© AFP/Dominick RuterThe guy is everywhere! Putin merchandise shows up at US election rallies.
The book, In the Lead Role: Putin in Contemporary Culture, is 288 glossy pages of Putin in magazines and books, television and film, graffiti, sculpture, music and consumer goods. There are numerous photographs of public stunts in support of Putin, such as Russians holding letters reading "Happy birthday Vladimir", and the "I Will Rip It for Putin" rally at which young women tore off sleeveless undershirts with the president's face pictured in pink.
Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, T-shirts and iPhone cases featuring Putin's image have become popular, found at any airport and in a new chain of army stores.
Comment: Alec, decorum, please! Since Crimea acceded to Russia in 2014...
'In the Lead Role: Putin in Contemporary Culture', by Viktor Levanov
"The use of his image in art, literature and journalism can't not be noticed. Even the presidential campaign in the United States has recently been unfolding around how candidates relate to Vladimir Putin," he said.
Comment: Recently? It's been the main topic throughout!
Levanov, who made his name as a LiveJournal blogger, said the book had not received state funding...
Comment: What are you trying to imply, Alec? That all favorable opinion of Putin is paid for by him? Did you forget the topic of your own article: Putin as GLOBAL PHENOMENON??
...and the profits would go to an Amur tiger centre started by Putin. He said it was not a political statement and denied that a cult of personality was forming around Putin.
Comment: 'Cult of personality' is, in general, the term trotted out by Westerners to disparage leaders who are getting in their way of exploiting a foreign country's resources.
But he admitted the authors had gathered material from pro-Kremlin youth movements backed by the state...
Comment: Ah, ah, SEE?! PUTIN DID IT!!
'What is WRONG with these people?'
...and said he liked the fact that such groups had "done a lot to promote Putin's image". Levanov said he would send a copy of the book to the president.
The book features examples of the western media's supposed distortion of Putin's image.
Comment: 'Supposed'??!!??
The New Tsar, a book by the New York Times correspondent Steven Lee Myers, "is supposed to be complete and truthful; however, already from the cover it's clear that the author was not able to avoid stereotypes," the authors write. On another page, an issue of Der Spiegel depicting Putin standing above David Cameron, Angela Merkel and Barack Obama is called a "classic of European demonisation".
Comment: What's your point, Alec?
That anyone who thinks that such demonization takes place is looney?
Go home, Alec, your mother misses you.
'Putin art' is spreading all over the world
Shamanov said the piece was meant to show how Putin's politics and image were postmodern, unlike Western countries that "go to other countries and force their culture and method of governance on them, and imprisonments, concentration camps and killings begin".
"Modernism is based on ideologies of how one needs to live, like fascism, communism and now liberalism, but there are places that don't want to live this way," Shamanov said, offering as an example Syria, where Russia has been waging a bombing campaign to support Bashar al-Assad's regime. "[Putin] doesn't force McDonald's and jeans on everyone. I think that's real multiculturalism and postmodernism," he said.
Comment: That's an interesting take on it: Putin as the world's first post-postmodern leader? For that though, he'd need to set a trend, and for now most leaders remain utterly servile to the Western Order.
Among those attending the presentation was the head of the Putin Facebook fan club, Mikhail Antonov, who had helped with the book. For Putin's 62nd birthday, in 2014, he organised an exhibition of paintings reimagining the president's achievements as the 12 Labours of Hercules.
"As we say, a spoon is good before lunch. It's our president's birthday, and we want to bring people together who are interested in Putin," Antonov said.
Comment: That's probably as close as the Guardian can come to wishing Putin a happy birthday. They HAVE to vilify him, but in the process they can't help but notice that the man is GLOBALLY POPULAR.