I have no idea who George Lakoff is. But certainly Russians have a historical tendency to view their leaders as Big Dads. During the Romanov dynasty, which lasted a long time, the Tsar was the Little Father*(the big one being the guy in heaven, who appointed the Tsar). Stalin was the Father of the Peoples. There have been many attempts to glorify Putin, although the Kremlin has always shut them down. Actually what's ironic about these Stalin monuments is that they are democracy in action. In Brezhnev time it would have been impossible to erect them because the Poltburo would have slapped them down immediately. Nowadays WWII vets are campaigning to have monuments to the Great Victor over Germany built and are being successful.
Maybe this is the expression of Russian society's base in the peasant village. The Gensek is a Bol'shak (peasant Big Man) writ large. The bol'shak is the village head, who decides everything for everyone.
And also, as a Russian ex-girlfriend told me once, "Stalin means respect." ;) He did whup those Germans' asses.
Speaking of which, a collection of the essays of the most popular Soviet WWII correspodent, Ilya Ehrenburg, has just been published. Many of these articles haven't been reprinted in 60 years, and I'm sure very, very few ever appeared in English. They're very short -- I'm going to translate them and post them here if anybody wants them. They were written for soldiers at the front and can be quite inspiring and chilling at the same time.
--- Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
>
> [WS:] It is interesting to observe how the notions
> of family, sacrifice, and
> nationalism are fused into the cult of the
> father-leader. Russia is rich in
> such imagery, no? It feeds right into George
> Lakoff's theory of politics.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
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