Lenjinov mozak: o jednom pokušaju „materijalističkog zasnivanja genijalnosti“
Lenin`s Brain: An Attempt of “Materialistically Based Genius”

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, an attempt to confirm the faith in Lenin`s genius by the help of the neurological research of Lenin`s brain has been presented and interpreted. Considering “the cult of personality” as a permanent and significant characteristic of the ‘Soviet-type’ political system, the author has reconstructed an aspect of the posthumous (mis)use of the Lenin`s body undertaken to consolidate the regime and strengthen the legitimacy of Bolshevik power. A frequently thematized symbolic and political meaning of the embalming and exposing of Lenin`s body in the Mausoleum has in this paper been amended by taking into consideration the activities of the Moscow Brain Research Institute which was founded in order to prove the genius of the October Revolution Leader. Regardless of the limited results, the use of science in creating and strengthening the cult of a leader presented, in the author`s opinion, a paradoxical combination of the enlightenment genealogy of the Marxist theory and Soviet political practice.

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