Guess whose birthday is celebrated on April 22? Well, lots of famous and important people were born on this day, for example, Alexander Kerensky and Vladimir Nabokov. And, of course, Владимир Ильич Ульянов (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov) was born on this day back in 1870. He is usually better known by his alias, Ленин (Lenin).

So let’s talk about Lenin’s influence on Russian history language. After all, his collected works take up 54 printed volumes. The name itself launched way more than a thousand renamings of streets, squares and entire cities.

Speaking of the name, Ленин sounds very much like лень (laziness), but in fact comes from Лена (Lena) which happens to be both a female name and a name of one of Siberia’s three largest rivers. Siberia, of course, was where Vladimir Ulyanov spent a few years in exile.

And now that the name is taken care of, it’s time to learn some крылатые фразы (popular quotations) uttered by or believed to be uttered by the man. Why? Because, as with many other catch phrases, you must know them if you want to truly владеть лексиконом  (command a vocabulary) like a native speaker.

Учиться, учиться и учиться (To study, to study and to study) – later on, after the cult of Lenin was destroyed, some smarty-pants expanded on this quote, turning it into учиться, учиться и учиться, особенно если не хочется работать, работать и работать (to study, to study and to study, especially if one doesn’t want to work, to work and to work)

Лучше меньше, да лучше – it means “it’s best to have less, but of higher quality”. Originally, this was a title of an article about strengthening government administration. Interestingly, he also said that the quality must be не отстающим от западноевропейских образцов (not lagging behind Western examples). Several decades after he wrote these words, the country was still struggling with the quantity v quality issues and was still trying to догнать и перегнать Америку (to catch up with and overtake the USA).

Nowadays the phrase is frequently used in retail sector and in product reviews in the sense of “less is more”.

Есть такая партия! (There is such a party!) – was something Lenin exclaimed in the heat of the debate. He asserted that Bolshevik Party was ready to take over governing Russia. Later on, in the Soviet Union, this became one of those phrases that would be crammed down your throat in history courses.

Fortunately, the word партия (party) has a few other meanings, such as

A play-off in a sports game as in шахматная партия (a chess game)

A team or a crew as in геолого-разведочная партия (a team of geologists) in this article.

A batch or a shipment as in партия товара (a shipment of goods)

This led to quite a few jokes, such as this one from the movie На Дерибасовской хорошая погода, или на Брайтон-Бич опять идут дожди (Weather is good on Deribasovskaya or It rains again on Brighton Beach). In this comedy, a mafia boss disguised as Lenin exclaims «Есть такая партия! Замечательная партия наркотиков из Таиланда!» (There is such a party! A great shipment of narcotics from Thailand!)

Из всех искусств для нас важнейшим является кино (Of all the arts, cinema is of the outmost importance to us) – this was, of course, before TV. Otherwise, this phrase can be changed to suit your needs by replacing кино (cinema) with whatever strikes your fancy – цирк (circus), ток-шоу (talk-show), телевидение (TV), Фотошоп (Photoshop), бета-тестирование (beta testing), образование (education), etc. For example, the article about a ballet festival in Novosibirsk says «Три весенних недели важнейшим из искусств в городе являлся балет» (For three weeks in the spring ballet remained of the outmost importance in the city). Caution – this phrase is sometimes used sarcastically, usually to show that something is being neglected or made a big deal out of without producing results.

Мы пойдём другим путём (We will choose another way) – this phrase приписывается Ленину (is attributed to Lenin), but in fact is детище (a brainchild) of another famous Vladimir, Владимир Маяковский (Vladimir Mayakovsky). In Mayakovsky’s poem “Vladimir Lenin”, a seventeen-year-old Lenin promises his oldest brother Alexander to pick up the fight against capitalists and win it, but “to choose another way” of going about it.

Политическая проститутка (Political prostitute) – reportedly Lenin loved to describe his political opponents as проститутки (prostitutes). Nowadays it is used to describe an unprincipled politician who will do just about anything to get elected. In the US the term, I believe, is a flip-flopper.

Любая кухарка способна управлять государством (Any kitchen maid can run a country) – this is the most misquoted phrase. In fact, what Lenin did say was «мы знаем, что любая кухарка не способна сейчас же вступить в управление государством…» (we know that any kitchen maid cannot right away start running a country…). He continued by saying that it was time to move away from a false belief that only rich people were capable of doing the daily work of maintaining a functioning government.

Взять почту, телеграф, телефон (To take over post, telegraph and telephone services) – this was part of Lenin’s carefully outlined plan for taking over the country in an armed uprising. Nowadays it is used ironically or figuratively to describe first necessary steps in an important undertaking.