Two hundred years after Karl Marx was born, a country he never visited is marked with reminders of his legacy. Russia’s most popular social network Vkontakte lists hundreds of people named after the German political economist. In addition to the 1,390 streets throughout the country that bear his name, there is a town called Marx on the Volga River. But nearly 27 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, one of the 19th century’s most influential thinkers has become an afterthought in the first country to implement his ideas as a political system. Leading up to the May 5 anniversary, Russian authorities chose not the mark the occasion at all. “The official stance is that his revolutionary ideas brought misfortune to the Russian people,” said Lev Gudkov, director of the independent Levada Center pollster. “Russians have all but forgotten him.”

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With authorities silent ahead of Marx’s birthday, academics and historians are picking up the slack. Throughout the year, universities and museums across the country are hosting conferences and exhibitions in the hope of keeping Marx, who argued inequality is inherent to capitalism, alive not just in the country’s ivory towers, but as a household name too. At Kazan Federal University, educators took a creative approach to their two-day long event at the end of April titled MarxFest. In addition to group discussions and speeches in the style of the popular TED Talks on Marx’s contributions to economic theory, organizers invited a local rapper to freestyle in hope of attracting students. Aida Novenkova, who heads the university’s graduate studies program in management, economics and finance, said the goal of the festival was to introduce students to an influential thinker “beyond just a chapter in a textbook.” “I believe that the most important thing is for our students to have access to a wide array of views and to become critical thinkers,” she said by phone. “Marx greatly influenced the world’s understanding of economics, and it is important for students to know that not everything is about politics.”

First-year student Alina Talichkina put the point more bluntly: “To not know a person like this is embarrassing.” Popularity plunge A significant number of Russians, however, do not. According to the latest figures Levada shared with The Moscow Times, nearly a quarter of those polled did not know who Marx was. Of those who do, only a few considered him to be a leading thinker. According to Gudkov, in 1989, 35 percent of Russians thought of Marx as one of the top 10 greatest people to have lived. By the end of 1991 after the Soviet Union fell, only 8 percent did. Since 2008, the number has flatlined at three percent.

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