It is often said that the spirit of youth is indomitable. No matter what you throw at them, no matter how hard you try to keep them in line, the young will always fight back. Whether it be through music, film or literature. However, this conquering spirit is not the sole domain of the Western youth, as the tale wrought in Petr Sadecky's book, Octobriana And The Russian Underground, more than attests.
A native of Czechoslovakia, Sadecky travelled to Kiev in 1961 and became involved with a Soviet underground movement called the Progressive Political Pornography Party. The PPP were a group of Soviet citizens who had become disillusioned with the way that communism (and the ideals behind the Russian Revolution) had become 'perverted' under the rule of Stalin. Meeting in secret, PPP would discuss philosophy, politics and pornography, whilst indulging in alcohol and free love.
They looked for a new hero, who would represent what they believed in and would be willing to fight for their ideals. Since this saviour did not seem to be forthcoming, PPP created their own, and called her Octobriana.Octobriana is presented in them as a wild, savage warrior woman. Long blonde hair, tied-back in a high pony-tail by a leopard's tail. Her large breasts barely hidden by a skimpy silk-scarf with tight snake-skin slacks and cowboy boots. She has, what appears to be, a live snake around her wrist. Her facial features suggest that she maybe of Mongolian or Chinese in origin. Her eyebrows meet in the middle and above them she wears a large red star on her forehead. Fighting with a Smith-Wesson revolver and a wavy kris dagger. Her name was said to mean The Spirit Of The October Revolution!
Your task, as ever, is to re-invent that into something a 21st Century audience could look at without laughing. Or crying.
Go nuts. The thing is, to be recognisable as Octobriana, you probably only need to retain the red star. It's the 21C, after all. I imagine it's fairly obvious you're not going to be able to get away with the boob-scarf.
