Retranslating Lenin. Postmodern ambivalence in the Tampere Lenin Museum 2016–2024

Abstract Museums are mnemonic institutions, aiming to preserve and remember, but they also select what to remember and how. Retranslation is a similar activity of preserving and renewing. In this article, these two are connected through reading the revised exhibition of the Lenin Museum in Tampere (2016–2024) as a retranslation that followed the first exhibition (1946–2016), targeting new audiences in a new political, social, and cultural context. The article adopts “methodological tourism” to follow the narrative of the exhibition tour from the focalised point of view of an individual viewer, whose interpretations are embedded in life experiences and personal history. The data consists of 57 photos, three pages of field notes from the visit, and the entire museum website downloaded on the day of the visit. The article aims to answer how Lenin was re-understood, re-interpreted, and re-depicted in a dedicated museum context, 100 years after his death and three decades after the collapse of the political system he and his texts were used to build. This article is linked to a larger project “Retranslating Lenin” led by Prof. Mikhail Mikhailov at Tampere University, and it aligns with the project's aims of understanding the canonisation processes of this socialist thinker and ideologue.