in Lenin’s works for the phrase “We are remembered while we disturb others” did not bring any results. There are no traces of this statement in any of the digitized books on website of the Russian State Library, nor in the Google Books service. In the latter case it occurs only mention this phrase in the book of photographer and traveler Viktor Stasevich, and in the form of direct speech from one of the heroes.
In fact, the phrase has nothing to do with Lenin. This is a line from the Nautilus Pompilius song “City of Brotherly Love” text to which Ilya Kormiltsev wrote: “We live in the city of brotherly love - we are remembered while we interfere with others.”
It was not possible to find out who and when exactly came up with the idea of combining a phrase from a song with a mention of Lenin. Most an early example of their use together, found by "Verified", dates back to 2006 - this is a demotivator depicting Lenin showing a fig. Judging by the copyright, the image was created no later than 2004, and a certain Alex Bodov is indicated as the copyright holder.
It is likely that this demotivator became the reason for the appearance of false Lenin quotes on numerous entertainment sites.
Let us note that Dmitry Medvedev often resorts to quotes in his posts and articles, and not always successfully. Thus, for an article published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta on July 2, 2023, Medvedev took as the epigraph the phrase “When it seems that the whole world is against you, remember that the plane takes off not with the wind, but against it,” attributing it to Ayn Rand, the author of the novel “Atlas Shrugged.” Subsequently it turned outthat the author of the article confused two quotes published next to each other on the site anekdotov.net.
Cover photo: screenshot “Verified” / social networks
- Five quotes attributed to Lenin
- Did Lenin write: “In spirit I am with you, in hard labor in Siberia, but in body, unfortunately, here in Zurich in a hotel”?
- Did Lenin really call his opponents political prostitutes?
- Did Lenin say: “Let 90% of the Russian people die, if only 10% survive to see the world revolution”?
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