Lenin was a mushroom
Encyclopedia
Lenin was a mushroom was a televised hoax
by musician Sergey Kuryokhin
and reporter Sergey Sholokhov. It was first broadcast on 17 May 1991 on Leningrad Television. The hoax had the form of an interview.
In the interview Kuryokhin was telling about his findings that Lenin used to consume a lot of psychedelic mushrooms and eventually turned into a mushroom himself. This absurd idea wasn't presented all at once; instead there was a resemblance of logical chain of reasonings, facts and quotations from various sources. An aura of plausibility was created using manipulation of facts, pseudo-scientific style and loose storytelling.
The timing of the hoax played a large role in its success. It was shown on TV in the Glasnost
period when many censorship
barriers fell and there were many revelations and publication of previously concealed facts from USSR history, often with sensation
al flavor. Additionally, Soviet TV had been very official and prim before. As a result, approximately 11,250,000 audience members took the hoax seriously, even despite the totally absurd claims. According to S. Sholokhov himself, in response to inquiries about the truth of the claims, the person responsible for ideology in a Regional Committee of the Communist Party stated that they were false, as "a mammal can not be a plant."
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
by musician Sergey Kuryokhin
Sergey Kuryokhin
Sergey Kuryokhin was a Russian film actor, film composer, pianist, music director, experimental artist and writer, based in St. Petersburg, Russia.-Biography:Kuryokhin began his acting career as a piano and keyboard player with a school band in Leningrad...
and reporter Sergey Sholokhov. It was first broadcast on 17 May 1991 on Leningrad Television. The hoax had the form of an interview.
In the interview Kuryokhin was telling about his findings that Lenin used to consume a lot of psychedelic mushrooms and eventually turned into a mushroom himself. This absurd idea wasn't presented all at once; instead there was a resemblance of logical chain of reasonings, facts and quotations from various sources. An aura of plausibility was created using manipulation of facts, pseudo-scientific style and loose storytelling.
The timing of the hoax played a large role in its success. It was shown on TV in the Glasnost
Glasnost
Glasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
period when many censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
barriers fell and there were many revelations and publication of previously concealed facts from USSR history, often with sensation
Sensation
Sensation is the fiction-writing mode for portraying a character's perception of the senses. According to Ron Rozelle, “. . .the success of your story or novel will depend on many things, but the most crucial is your ability to bring your reader into it. And that reader will be most completely...
al flavor. Additionally, Soviet TV had been very official and prim before. As a result, approximately 11,250,000 audience members took the hoax seriously, even despite the totally absurd claims. According to S. Sholokhov himself, in response to inquiries about the truth of the claims, the person responsible for ideology in a Regional Committee of the Communist Party stated that they were false, as "a mammal can not be a plant."