The Genealogy of the “Leader of the People”: Images of Leaders and the Political Language of the Russian Revolution of 1917

Abstract

Boris Kolonitskii continues his studies of the cult of Alexander Kerensky in 1917 and the larger issues of the vocabulary used to describe leaders and the nature of cults and their relationship to authoritarianism in Russian and Soviet history. He reviews the linguistic fields surrounding such revolutionary figures as Miliukov, Rodzianko, Chernov, Plekhanov and Lenin and shows how politicians may become hostages of their own rhetoric. Hero image terminology can sanctify the leader. But even negative publicity or criticism can lead to the strengthening of the cult image. The construction of cults is subject to reversals and shifting creativity. Cults have pre- histories and are vital to our understanding of 20th century politics.