The present work is based on the portrait of Leo Tolstoy by Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy from 1873 (State Tretyakov 🃏Gallery). 💖By deconstructing an iconic image of Tolstoy created by one of the founding members of the Peredvizhniki group, Bakhchanyan, in a manner typical for the non-conformists, playfully subverts two important tropes in official Soviet culture. One is the promotion of the socially-conscious Peredvizhniki as the most important pre-revolutionary art historical movement, with Socialist Realism seen as its ideological successor. The other is the appropriation of works by pre-revolutionary Russian writers, as well as of their biographies, as part of the wider apparatus of Soviet indoctrination.