Despite his penchant for bellicose threats, offensive invective and occasionally getting into fist fights, Zhirinovsky just wasn’t that frightening. Indeed, even when Western papers were hyping him as a Hitler-style evil messiah, he had much more in common with the other post-Soviet self-created men who emerged in the early 90s — the New Age gurus, fake Christs and millionaire coffin magnates. Zhirinovsky was born Vladimir Eidelshtein and had worked for a Jewish organisation in Moscow in the late 80s before reinventing himself as a Russian Mussolini. The minister of security in his shadow cabinet was the novelist-poet-provocateur Edward Limonov (real name: Savenko); he also hung around with the TV faith healer Anatoly Kashpirovsky and the Hungarian-Italian porn star Cicciolina.

Zhirinovsky was a political entrepreneur, an entertainer whose schtick was shock. Although mostly known outside of Russia for his xenophobic outbursts, his routine also incorporated sex. Even as he was threatening to start World War III he claimed to have slept with 200 women. In 1995 he suggested to a US journalist that she might like to have sex with his two bodyguards, and after he had watched for a bit, he would join in. In 1998 he published The Alphabet of Sex, in which Zhirinovsky proposed that that Russia could make money from sex tourism. In 2014, however he did a volte face and suggested that it was only necessary to have sex 3 or 4 times a year (and that everyone should eat more vegetables). Evidently it was time for some new material to keep the act fresh.

Zhirinovsky’s dedication to the schtick was total. He accepted his role in Putin’s managed democracy, performing the role of fake opposition leader with such dedication that he ran for president five times, never polling above 10%. For years he would talk about seizing chunks of Ukraine, and he crowed about the annexation of Crimea in 2014, but it is hard to believe that he actually knew anything when — at the end of last year — he correctly predicted that Russia would invade Ukraine on February 22nd. Perhaps he was just making it all up.

But that is the most chilling thing. A character who for decades was just too much, and who nobody took seriously, had actually articulated positions that are now state policy. This blurring of the line between fantasy and reality is not unique to Russia of course; ideas once considered too ludicrous to consider are spreading to the centre in many places. But perhaps Russia is the most extreme case, with the most tragic results. Zhirinovsky played the clown right up until he was dead. But who’s laughing now?

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Daniel Kalder is an author based in Texas. Previously, he spent ten years living in the former Soviet bloc. His latest book, Dictator Literature, is published by Oneworld. He also writes on Substack: Thus Spake Daniel Kalder.

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