The Heck With It, Set Up as Many Graven Images as You Like

What do you have to do to get a statue erected in your honour?  I don't mean building one yourself.  Any megalomaniac with an abundance of money and a deficit in taste can do that.  Such self erected monuments are little more than exercises in public masturbation and they're loads of fun for everyone.  For the person who commissioned it they're public proof that he can do whatever he wants no matter how crass or tacky, for those who actually built it its gainful employment.  Visitors from other lands get a private chuckle and a sense of smug superiority in how much better governed their nation is and finally of course the oppressed masses get something to tear down during the inevitable uprising.  Fun for the whole family.

No, what I'm asking is what do you have to do to get others to put up a statue to you?  No doubt they have other things to do with their lives and money so what would make a group of virtual strangers think a poor quality 3D representation of you is a valid use of resources?  Military victory is a traditional reason but it's by no means guaranteed.  Considering the number or wars our species has fought and the number of victorious generals we've produced as a consequence the planet would be entirely covered in statues if that was the only requirement.  Achievement in some other, less violent, activity is occasionally rewarded with a lump of stone gouged to roughly resemble what people think you look like but that's even less certain.  For starters somebody actually has to be impressed by your putative achievements.

Religion is probably the most certain method but it does rather require that you become a religious figure which is sometimes difficult to manage.  In addition certain religions (ironically including Christianity) have strictures about setting up graven images.  Thus not even religion is a guarantee of being semi-immortalised in stone.

Fear not for an answer to the question has arrived to us from the expanses of Russia.  To get a statue apparently what you have to do is murder a whole bunch of people and then wait several centuries.  The officials of the city of Oryol in Russia are apparently planning to erect a statue to Tsar Ivan the Terrible in time for the city's 450th birthday celebrations.  There is a reason; Ivan apparently founded the place by commanding that a fortress be built in the location.  It wasn't a particularly good place for a fortress and over the years the fortress and the city which grew up around it were conquered, occupied, overrun and sacked on a semi regular basis.  A suggestion was made that the fortress be moved somewhere a little more defensible but apparently was lost in committee.

Now after some four and a half centuries of nervous existence the city has decided to honour the man who didn't think it was necessary to build a fortress at the top of a hill for example.  Or at least the city authorities have, the actual citizens seem to be appalled for very good reasons.  Ivan probably isn't the sort of guy you want to hold up as an example to others.  Possibly Ivan the Terrible's biggest fan was Josef Stalin, enough said.

In many ways Ivan would appear to be statue material.  During his reign the Crimean Khanate was finally conquered and the first serious attempts to exploit Siberia were made.  By the time Ivan died Russian authority extended to the Pacific Ocean and the nation itself had gone from a middle rank country to a genuine power.  It was just a pity there were so few Russians left alive to enjoy this state of affairs.  Well educated, widely read and highly intelligent Ivan was also a paranoid, murderous nutcase.  Perhaps his most lasting "gift" to the Russian people was the Oprichniki a ruthless, murderous secret police force which operated with pretty much total impunity outside the control of the regular state apparatus and whose influence can be seen in the Cheka, the NKVD, the KGB and the current FSB.  With the eager assistance of the Oprichniki Ivan contrived to kill approximately sixty thousand of his subjects.  This may not seem like much by modern standards but in the 1400s there were fewer people around to be murdered and the methods of doing so were laborious and operated mostly by hand.

The suggestion that a statue be erected to Ivan the Terrible has sparked a rare unanimity in Russian politcal circles.  Everyone from the most wild eyed democracy activist to the most shameless Kremlin lickspittle is apparently horrified by the suggestion.  Ivan the Terrible: Bringing the Russian People Together.  Maybe he does deserve a statue after all.