Disney’s Prinz John as effeminate corrupt government and Lenin as Santa Claus
In response to the comment about Lenin using milk as invisible ink while in jail, I researched the story and found the following book, Unser Lenin, 1973.[1] My assumption is that vestiges of the history of authorship and immortality in art as transmitted but never possessed by femininity remained intact in Eastern Europe under Socialism, even perhaps enjoyed a type of revival.
[1] N. Chodsa. Unser Lenin. Eine Bildchronik für junge Leser. Berlin, 1970.
Clearly established are the conflation of socialist or communist tendencies in US mainstream culture and (stereotypical) homosexuality through the eighties: homophobia and “commune-phobia” went hand in hand, as has been extensively discussed, see the following: Robert J. Corber, Homosexuality on Cold War America, Resistance and the Crisis of Masculinity. London, 1997.
In response to the comment about Lenin using milk as invisible ink while in jail, I researched the story and found the following book, Unser Lenin, 1973.[1] My assumption is that vestiges of the history of authorship and immortality in art as transmitted but never possessed by femininity remained intact in Eastern Europe under Socialism, even perhaps enjoyed a type of revival.
[1] N. Chodsa. Unser Lenin. Eine Bildchronik für junge Leser. Berlin, 1970.
Clearly established are the conflation of socialist or communist tendencies in US mainstream culture and (stereotypical) homosexuality through the eighties: homophobia and “commune-phobia” went hand in hand, as has been extensively discussed, see the following: Robert J. Corber, Homosexuality on Cold War America, Resistance and the Crisis of Masculinity. London, 1997.
It is pretty easy to decode the crude propaganda present in children’s books from the Seventies in the GDR from our position. It is much more difficult to see through what we are expected to believe in terms of authorship gender and the economy within our own context today. A bridge might be built by briefly comparing the images from Unser Lenin a very widely circulated story from the West is Disney’s Robin Hood. He has conventionally been described as a “good communist”: taking from the rich to feed the poor. In the Disney version from the Seventies, however, the evil “big” government, represented by Prinz John, steals from the disenfranchised and independent poor in the form of taxes, and he also clearly exhibits the wrist bending stereotypically negative traits associated with conventional homophobic ideas about homosexuality: he is fixated on his mother, is narcissistic, (and he sleeps with a snake). Homophobia is conflated with a highly simplified, populist version of a communist/socialist government, and fits nicely into mainstream fears stoked by years of anti-Soviet propaganda. Robin Hood in this version does not steal from the rich as much as get rid of taxes, or reverse taxation.[1]
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Iron Curtain, Lenin became Santa Claus in the 1973 Version of the aforementioned book: Our Lenin (Unser Lenin). The story is told as follows:
After and exceptionally harsh winter, there was little to eat and less to go around that was decorative. The children were sad, when the teacher set up an “end of the year celebration tree”, a pine tree, because there were no lights to go on it, and there were likely to be no gifts and no candy. However, the teacher sets up the tree, (looking deceptively like a Christmas tree), since she has faith that something will happen. And in fact, the next day, Lenin, with a nice full beard and bag full of candy and gifts, comes in and makes the “end of the year celebration” a real one after all.
Just before Lenin begins to look like Santa Claus, this story is told:
When Lenin was in jail, he was prevented from writing, and thus, communicating with his constituency. However, he knew a trick. If one wrote with milk, it would look invisible until heated. So he had his wife bring books for him to read and asked the jailer for milk and bread, and shaped an inkwell from the bread, poured milk into it and wrote secretly between the lines of the book. Whenever the jailer came to see what he was doing, he quickly ate the bread. Lenin’s wife took the books, held the pages up to a lamp so the milk would burn and thus become visible. This allowed Lenin to continue to communicate with his followers while in jail. The story was told by his wife after his death.
Once again, male authorship requires a female figure and a female fluid, milk – in this case, to become “immortal” through communication to others, to be saved from silence and authorial mortality. Interestingly, the story is told by his wife after his death. Since this story was recorded by his wife after his death, there was no way for Lenin to confirm or disclaim this account. A plausible but also somewhat daring interpretation of this story is that Lenin’s wife, Nadezhda Konstantinovna saved texts and thoughts written by her from “mortality” (Plunging into Nothingness “[3] Assman) by subsuming them under Lenin’s authorship (Name, paternity) posthumously.
In other words, this narrative teaches that under Socialism in the GDR, there is an instrumental role foreseen for some female figures, that of bringing forth – that is, into the Public - male authorship. My reading of this story indicates that Nadezhda Konstantinovna knew where to place the fruits of her brain to ensure their immortality: under the name and authorship of her husband. However, on the surface, she had something important to do, and she was instrumental in insuring the immortality of his thoughts – Lenin did not autonomously, from inside himself and without (female) help, achieve literary life, and immortality, he needed her help in this story, but his towering mythical figure absorbed whatever was proffered as aid under his name after his death. Patriarchy – and therefore perhaps capitalism – was set in place, restored and reconstructed by the woman desiring to be the patriarch’s wife.
This would confirm the assumption that women were considered equal to male workers in relation to performance on the job in the GDR, so that the situation of women strongly differed from that in place in the FRD during that time (in the FRG, married women were not permitted to work outside the home without explicit permission by their husbands, and the consequences can be felt through today in the greater guilty conscience and inner difficulty of many western German mothers, to combine motherhood and working outside the home.) However they remained clearly underrepresented on the level of the highest political positions, as well as conspicuously absent from the lists of the most prominent artists - despite the comparative absence of the workings of a capitalist art market.
[1] Rosemarie Trockel, Die Legendäre Ei-Ronny. Ohne Jahresangabe. Privatbesitz.
[1] Die Verschmelzung von sozialistischen oder kommunistischen Tendenzen mit (stereotypen) homophoben Vorstellungen von Homosexualität zog sich durch die Achtziger im US Amerikanischen mainstream, Homophobie und „Kommuno-phobie“ gingen während der McCarthy Era bereits in einander über, wie zum Beispiel im folgenden Band ausführlich diskutiert wird: Robert R. Corber, Homosexuality in Cold War America, Resistence and Crisis of Masculinity. London, 1997.
[2] Ich wurde darauf hingewiesen dass Bürger der ehemaligen DDR selten bis nie den Ausdruck „Jahresendzeitfeier“ im Alltag verwendeten, sondern weiterhin von Weihnachten sprachen, auch wenn offizielle sozialistische Publikationen diesen Begriff verwendeten um jegliche religiöse Anspielungen zu vermeiden. Es verhält sich damit wohl wie mit den „Freedom Fries“ in den USA, wo nach dem 11ten September vergeblich versucht wurde, den Ausdruck „French Fries“ abzulösen. Trotzdem sind politisch motivierte, staatlich verordneter oder befürworteter Begriffsänderungen immer eindeutiges Zeichen eines stattfindenden politischen Wandels oder einer Ausrichtung. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/12/national/12FRIES.html
[3] Aleida Assmann, Plunging into Nothingness. The Politics of Cultural Memory. In: Moment to Monument. The Making and Unmaking of Cultural Significance. Bielefeld 2009.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Iron Curtain, Lenin became Santa Claus in the 1973 Version of the aforementioned book: Our Lenin (Unser Lenin). The story is told as follows:
After and exceptionally harsh winter, there was little to eat and less to go around that was decorative. The children were sad, when the teacher set up an “end of the year celebration tree”, a pine tree, because there were no lights to go on it, and there were likely to be no gifts and no candy. However, the teacher sets up the tree, (looking deceptively like a Christmas tree), since she has faith that something will happen. And in fact, the next day, Lenin, with a nice full beard and bag full of candy and gifts, comes in and makes the “end of the year celebration” a real one after all.
Just before Lenin begins to look like Santa Claus, this story is told:
When Lenin was in jail, he was prevented from writing, and thus, communicating with his constituency. However, he knew a trick. If one wrote with milk, it would look invisible until heated. So he had his wife bring books for him to read and asked the jailer for milk and bread, and shaped an inkwell from the bread, poured milk into it and wrote secretly between the lines of the book. Whenever the jailer came to see what he was doing, he quickly ate the bread. Lenin’s wife took the books, held the pages up to a lamp so the milk would burn and thus become visible. This allowed Lenin to continue to communicate with his followers while in jail. The story was told by his wife after his death.
Once again, male authorship requires a female figure and a female fluid, milk – in this case, to become “immortal” through communication to others, to be saved from silence and authorial mortality. Interestingly, the story is told by his wife after his death. Since this story was recorded by his wife after his death, there was no way for Lenin to confirm or disclaim this account. A plausible but also somewhat daring interpretation of this story is that Lenin’s wife, Nadezhda Konstantinovna saved texts and thoughts written by her from “mortality” (Plunging into Nothingness “[3] Assman) by subsuming them under Lenin’s authorship (Name, paternity) posthumously.
In other words, this narrative teaches that under Socialism in the GDR, there is an instrumental role foreseen for some female figures, that of bringing forth – that is, into the Public - male authorship. My reading of this story indicates that Nadezhda Konstantinovna knew where to place the fruits of her brain to ensure their immortality: under the name and authorship of her husband. However, on the surface, she had something important to do, and she was instrumental in insuring the immortality of his thoughts – Lenin did not autonomously, from inside himself and without (female) help, achieve literary life, and immortality, he needed her help in this story, but his towering mythical figure absorbed whatever was proffered as aid under his name after his death. Patriarchy – and therefore perhaps capitalism – was set in place, restored and reconstructed by the woman desiring to be the patriarch’s wife.
This would confirm the assumption that women were considered equal to male workers in relation to performance on the job in the GDR, so that the situation of women strongly differed from that in place in the FRD during that time (in the FRG, married women were not permitted to work outside the home without explicit permission by their husbands, and the consequences can be felt through today in the greater guilty conscience and inner difficulty of many western German mothers, to combine motherhood and working outside the home.) However they remained clearly underrepresented on the level of the highest political positions, as well as conspicuously absent from the lists of the most prominent artists - despite the comparative absence of the workings of a capitalist art market.
[1] Rosemarie Trockel, Die Legendäre Ei-Ronny. Ohne Jahresangabe. Privatbesitz.
[1] Die Verschmelzung von sozialistischen oder kommunistischen Tendenzen mit (stereotypen) homophoben Vorstellungen von Homosexualität zog sich durch die Achtziger im US Amerikanischen mainstream, Homophobie und „Kommuno-phobie“ gingen während der McCarthy Era bereits in einander über, wie zum Beispiel im folgenden Band ausführlich diskutiert wird: Robert R. Corber, Homosexuality in Cold War America, Resistence and Crisis of Masculinity. London, 1997.
[2] Ich wurde darauf hingewiesen dass Bürger der ehemaligen DDR selten bis nie den Ausdruck „Jahresendzeitfeier“ im Alltag verwendeten, sondern weiterhin von Weihnachten sprachen, auch wenn offizielle sozialistische Publikationen diesen Begriff verwendeten um jegliche religiöse Anspielungen zu vermeiden. Es verhält sich damit wohl wie mit den „Freedom Fries“ in den USA, wo nach dem 11ten September vergeblich versucht wurde, den Ausdruck „French Fries“ abzulösen. Trotzdem sind politisch motivierte, staatlich verordneter oder befürworteter Begriffsänderungen immer eindeutiges Zeichen eines stattfindenden politischen Wandels oder einer Ausrichtung. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/12/national/12FRIES.html
[3] Aleida Assmann, Plunging into Nothingness. The Politics of Cultural Memory. In: Moment to Monument. The Making and Unmaking of Cultural Significance. Bielefeld 2009.
Aber noch viel interessanter ist, dass die für Kinder geschriebene Geschichte über Lenin aus der DDR buchstäblich die Art und Weise lehrt, auf die eine existierende Machtstruktur subversiv umgangen werden kann. Lenin wird als Held konstruiert, der ungerechte, schwierige Umstände überwindet. Es erzählt eine Geschichte, in der ehemals unterdrückte Figuren ein existierendes „Schreiben einer großen Narrative“ überwinden, und die Geschichte mittels geretteter, am Leben erhaltener Subjektivität (Lenins) neu schreiben. Darin wird der Vermittlerin und der Milch eine zentrale Position zugestanden. Dabei kommt neben der Bestätigung traditioneller Autorschaft mittels der weiblichen Flüssigkeit Milch und der traditionell weiblichen Funktion der Krupskaja, die hier, der Subjektivität und Autorschaft Lenins dienend, als Vermittlerin von Wahrheiten agiert, und nicht zur Besitzerin oder Konstrukteurin neuer Geschichten wird, eine zweite Ebene zum Vorschein. In
europäische Mythen aus dem Mittelalter, der frühen Renaissance und dem Barock, dargestellt durch Caritas Romana Figuren (z.B. von dem 16ten Jahrhundert Grafiker Hans Sebald Beham und Andere) und allegorische Bilder des „Ursprung der Milchstrasse“ (Rubens 1663) stabilisieren und nähren diese Bilder Paternalität, oder ver-unsterblich-en genialische Übermenschen. In all diesen Geschichten dient der weibliche Körper als Vermittler für die sich im Entstehen befindenden Schreiben von neunen Geschichten. Paradoxerweise, wird in der Konstruktion der Narrative um Lenin, die intendiert war das totalitäre Regime der DDR zu stabilisieren indem zu dessen Legitimation ganz weit unten und zurück in die Kunstgeschichts-kiste gegriffen wurde, den Kindern der Gebrauch von „unsichtbarer Tinte“ als Werkzeug vorgeführt, um, wie Lenin, auf clevere Weise Grenzen zu umgehen, die durch ein unlegitimes Regime errichtet worden waren.
Es wird eine Methode subversiver Kommunikation vorgestellt, die nur durch diejenigen entziffert werden kann, die wissen dass sie existiert. Die Mythoskonstruktion Lenin’s in der DDR enthält die Werkzeuge für dessen Demontage.
europäische Mythen aus dem Mittelalter, der frühen Renaissance und dem Barock, dargestellt durch Caritas Romana Figuren (z.B. von dem 16ten Jahrhundert Grafiker Hans Sebald Beham und Andere) und allegorische Bilder des „Ursprung der Milchstrasse“ (Rubens 1663) stabilisieren und nähren diese Bilder Paternalität, oder ver-unsterblich-en genialische Übermenschen. In all diesen Geschichten dient der weibliche Körper als Vermittler für die sich im Entstehen befindenden Schreiben von neunen Geschichten. Paradoxerweise, wird in der Konstruktion der Narrative um Lenin, die intendiert war das totalitäre Regime der DDR zu stabilisieren indem zu dessen Legitimation ganz weit unten und zurück in die Kunstgeschichts-kiste gegriffen wurde, den Kindern der Gebrauch von „unsichtbarer Tinte“ als Werkzeug vorgeführt, um, wie Lenin, auf clevere Weise Grenzen zu umgehen, die durch ein unlegitimes Regime errichtet worden waren.
Es wird eine Methode subversiver Kommunikation vorgestellt, die nur durch diejenigen entziffert werden kann, die wissen dass sie existiert. Die Mythoskonstruktion Lenin’s in der DDR enthält die Werkzeuge für dessen Demontage.